Page:Shivaji and His Times.djvu/471

Rh Nandurbarkar and L. K. Dandekar, (Baroda, 1895.) Falsely described as written by Khando Ballal (the son of Shivaji's secretary Balaji Avji) in 1718. The published version was evidently fabricated at Baroda by a writer familiar with the style of modern vernacular novels written by imitators of Bankim Chandra Chatterji. Too much gush (esp. pp. 453, 208, 444), rhetorical padding and digression. The author speaks of an English general being present at Shivaji's coronation (p. 435) and of goods from Calcutta being used in decorating his hall in 1674 (p. 417) ! ! ! Shiva bows to his mother two years after her death (p. 296) ! Tanaji Malusare visits Haidarabad seven years after his death ! (p. 301 .)

But the kernel of the book is some lost Marathi work composed about 1760-75 and containing, among many loose traditions, a few facts the truth of which we know from contemporary Factory Records. This lost source was also the basis of the Persian Tarikh-i-Shivaji, which agrees with Shiva-digvijay in many passages.

105. The Raigarh Life. Original Marathi text lost. English translation (badly made and worse printed, esp. as regards proper names), published in G. W. Forrest's Selections from the Letters &c. in the Bombay Secretariat, Maratha Series, Vol. I. pp. 1-22. (1885.) "A loose traditional work" of no authority. Adversely criticised by Telang. 106. Shivapratap (Baroda), an utterly worthless modern fabrication; does not even claim to be old.