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INTRIGUES FOR SUCCESSION.
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to be worthy of such a rich heritage and to be true to all the high hopes which his own reign had raised in the Hindu world. (Sabh. 94; Chit. 174.) But a born judge of character like Shivaji must have soon
perceived that his sermons were falling on deaf ears, and hence his last days were clouded by despair. (Sabh. 102-103.)
The evil was aggravated by intrigues within his harem.*[1] At the age of 47 he had made the mistake of marrying three young women, though he had two or three other wives and two sons living. His old
- ↑ * According to Sabh. 72, Shivaji married six wives besides the mother of Shambhuji. Mr. Rajwade (Vol. iv. Intro. 53) infers from the Life of Ramdas that Shiva had three wives and two concubines. On 27th May, 1674, Mr. Henry Oxinden wrote from Rajgarh. "The Rajah was, and is still so busy about his coronation and marriage with two other [blank in the MS. record! women, that it was yesterday before we had audience." Under 8th June, 1674, he writes, "The Rajah was married to a fourth, wife." (F. R. Surat, Vol. 88.) From a letter of Narayan Shenvi to the Deputy Governor of Bombay, dated 4 April, 1674, we learn, "I arrived at Rairi on 24th March An order [came] from Naroji Pandit that I should remain in his house until the time of mourning was over for the death of Rajah Shivaji's wife, which I did, resting there five days." (Ibid.) So, one wife of Shiva died in March 1674. Rajwade, in his Sankirna-lekh-Sangraha reprinted from Granthmala, gives Shivaji eight wives on the authority of a paper found in a private house at Tanjore. This document (of unknown date and authority) gives the names of six of the wives and of their fathers, but does not name the other two, who were evidently concubines.
