Introduction

A striking feature of Marathi vernacular literature towards the end of the nineteenth century lies in the sudden surge of interest in the Maratha warrior hero, Shivaji, and his feats of leadership in the great expansions of Maratha power that took place in the seventeenth century. Of all the work on Shivaji written at this time, the most familiar is probably Mahadev Govind Ranade's Rise of the Maratha Power, published in 1891 in English. In addition, there appeared in the last three decades of the century an unusually large number of Marathi works celebrating Shivaji's exploits.

This upsurge of interest in Shivaji was not confined to the vernacular literature. In the same period, Shivaji was also made the focus of a number of active groups and movements. Most familiar of these is, of course, the attempt by Bal Gangadhar Tilak to make Shivaji the symbol for a mass-based nationalist movement in Maharashtra. Other groups, such as the Shivaji Club in Kolhapur, active in the 1890s, tried to employ the figure of Shivaji in a series of quite different political projects.

The exploits of Shivaji and his successors and the martial feats of his armies were a powerful and emotive subject for celebration in the rural society of pre-nineteenth-century Maharashtra. Stories from this period of Maratha history had always formed a central part of Maharashtra's rich oral tradition. These stories were most commonly told in the Marathi ballad form, the pavada.