पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

120 PANIPAT: 1761
self to any business with full attention. This was natural when we take into
account the decline in his health which is noted in many places. In 1755, he
was suffering from toothache⁴ which is a sure sign of declining health. In 1758
Sadashivrao Bhau⁵ notes that the Peshwa's health is not what it should be.
When at the end of 1759, Bhau started for the Udgir campaign, the Peshwa's
health had already become a state problem. He was not in a position to fol-
low the campaign himself⁶ with its daily marches. Bhau's one anxiety through-
out the Panipat campaign was for the Peshwa's health. He writes⁷ from
Delhi on 16th September, 1760, that all problems would be best solved when
the Peshwa's health improved. We are at a loss to know why, when things
had come to such a pass, the Peshwa was thinking of marriage. It could not
have been for mere sex satisfaction, because he had any number of concubines
and dancing girls at his service. Three things are suggested as probable causes
for marriage. (1) The advice of the Hindu Vaidyas who prescribed young
girls as a cure for venereal diseases. A Sanskrit verse states that a tender girl
below sixteen adds to the strength of the husband; a youthful one makes her
husband youthful like herself,—an elderly woman drains away the strength of
her partner; and an old woman leads her partner on his way to death. (Bala
tu balada prokta taruni tarunajate, praudha s'aktihara prokta vrddha mrtyuva-
sam nayet.) It is not unlikely that some such advice might have been of-
fered to the Peshwa, though we do not know whether it falls under the category
of medicine or sexual science (Kamasastra). But we have already suggested
that this remedy could have been followed even by having extra-marital rela-
tions with girls, and so we reject this cause. (2) The second cause which is
more probable comes from astrological advice. It is thought that the stars of
certain girls so ordain that a person marrying them cannot possibly die, as it is
written that these girls have no widowhood ordained for them in their horo-
scopes. Of course there is the possibility of the girl herself dying before her
husband so as to justify the stars. We presume that the inquiry for girls was
possibly based on this point. Though this cause seems more probable, even
this is not completely satisfactory, because had the inquiry been only based on
horoscopes, it would not have been found necessary to bring all these young
girls from distant places, and there was no particular necessity for seeing them
unless men who judge horoscopes from bodily features wished to view and ex-
amine them. We would have believed such to have been the case, but the
Peshwa is found in a somewhat playful mood in marrying, as he not only
marries, but makes two of his bosom associates, Aba Purandare and Vireshwar
Dikshit Manohar,⁸ marry, side by side. (3) The third cause is equally likely,
namely, his quarrel with his first wife, Gopikabai. For one reason or another,
they had not been on good terms for some time. The difference of opinion
had arisen on account of domestic causes as well as state policy. The episode at
Patdur, described in the Bhau Bakhar and Kaifiyat before Sadashivrao's ap-
pointment for the Panipat campaign, illustrates one phase of this difference.
⁴ Purandare 3.206
⁵ Ibid. 3 193.
⁶ SPD 1 10.
⁷ Purandare, 1 389.
⁸ SPD 2.149, pp 162, 171