पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

130 PANIPAT: 1761
Bhau Sahebanchi Bakhar,⁹ on the other hand, gives quite the opposite
story It tells us of Abdali's Vakil coming to Bhau just before the battle and
asking him to postpone the fight for the day in order to give a last chance fot
peace talks Bhau is reported to have unceremoniously driven him back, be-
ginning the fight at once thereafter Sir Jadunath, though he considers the
Marathi Bakhars "as later gossipy fabrications no better than opium-eaters'
tales,"¹⁰ has still to acknowledge that "there are some true traditions (as proved
by authentic records) and some statements .which have every appearance of
being true though unsupported elsewhere" We do not know whether Sir
Jadunath would like to believe in this Bakhar story, which, we think, as most
improbable and written to suit the whole tenor of the author, who was out to
condemn Bhau and make a scapegoat of him
Kashiraj was on the battle field that whole day, no doubt, but that fact
cannot make any person see the whole line of battle with his own eyes, much
less can it give him a correct idea of the order of the battle on the opposite
side Kashiraj, with all his sagacity, was a civil official and not a soldier who
could judge military matters correctly For the most part, he was standing
ready in his own camp throughout the day of the battle He himself confesses
that Shuja's side was the least affected part in the line of battle, because none
came to attack it The whole line of battle is taken by Sir Jadunath to cover
some seven miles So it was physically impossible for Kashiraj to see anything
but a small part of the actual battle, and that, too, from a distance His value
as an eye-witness must, therefore, be discounted to a great extent, and his
version of the battle must be taken as gathered after the event from the gen-
eral reports which came to his ears This work of collecting news from various
sources and afterwards collating and correlating it into the form of a running
narrative could be done by others also, and, therefore, we have no valid ground
to reject the version given in the Marathi Bakhars and letters only because we
are unaware of the status of the narrators We have shown in the detailed de-
scription of the battle the various points wherein Kashiraj is proved to be
wrong
2 Bhau Sahebanchi Bakhar (1922) and 3 Shrimant Bhau Saheb Yanchi
Kaifiyat (1887)
These two are the most important primary sources about the battle of
Panipat in Marathi Their authors are unknown but they were certainly much
nearer to the event than Kashiraj when they wrote, as can be proved from the
language, the tone and the textual criticism of their manuscripts Certain pas-
sages in the narration of the events in the Kaifiyat are found bodily incorporated
in the Bakhar¹¹ which is a bigger narrative of the event From this we can say
that the Kaifiyat, small and to the point, was the earlier narrative of the two,
of which the Bakhar was an amplified edition with enlarged paraphrase. The
Kaifiyat gives the life of Bhau from the point of his start for the Udgir cam-
paign of 1759-60 and closes with the retreat from Panipat. The Bakhar, on
the other hand, narrates the Maratha activities in the north from 1753 on-
9 Bhau Bakhar (1922) p 115
10 Fall 2.367
11 Cf Kaifiyat 21 and Bakhar 141, K 22, B 144, K. 23, B. 143.