Kṣatriyas in the Kali Age

Kṣatriyas in the Kali Age? Gāgābhaṭṭa & His Opponents

Madhav M. Deshpande S

Indo-Iranian Journal 55 (2010)

Kṣatriyas in the Kali Age? Gāgābhaṭṭa & His Opponents Madhav M. Deshpande

Abstract

This paper deals with the history of the disputes regarding the Kṣatriya status of the local ruler Shivāji and the Cāndrasenīya Kāyastha Prabhu (CKP) community of Maharashtra. The origin of these disputes lies in the wider dispute concerning whether there are any true Kṣatriyas in the Kali age. The CKPs of Maharashtra claimed to be Kṣatriyas and thus entitled for the rite of Upanayana, while the dominant regional Brahmin opinion was that they were śūdras and not entitled for the Upanayana. The dispute broke out a few years before Shivāji’s coronation, and to the discomfort of the local Brahmins, Gāgābhaṭṭa of Banaras settled it in favor of the Kāyasthas in his work, the Kāyasthadharmadipa. In decades after Shivāji’s death, the dispute broke out again, and within Maharashtra, gradually the Dharmaśāstric opinion shifted against the views of Gāgābhaṭṭa, and toward the end of the rule of the last Peshwa, this dispute was raised again by Nīlakaṇṭha śāstri Thatte in Pune against the Kāyasthas. I have traced the lineage of Nīlakaṇṭha Thatte, through his teacher Vaidyanātha Pāyagunde, to his teacher, the great Nāgeśabhaṭṭa of Banaras. Nāgeśabhaṭṭa produced his Vrātyatā-prāyascitta-nirṇaya at a śāstra-sabhā in Jaipur, where he argued that there were no pure Kṣatriyas surviving in the Kali age, and that the impure ones do not have the eligibility for Upanayana through some expiation. So the Kāyasthas could not claim to be genuine Kṣatriyas either. It was this opinion of Nāgeśabhaṭṭa, counter to the opinion of Gāgābhaṭṭa, that steadily gained popularity among the Pune Brahmins during the rule of the Peshwas, finally reflected in the activities of Nīlakaṇṭha Thatte.

Keywords

Dharmaśāstra, Gāgābhaṭṭa, Nāgeśabhaṭṭa, Vaidyanātha, Nīlakaṇṭha śāstri Thatte, Shivāji, Peshwas, Kṣatriya, Cāndrasenīya Kāyastha Prabhu, śūdra, caste disputes )

Background of the Debate

In the seventeenth century Maharashtra, two related disputes seem to have emerged, both going back to a common root: Were there communities and/or individuals present at this time who were genuinely qualified to be treated as Kṣatriyas in terms of the categories of the Hindu Dharmaśāstra? Whether or not one was a Kṣatriya in Dharmaśāstric terms did not prevent one from becoming a de facto ruler (rājā), but it could prevent one from undergoing a proper royal consecration ceremony (abhiśeka), a goal that was not sought by many de facto rulers for several previous centuries. The other consequence of not being considered a true Kṣatriya may include ineligibility for the initiation rite of Upanayana, the sacred thread ceremony, which ritually admitted a young male into the three higher orders of the Hindu society, namely Brahmins, Kṣatriyas and Vaisyas. This rite entitled a person to engage in religious ceremonies using the proper Vedic mantras, learn the Vedas, etc. Again, we do not hear about any major contestations from communities or individuals on this issue before the seventeenth century. Among the disputes that emerge in the seventeenth century Maharashtra in this regard are i) the genuine Kṣatriyahood of Shivāji, an emerging warrior chief who wanted the ceremony of royal consecration for himself to establish himself as a dharmically proper Hindu king, and ii) the eligibility of the Cāndraseniya Kāyastha Prabhu community of Maharashtra for the initiatory rite of Upanayana.

There was an established pattern of either sending the locally unresolved Dharmaśāstric disputes to authoritative centers of Brahmanical learning like Paithan or Banaras for resolution, or inviting authoritative persons from such centers of learning to the region to resolve the local disputes. We have a number of such decision-documents relating to disputes in the Maharashtrian communities going back to the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries, and this pattern continues into the subsequent periods until the coming of the British colonial rule. The authority figure that emerges into prominence in resolving some of these disputes is the person of Viśveśvara Paṇḍita, more popularly known by the name of Gāgābhaṭṭa. As documented in the śyēnavi-jāti-dharmanirṇaya, Gāgābhaṭṭa led a committee of scholars invited by Shivāji’s court around 1664 and to resolve a dispute over the full Brahminhood of the community of the śyēnavīs, later known as the Sārasvata Brahmins of the coastal regions of Maharashtra, including Goa.

In arguing for the full Brahminhood of the śyēnavīs, contested by the other local Brahmins, Gāgābhaṭṭa and his colleagues used evidence from the traditional Dharmaśāstric and Purānic materials, and arguing on the basis of implications of narratives in these works, they reached their conclusions. In reaching their conclusions based on these Purānic narratives, the pandits were essentially trying to open new spaces by reading between the lines of the narratives, and the final verdicts became authoritative not so much by the strength of the arguments, but by the perceived authority of the persons rendering these verdicts. Such verdicts, though accepted by the communities at a given time and place, were eventually subject to dispute and repudiation, if the perceived authority of the verdict-givers eroded by the emergence of new circumstances.

Two Principal Disputes in the 17th Century Maharashtra

The main disputes that emerged around 1674 ad were the eligibility of Shivāji for a royal consecration ceremony and the eligibility of the Cāndrasenlya Kāyastha Prabhus to have an Upanayana. Both of these questions are intricately related to each other. The very basic question was whether there were any true Kṣatriyas alive during the Kali age. The questions were prompted by the Purānic story of the sage Paraśurāma having killed in revenge all the Kṣatriyas on the earth twenty-one times, and by the Purānic narratives that claimed that there will be no Kṣatriya dynasties after the Nandas [nandāntam Kṣatriyakulam], the precursors of the Mauryas in the 3rd century bc [tatahprabhr̥ti sūdrā-bhūpālā bhavisyanti, Viṣṇu Purāṇa, 4.24.21; also Bhāgavata-Purāṇa, 12.1.8-10]. These stories were widely interpreted by the authors on the Dharmaśāstra to suggest that there were only two Varnas left in the Kali-age, the Brahmins and the śūdras. Everyone other than Brahmins is a śūdra [kalāv ādyantayoh sthitiḥ, quoted in Kamalākarabhaṭṭa’s śūdrakamalākara]. This situation becomes further complicated by a possible implication, equally contested in the sources, that the Kṣatriyas physically survived in the Kali age, but by non-performance of their initiation for generations patitasāvitrika, they reached a śūdra like state. Total non-existence of the Kṣatriyas was one alternative, while the existence of the śūdra-like fallen Kṣatriyas was the other alternative. Assuming that there are such fallen śūdra-like Kṣatriyas, is there a possible restitution [śuddhi] for them to their pure Kṣatriya status, through performance of some expiation [prāyascitta, vrātyastoma]? Here too, some authorities claimed that there is no such restitution, while others claimed that such restitution is possible.

Gāgābhaṭṭas Views Prior to Shivāji’s Coronation

Looking at all the documentary evidence available to us, we can assert the following about what Gāgābhaṭṭa achieved. From his preamble to the śyēnavi-jāti-dharma-nirṇaya, composed ten years before Shivāji’s coronation in 1674AD, it is clear that Gāgābhaṭṭa accepts Shivāji’s father Shahāji as someone born in a pure royal family [vimala-rāja-kula], and he glorifies Shivāji’s achievements against the Mughals of Delhi, and addresses him as Shivāji-Rājā. While this does not touch the Dharmaśāstric question, it shows Gāgābhaṭṭa’s acceptance of Shivāji both as a person born in a “pure royal family” and as a de facto Rājā “king”, ten years before the question of his eligibility for the consecration ceremony was raised.¹ While none of the texts composed by Gāgābhaṭṭa that are available to us explicitly discuss the issues involved in how he decided the question of Shivāji’s authentic Kṣatriyahood, the surviving text of the Rājyābhiśeka-paddhati “Procedure for the Royal Consecration” composed by Gāgābhaṭṭa on the occasion of Shivāji’s royal consecration includes Vedic mantras, and hence one must conclude that by the time of the actual royal consecration, Shivāji was deemed to be completely eligible to be treated as a full Kṣatriya.² While the text of the Rājyābhiśekapaddhati does not tell us that Gāgābhaṭṭa made Shivāji to undergo a purificatory rite, the received reports from other sources do indicate this purificatory rite, and the fact that Shivāji underwent the ceremony of Upanayana, and then his queens were dharmically remarried to him. This would suggest that Gāgābhaṭṭa accepted the following premises:

• 1. Kṣatriyas did survive after the attempts to exterminate them by Paraśurāma as well after the rule of the Nandas.
• 2. Through non-performance of the initiation (upanayana) rites for generations, these Kṣatriyas reached a śūdra-like (vrātya /patitasāvitrika) status.

Through the performance of proper purificatory rites³, a Vrātya Kṣatriya can be reinstated to the status of a pure Kṣatriya and become eligible for Vedic rites like Upanayana and royal consecration (abhiśeka).

Gagābhaṭṭa on the Status of the Cāndrasenīya Kāyastha Prabhus

In relation to the status of the Cāndrasenīya Kāyastha Prabhus, Gāgābhaṭṭa partially validated their claim to Kṣatriyahood. His Kāyasthadharmadipa takes recourse to the Purāṇic story about the origin of the CKPs. It distin guishes between three types of Kāyasthas: Citragupta or Brahmakāyastha, śaṅkaraja Kāyastha [Kāyastha born out of a mixture of Varnas], and the Cāndrasenīya Kāyasthas. In relation to the last category, the following explanation is offered. When Paraśurāma was killing all Kṣatriyas on earth in revenge, the pregnant queen of the king Candrasena took shelter in the hermitage of the sage Dālbhya. In pursuit, when Paraśurāma arrived at Dālbhya’s hermitage, he was pleased with Dālbhyas hospitality, and offered Dālbhya a boon. Dālbhya requested that the life of the unborn child of the queen of Candrasena who had taken shelter in his hermitage be spared. Paraśurāma agreed to save the child on the condition that the child, though a born Kṣatriya, must not do the function of a Kṣatriya. This is how the CKPs became accountants, even though they claimed a Kṣatriya birth. Gāgābhaṭṭa allowed them the ceremony of Upanayana, only as a rite of passage (samskāra), but did not allow them the study of the Veda. This fine print is lost in most of the debate, and the popular opinion is that Gāgābhaṭṭa fully accepted the Kṣatriyahood of the CKPs and allowed their Upanayana. Ultimately, the story of the CKPs also rests on the assumption that at least some Kṣatriyas survived in the Kali age, and that they can undergo purificatory rites and be reinstated to their proper caste status. In the days of Shivāji, the local Brahmins, and especially some of Shivāji’s Brahmin ministers like Moropant Pingle, were against this view. Gāgābhaṭṭa’s status as the leading scholar from Banaras made his views carry the day for a few decades. The documents from Shivāji’s court list Anantadeva along with Gāgābhaṭṭa as authorities who resolved this dispute.

The CKP dispute at Shivāji’s court appears to have arisen before the dispute regarding Shivāji’s own eligibility for royal coronation. It was Balāji Avaji Chitnis,⁴ a CKP, who assisted Shivāji’s search for his Rajput Kṣatriya roots by sending investigators to the north (cf. Shejwalkar 1964: 477; Sriśivadigvijaya, pp. 249 ff.), and, according to the Chitnis-Bakhar, it was Balāji Avaji who suggested to Shivāji that he invite Gāgābhaṭṭa in connection with the coronation. Therefore, it is very likely that, though the śāstric nirṇaya about the status of the CKPs was rendered by Gāgābhaṭṭa, Shivāji’s own predilection in the matter is also visible in the documents.⁵

Predicament of the Candraseniya Kāyastha Prabhu-s after Shivāji

Other Brahmins were not so sympathetic to the cause of the CKPs in later times. A series of documents from the Satara court of Shāhu, Shivāji’s grandson, reveal how the issue erupted and, in spite of Shāhu’s sympathy in favor of the CKPs, was for a while resolved against them under the pressure of a massive demonstration by the Brahmins of Pune, Vai, and Satara. With ten thousand Brahmins converging upon Satara, including representatives of Brahmins from Shringeri and Varanasi, the mass śāstrasabhā decided the issue against the CKPs. Here the documents refer to the story of Dālbhya, but with a new twist. The CKPs are made out to be the sons of a Dāsī of Dālbhya, and hence clearly belonging to the status of śūdras. The Karhada Brahmin, Mr. Athalye, who sided with the CKPs and represented their case at the court of Shāhu, was forced to undergo a prāyascitta “expiation” and admit his mistake.⁶ Referring to a number of such antecedents, Sawai Madhavrao Peshwa issued a stiff set of conditions on the behavior of the CKPs to which they were forced to agree in writing (katabā lihūn dila)- ⁷

• We shall not perform any of our rites with Vedic mantras. Even if known, we will not utter the Vedic mantras.
• We will not make rice pindas during the srāddha.
• We will carry out the worship of Devi and other rites as per the Purāṇas.
• We will not invite Brahmins for a meal in our homes.
• We will not do sāligrāma-pūjā.
• We will worship only at those shrines where the śūdras worship.
• We will say dandavat to Brahmins.
• We will not employ Brahmin men and women as servants inside or outside of our homes.

The surviving historical documents indicate to us the political-executive power that the Sawai Madhavrao Peshwa put behind this decision. Vad (1911, 287 fr.) not only provides the text of the order issued by the Sawai Madhavrao Peshwa, he also gives a long list of 196 names of individuals and localities to whom copies of this order were sent and these individuals were advised that any violations of this order would lead to stiff penal ties. Without the backing of the executive authority of the Peshwa, the nirṇayapatra would have remained ineffective. Religious authorities like the various śaṅkarācāryas also issued nirṇayapatras that began with a statement of the high standing of the office and ended with a stamp that reads mahānuśāsanam varīvarti. ⁸

Multiple Conflicting Versions of Gāgābhaṭṭa’s Kāyasthadharmadīpa

In subsequent disputes on the same issue, two versions of Gāgābhaṭṭa’s work on the Kāyasthas seem to have appeared. As K.T. Gupte (1919) reports, the Kāyastha-dharma-dīpa became available in two versions at some point. The Kāyastha-dharma-dīpa known to Gupte prescribed non-Vedic rites for Kāyasthas, but then contained a statement that the Cāndrasenīya Kāyastha Prabhus were not to be treated as śūdras, and that Vedic rites for them will be taught in another text, namely the Kāyastha-dharma-pradīpa:

citragupta-cāndrasenīya-kāyasthayor vedokta-mantra-sahitāḥ kriyās, tās tu matkr̥ta-kāyastha-pradīpe draṣṭavyāh. atra tu kapilakṣīrapānenety ādini kāyasthānām vedādhikāra-niṣedha-parāni vākyāny uktāni. tāni tu saṅkaraja-parāni (iti) bodhyam. citragupta-kāyastha-cāndrasenīya-kāyastha-saṅkaraja-kāyasthā iti kāyastha-padasya jāti-traye ‘pi sattvāt kāyastha-padena bhramād dharma-saṅkaro bhavati. tatra ādau asmin granthe śaṅkaraja-kāyasthānām dharma-karmāṇy ucyante. atha kāyastha-dharma-pradipe citragupta-cāndrasenīyayor dharmān vakśyāmi

Both the texts are now ascribed to the same Gāgābhaṭṭa, whose authority could not be questioned so easily. One can read the details of the politics of the creation of competing texts and counter-texts in K.T. Gupte’s (1919) scathing attack on the Marathi historian V.K. Rajwade who was deemed to have belittled the CKP claims. One needs to carefully go through the available manuscript material and its origin in order to fully understand what is going on. It seems likely that Gāgābhaṭṭa’s original work did offer Vedic rites for the Kāyastha Prabhus of Maharashtra (as seen in the BORI ms of the Kāyastha-dharma-dipa). Then someone produced a version of Gāgābhaṭṭa’s work that treated all Kāyasthas, without exception, as śaṅkaraja śūdras, and took away their Vedic rites.⁹ At this point, a pro-CKP pandit inserted the above quoted statement into the text of that work, saying that the vedic rites for the CKPs will be treated in a separate supplementary work, namely the Kāyasthadharmapradīpa, and produced that version.¹⁰ This seems to be a likely course of events, though one cannot be certain without checking all the available manuscript material and its origins.

Emerging Oposition to Gāgābhaṭṭas Views

While the high standing of “national” authorities like Gāgābhaṭṭa may have temporarily silenced the local voices, the local voices surfaced again and again, and at times clearly expressed their resentment of “outsiders” like Gāgābhaṭṭa dabbling in the local affairs. Historians like Shejwalkar (1964: 46) note that the Brahmins at the court of Shivāji were not as assertive,¹¹ as they seem to have become during the days of the Peshwas. The anti-CKP document dating to Sake 1671 (1749 ad) openly criticizes Gāgābhaṭṭa and says that his decision on performing upanayana for Shivāji was a mistake, and it calls it amārga:

• pahile veda-śāstra-sampanna kailāsa-vāsī gāgābhaṭṭayāmni kṣetrīśarmāms adhikāra rājyās vr̥tabandha karūn, gāitrī-upadesa karūn sthāpile. te karma siddhīs gele nāhi - donahī vaṁśāne nirmūla jāhāle. he pratyaksa jānūn āmārgāne vartalyās sādhya śrīkr̥pā nāhi. (P.N. Patwardhan 1912: 96)

This statement from the Brahmins of the Peshwa period claims that Gāgābhaṭṭa was mistaken in treating Shivāji as a Kṣatriya and offering upanayana to him with the teaching of the Vedic Gāyatri mantra, and that the non dharmic coronation eventually resulted in both the branches of Shivāji’s line drying up without (non-adopted) descendants. The same document also produces a twist on Gāgābhaṭṭa’s Purānic narrative regarding the origin of the CKPs. According to Gāgābhaṭṭa, the original Cāndrasenlya Kāyastha was the son of the king Candrasena, whose wife took shelter at the her mitage of the sage Dālbhya. Now, the document cited above claims that the original Kāyastha was the son of a maid (dāsī) of Dālbhya, and hence the CKPs were indeed śūdras:

mag parabhucī utpatti koṭhūn mhanon prascchā keli tevhā dālabhya ruṣi hote - tyāce dāsīpāsūn tyāṁci utpatti. tyāmsī adhikār koṇatec goṣṭicā nāhī, keval śūdrā pāsūn utpanna mhanūn parabhū he nāmābhidhān yāprakāre vartamān āsatām ānyathā mārga padavi jar yāmsī dilī tar siddhis jāne kathin. (document in P.N. Patwardhan 1912: 96)

Such statements shock the modern sensitivities in Maharashtra. However, they point to the extremes of the spectrum within which the dharmaśāstric opinions oscillated. These instances demonstrate to us the dynamics of decision-making based on the Sanskritic tradition, that at once claimed to be timeless and universal, and yet at the same time was deeply entrenched in specific temporal, geographic, social and political environments, that continuously shifted and led to the emergence of a bewildering mass of conflicting opinions seen Sanskrit and vernacular documents. The Sanskrit documents are deeply rooted in the vernacular local reality, and can make full sense only within that local reality. The texts exist only in the forms in which they are produced and reproduced, and the production and reproduction of texts is at all times a highly motivated activity. The motivations, real or suspected, are often clearly referred to in the available Sanskrit and vernacular documents, including dveṣabuddhi “hatred” and dravyalobha “greed” among Brahmins and others, and ostracism and fear of various kinds of reprisals by the different parties. The Sanskrit-based knowledge was continuously created and negotiated within these complicated parameters.

Nīlakaṇṭha Sastrī Thatte: Reversal of the Status of the CKPs

Chronologically speaking, the last most prominent person who gets in volved in a furious debate and dispute on the status of the CKPs and others is the Pandit Nīlakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte (1750-1834AD) of the late Peshwa and early British period in Maharashtra. The accounts of Nīlakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte that we have fall into two opposite categories. One set of documents and analyses presents Nīlakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte as the main villain who, joining other villains, virulently opposed the status of the CKPs and Sonars in Maharashtra. Other sources, particularly relating to the tradition of Sanskrit grammar in Maharashtra, glorify Nīlakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte as being almost the new incarnation of the great grammarian Pāniṇi. On the face of it, these two personas of Nīlakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte seem unrelated to each other, but I want to point out that they may be intrinsically related to each other.

Most of the information regarding Nīlakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte as a great grammarian comes from K.V. Abhyankar (1954: 25—29). Nīlakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte, as a bright young Brahmin from Pune, upon recommendation from the court justice Rāmaśāstrī Prabhuṇe, was sent to Banaras by the Peshwa for advanced education in Sanskrit. He is said to have studied with the great grammarian Vaidyanātha Pāyagunde (1690-1780AD), who was himself a direct disciple of the illustrious grammarian Nāgeśabhaṭṭa (1650 1730AD), a junior contemporary of the great Gāgābhaṭṭa. The oral traditions from Banaras report that Nīlakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte engaged in a serious debate on grammatical topics with his teacher Vaidyanātha Pāyagunde, and the pleased teacher called him an incarnation of Pāniṇi. He was highly respected at the Peshwa court. His disciples in many different branches of learning dominated the post-Peshwa Sanskrit tradition in Pune, including the famous Bhāskaraśāstrī Abhyankar and his lineage represented in Pune by Vāsudevaśāstri Abhyankar and K.V. Abhyankar. Many prominent scholars of Sanskrit grammar in modern times, including the late Vāmanaśāstri Bhāgavat and Shivaram Dattatreya Joshi (and their students like myself), belong to the lineage of Nīlakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte. Though Nīlakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte never officially served at the Peshwa court, he was the Adalat Shastri in Satara from 1818 to 1821 (S. Kulkarni 1995: 143). It appears that Nīlakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte got involved in the so-called Grāmaṇyas “restrictions” on groups like the CKPs and Sonars who claimed to be Kṣatriyas and Brahmins respectively.¹²

The Grāmaṇyas of 1826 in the case of the CKPs, as in previous Grāmaṇyas, involved the question of whether the CKPs could perform their religious rites according to the Vedic mantras. The CKPs claimed to be Kṣatriyas, and the Kṣatriyas, by tradition, had the right to perform sacrifice, to give charity, and to study the Vedas.

The CKPs claimed, that as Kṣatriyas, they were entitled to these three rights. The Brahmins (or at least some of them) contested these claims, and argued that the great Paraśurāma of the epic period had killed off all Kṣatriyas twenty-one times, and hence there were no true Kṣatriyas left in the Kali age. Thus, all non-Brahmins, including the CKPs and the ruling Marathā kings, were śūdras.

In 1825, Balwantrao Chitnis, the secretary of the Satara Raja, requested the śaṅkarācārya of the Sankeshwar Math to resolve the question of the Kṣatriyahood of the CKPs. Without resolving the root question, the śaṅkarācārya simply asserted that each caste should be allowed to continue with its own established tradition, and no change in this practice should be made. However, when the śaṅkaracārya later traveled to Poona, the prominent local Brahmins persuaded him to revise his decision and to declare that the CKPs and the Sonars were no more than śūdras. Among the leading Brahmins opposing the Kṣatriya status of the CKPs were Chintamanrao Patwardhan, the Chief of Sangli, and Bālajeepant Natu, the former assistant to Grant Duff and Mountstuart Elphinstone. Nilakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte was related to Bālajeepant Natu. Natus daughter was married to Nilakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte’s adoptive son, Nārāyaṇa Shastri Thatte. Nilakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte’s relationship with Bālajeepant Natu may have obligated him to some extent to follow his line against the CKPs.¹³

Sumitra Kulkarni (1995: 189) reports: The issue whether the Prabhus were the Kshatriyas or not was discussed for two years in a conference held at the Belbag in Poona. It is interesting to note that on this issue the Brahmin caste itself was divided into two groups. Raghavacharya Gajendragadkar, a well known learned pandit and ‘Vajra-Taka’ were of the opinion that the prabhus were the Kshatriyas. The opposite group was headed by Nilkaṇṭhashastri Thatte, a learned pandit and expert on Hindu Dharmashastra. He was a former judge of the Satara Court (Adalat) and was held in high esteem by all sections of the society. He did not subscribe to the view that the Prabhus belonged to the Kshatriya caste.

Wagle (1980 and 1982) has discussed in detail the daily oscillations during this debate and the narratives discussed by Wagle, with original sources documented by T.V. Gupte (1904 and 1912), K.T. Gupte (1919), and Thakare (1919), seem to suggest that Nilakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte went on changing his positions under pressures of various kind, though finally he comes across from these narratives as an arch opponent of the CKPs. Sumitra Kulkarni (1995:190) also details another related dispute that arose around 1826:

The Gramaṇya between the Brahmins and the Marathas evolved out of the Prabhu Gramaṇya of 1826. The brahmins were not ready to accept the Chhatrapati of Satara and other maratha families as Kshatriyas. According to the brahmins, Parshuram eradicated the Kshatriyas twenty-one times and there fore no Kshatriyas were left on earth. So the present Marathas were Kunbis and not the Kshatriyas. The jagirdars of Satara in their letters addressed to Pratapsinha only as Chhatrapati and not Kshatriya Kulwantansa as we find in the original title of the founder of the Maratha power—Shivāji. We do find a reference in the Rojnishi of Raja Pratapsinha that he refused to reply to Chintamanrao Patwardhan of Sangli as he did not address him as Kshatriya Kulwantansa.

This dispute, briefly outlined here, resulted into a full blown dispute in subsequent times and spread to Kolhapur, Baroda, and Pune, and under the general title of “Vedokta Dispute,” this conflict between the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas has been richly documented by Copland (1973), Wagle (1987), O’Hanlon (1983 and 1985) and Pawar (1985). It is not clear what role, if any, Nīlakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte played in the wider dispute regarding the status of the Maratha Kṣatriyas, but his association with Chintamanrao Patwardhan of Sangli in the dispute against the status of the CKPs would suggest that he was ideologically inclined not to grant to Marathas the status of Kṣatriyas.¹⁴

He was clearly not a lone villain, but represented the continuity of the majority Brahmin opinion that had developed during the period of Narayan Rao Peshwa, and reflected in the views of Ayyāshastri, who succeeded the well known Ramashastri Prabhuṇe, as the Nyāyādhisa at the late Peshwa court. The powerful Nana Phadnis, the Kārbhārī of the Peshwas during the last days of the Peshwa rule, was also of the same view.¹⁵

Kāyastha-parabhū-dharmādarsa of Nilakaṇṭha śāstrī Thatte

I want to briefly discuss the only surviving Sanskrit text attributed explicitly to Nilakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte, namely the Kāyastha-parabhū-dharmādarsa, available in a manuscript in the Limaye Collection of manuscripts at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Poona. The manuscript is dated to 1827 and the work appears to have been composed in the heat of the CKP dispute in Pune in which Nilakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte was deeply involved. In relation to this work, P.K. Gode (1956: 76) makes the following comment:

The adopted son of Nilakaṇṭha Sūri Thatte was married to the daughter (Tai) of Sardar Bālājī Nārāyaṇa Nātū in ad 1818. (Vide p. 123 of Thatte Kula Vrttānta, Poona, 1936). This Sardar Bālājipant Nātū was associated with the Kāyastha Prabhu dispute of Saka 1745 (= ad 1823). It is possible to suppose that Nilakaṇṭha Sūri composed his Kāyastha-parabhū-dharmādarsa in connection with the dispute of 1823 ad to vindicate his relatives (Bālājīpant’s) position against the Kāyastha Prabhus.

If this inference is correct the date of Kāyastha-parabhū-dharmādarsa must lie between ad 1823 and ad 1827, the date of the manuscript of this work. The Kāyastha-parabhū-dharmādarsa of Nilakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte¹⁶ is not a serious Dharmaśāstric contribution, but looks like a work of convenience. First he introuduces only one type of Kāyastha, a mixed caste born from the union of a Māhiṣya woman and a Vaideha man. The Māhiṣya woman herself is the progeny of a mixed Kṣatriya+Vaisya parentage, and the Vaideha man is also the progeny of a Vaisya man and a Brahmin woman. Thus, the Kāyastha is a second generation mixed progeny. Such a progeny cannot be Kṣatriya. Then he cites Kamalākara (author of the well known śūdrakamalākara)¹⁷ and says that according to Kamalākara, there are two more types of Kāyasthas, namely the Citragupta Kāyasthas and the Cāndraseniya Kāyasthas. This is somewhat similar to what Gāgābhaṭṭa reports in his Kāyasthadharmadīpa. However, citing some of the same narratives as Gāgābhaṭṭa, Nīlakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte interprets the line rāmājnayā sa dālbhyena kṣatra-dharmād bahiskrtah to mean that, to save the life of the child of the queen of Candrasena, Dālbhya categorically made him un-Kṣatriya. He removed his Kṣatriyadharma, namely his Kṣatriyahood. This is a conclusion different from that of Gāgābhaṭṭa, who argued that the child of the queen of Candrasena was a born Kṣatriya, but was prohibited from carrying out specifically Kṣatriya duties, but that did not take away his essential Kṣatriyahood, and hence he was entitiled to a form of Upanayana. Nilakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte’s opinions were not limited to his own views, they were in line with the arguments offered by large numbers of Brahmins from Satara, Vai and Pune, as seen from the documents (P.N. Patwardhan 1912), and hence collectively they represented a socially and politically powerful force against the defenders of the rights of the CKPs.

Tracing the Lineage of Nīlakaṇṭha śāstrī Thatte to Nagesabhaṭṭa & Vaidyanātha

While the role Nīlakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte played in disputes against the status of the CKPs and Sonars is richly documented by Wagle and others, there is another side to his personality that has largely remained untouched in the available research. Earlier I have noted the scholarly lineage of Nīlakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte going back to Nāgeśa bhaṭṭa. Nīlakaṇṭha Shastri went to Banaras, with the support of the Peshwa court, and studied with Nāgeśabhaṭṭas disciple Vaidyanātha Pāyagunde. Nāgeśa, Vaidyanātha, and Vaidyanāthas son Bālambhaṭṭa, besides being great grammarians also wrote on many other śāstras, including Dharmaśāstra. The anti-CKP views of Nīlakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte may have a far longer ancestry in the views of Nāgeśabhaṭṭa, as well as in the views of Gāgābhaṭṭa’s powerful uncle, Kamalākara-bhaṭṭa. The most extensive argumentation against admitting the presence of pure Kṣatriyas in the Kali age, and the ineligibility of the impure Kṣatriya to purify themselves by undergoing an expiatory rite is offered in two nirṇaya texts that are attributed to Nāgeśabhaṭṭa: Vrātyatā-prāyascitta-nirṇaya (in Mahā- and Laghu- versions), while a counter argument supporting the expiatory rights to purify the impure Kṣatriyas is offered in the text of Vrātyatā-śuddhi-saṅgraha produced by the pandits at the court of Jayasiṁha in Rajasthan. A convenient summary of the main arguments is provided by the editor of these texts, NārāyaṇaśāstrI Khiste, in his preface (pp. 1—2, translated from Sanskrit):

The two versions of the Vrātyatāprāyascittanirṇaya {Mahā and Laghu), even without any reference to the name of their author, are indubitably the works of Nāgeśabhaṭṭa, since he is well known to have produced such smaller and larger [Laghu and Br̥hat] versions of his texts. The Vrātyatāśuddhisaṅgraha is composed by a group of pandits commissioned by Jayasiṁha. Both the versions of the Vrātyatāprāyascittanirṇaya begin with the question of the eligibility for Upanayana in the Kali age for those who know that no Upanayana was performed for ten generations in their family, and those for whom no earlier Upanayana is remembered either, and concludes that for such Kṣatriyas (only in name), there can be no Upanayana rite. This is clearly stated by Nāgeśa: “From the birth of Pariksit to the coronation of Nanda, these were the first fifteen hundred years of the Kali age, and there were genuine Kṣatriyas on earth only for this duration. On the basis of this statement in the ViṣṇuPurāṇa, the absence of genuine Kṣatriyas, worthy of Upanayana, in the rest of the Kali age is indicated.” The other work, the Vrātyatāśuddhisaṅgraha, produced by (a group of) many scholars, determined with various arguments the existence of the Kṣatriyas and their eligibility for Upanayana even in the Kali age. … We (the editor) do not offer any opinion of our own. We have presented both of these sides in front of the scholars, and they can choose whichever they like depending upon acceptable grounds.

While the editor claims neutrality in this debate, in the subsequent portion of the preface (ibid. p. 2), he claims that those pandits who were dependent upon Jayasiṁha for their livelihood produced the Vrātyatāśuddhisaṅgraha, having forgotten the true intent of the ancient Smrtis under the influence of wealth. On the other hand, wealth did not mean anything to Nāgeśabhaṭṭa, whose sole concern was to protect the proper domain of the śāstras, and he produced the Vrātyatāprāyascittanirṇaya, following solely the path of the śāstras, and disregarding the pressure from Jayasiṁha. “This is what we have heard from the older generations of Banaras.” Nārāyaṇaśāstri Khiste’s statements in the preface show us how Nāgeśabhaṭṭa’s views were considered authoritative by the Maharashtrian Brahmins of Banaras, even after more than a century. We should note again that Nārāyaṇa Shastri Thatte was a direct disciple of Vaidyanātha Pāyagunde, who was a direct disciple of Nāgeśabhaṭṭa, and hence the influence of Nāgeśabhaṭṭa’s views on the views of Nārāyaṇa Shastri Thatte cannot be underestimated. From the time of Shivāji to Pratapasiṁha of Satara, the constant effort of the Maratha lineages was to establish their ancestry from the Rajput lineages of Rajasthan, and this was assumed to be a sufficient proof of Kṣatriyahood. On the other hand, Nāgeśabhaṭṭa’s rejection of the right of Upanayana to Rajputs like Jayasiṁha of Jaipur and his blanket rejection of Upanayana to anyone other than a Brahmin in the Kali age represented a far extreme end of the Dharmaśāstric spectrum.[^19]

19. P.V, Kane ( 1974: 3 81 ff.) cites the Vrātyatā-prāyascitta-nirṇaya and considers it as the work of Nāgeśabhaṭṭa. Kane remarks on the extremity of Nāgeśabhaṭṭa’s opinion: “It must be stated that such views, though held by some rigidly orthodox writers of extreme views, were not shared by most writers.” Kane cites contrary opinions, though he seems to discount the historically attested strength of the views held by Nāgeśa and manifested during the Peshwa period.

But even in this extreme view, Nāgeśabhaṭṭa was not alone. One has only to remember how the Sahyādrikhanḍa narrative describes the curse of Paraśurāma upon the ‘wicked’ Chitpavan Brahmins. One element of this curse is that they will serve śūdras. This obviously looks like a reference to the Chitpavan Brahmins serving as Peshwas under the descendants of Shivāji. The fact that this narrative only curses Chitpavan Brahmins in this fashion, while Deśastha Brahmins were already among the ministers of Shivāji, probably points to the period of the Peshwas for its composition, when the Chitpavan Brahmins begin to emerge as powerful players in Maratha history. So the author of the Sahyādrikhanḍa, or of this section of it, whoever he was, regarded the Maratha rulers as śūdras, even while he was expressing a curse upon the Chitpavan Brahmins.¹⁸

Vaidyanatha Pāyagunde on Kṣatriyas in the Kali Age

What can we say about the views of Nārāyaṇa Shastri Thatte’s direct teacher, Vaidyanatha Pāyagunde? Here we get some indications from Vaidyanāthas commentary Prabhā on Bhattoji Dlksitas Sabdakaustubha. On the passage brāhmanena niskārano dharmah sadango vedo ‘dhyeyo jheyas ca from the Mahābhāsya discussed in the śabdakaustubha [Pt. I, p. 10], Vaidyanāthas commentary Prabhā reads: atra brāhmanenety uktyā ’nyayor evam adhyayanam kāmyam eveti sūcitam iti kascit - tan na smrty-antara-virodhāpatteh. tasmāt traivarṇikopalakṣaṇaṁ tat… yad va kalau Kṣatriya-viśor abhāvāt tathoktam [BORI manuscript 62/1866-1868, Folio 38a].¹⁹

Here, two alternative explanations are presented. The first one says that someone has said that the passage “The Brahmin should study the Vedas” suggests that such a study is optional for the other two eligible Varnas, namely the Kṣatriyas and the Vaisyas. But such a view is not tenable, because it conflicts with other Smrtis. Therefore, the reference to the Brahmins is simply a pointer to the three higher Varnas. After this initial interpretation, Vaidyanātha presents what appears to be his own understanding. It says that the original passage refers only to Brahmins studying the Vedas. This is because of the absence of the Kṣatriyas and the Vaisyas in the Kali age. Bālambhaṭṭa, Vaidyanāthas son, refers to the views of Nāgeśabhaṭṭa as well as his own father, and says that his father also composed a work titled Kāyastha-nirṇaya, which one can presume rejected the right of Upanayana to the Kayasthas.[^22]

Moderate Views of Kamalākarabhaṭṭa

This is certainly a more categorical rejection of the presence of the Kṣatriyas in the Kali age, compared to what one finds in the śūdrakamalākara of Kamalākarabhaṭṭa, who says that while pure Kṣatriyas and Vaisyas do not exist in the Kali age, there certainly are in some places Kṣatriyas and Vaisyas “hidden” (unrecognizable?), fallen from their own religious duties [pracchanna-rūpāh sva-karma-bhraṣṭāh ksatriyā vaisyās ca santy eva kvacit ity asmat-pitrcaranāh, śūdrakamalākara, folio 94]. Kamalākara not only asserts that such Kṣatriyas and Vaisyas do exist in the Kali age, he says that this is also the view of his revered father Rāmakr̥ṣṇa. Kamalākarabhaṭṭa, in his nirṇayasindhu, says that Brahmins, Kṣatriyas and Vaisyas, if they exceed the age-limits for their Upanayana, become śūdras. Such a maximum age limit for a Brahmin is sixteen years. For a Kṣatriya it is twenty-two years, and for a Vaisya it is twenty-four years [Manuḥ — ā sodasād brāhmanasya sāvitrī nātivartate / ā dvāviṁśāt ksatra-bandhor ā catur-viṁśater visah // Jyotir-nibandhe— agrajā bāhujā vaiśyāh svāvadher ūrdhvam abdatah / akrtopanayāḥ sarve vr̥śalā eva te smrtāh II, nirṇayasindhu, p. 262]. However, Kamlākara’s grandfather, and Gāgābhaṭṭa’s great grand-father, Nārāyaṇabhaṭṭa, in his work Dharmapravrtti, refers to those Brahmins, Kṣatriyas and Vaisyas who exceed the maximum age limit allotted for their Upanayana, and says that they fall to śūdra-hood and are excluded from all religious rites, UNLESS THEY PERFORM THE EXPIATORY RITE OF VRāTYASTOMA [ata ūrdhvam patanty ete sarva-dharma-bahiskrtāḥ / sāvitrī-patitā vrātyā vrātyastomād r̥te kratoh, folio 51 ; sāvitrī patitā yasya daśa varsāṇi pañca va / sasikham vapanam kr̥tvā vrataṁ kuryāt samāhitaḥ // ekaviṁśati-rātraṁ ca pibet prasr̥ti-yāvakam / bhojayec ca haviśyānnam brāhmanān sapta panca ca / tato yāvaka-suddhasya tasyopanayanam smrtam. etad upanayanasya param akālāt pūrva-kāle jñeyam/ ata ūrdhvam vrātya-stomaḥ vrātyastomād r̥te kr̥te nivacanāt, Folio 145].²⁰ What happens to those who have not had the Upanayana for many generations? This is the true point of departure. Gāgābhaṭṭa, taking cues from the works of his great grand father Nārāyaṇa-bhaṭṭa, and his uncle Kamalākara bhaṭṭa, offered expiation for such individuals. Seen in the context of the views of Nārāyaṇabhaṭṭa and Kamalākarabhaṭṭa, Gāgābhaṭṭa’s further step does not appear to be excessively transgressive.

On the other hand, while admitting the presence ot such “fallen Ksatriyas” in the Kali age, Nāgeśabhaṭṭa has categorically rejected their right to expiation and restoration to purity and attaining the right to Upanayana. It would appear that Vaidyanātha is even more categorical: There are no Kṣatriyas and Vaisyas in the Kali age [kalau Kṣatriya-viśor abhāvāt]. Now we can get a better sense of where Nīlakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte may have derived his resolute opposition to admitting the Kṣatriyahood of the CKPs and their right to Upanayana. He directly inherited such a view from Nāgeśabhaṭṭa and Vaidyanātha, and then such a view was further encouraged by his association with Chintamanrao Patawardhan and Balajee Pant Natu, among others.

Rājā: in the Absence of Kṣatriyas?

It would be interesting to see how the Brahmins who rejected the existence of the pure Kṣatriyas and their eligibility to Upanayana and coronation justified the need to serve such kings in the role of ministers and advisors. Contradictory as it may appear, such indeed is the explicit approach of a number of Brahmin authorities on the Dharmaśāstra in the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. First, let me refer to Bālambhaṭṭa Pāyagunde, the son of Vaidyanātha Pāyagunde, and contemporary of Nilakaṇṭha Shāstri Thatte. He is the author of the famous commentary Bālambhattī on the Mitāksarā of Vijnānesvara on the Yājnavalkya Smrti. Commenting on a quote from Manu,

“A king desirous of taking care of the legal affairs along with Veda-knowing Brahmins and ministers should enter the court” [vyavahārān didrksus tu brāhmanaih saha pārthivaḥ / mantra-jñair mantribhiḥ sārdhaṁ vinītah praviśet sabhām],

the Bālambhattī of Bālambhaṭṭa Pāyagunde [p. 5] says: pārthivah pr̥thivī-patih kṣatriyād anyaḥ api - “The word ‘king’ refers to the ruler of the kingdom, even someone other than a Kṣatriya.”

While Bālambhaṭṭa does not categorically reject the presence of the Kṣatriyas in the Kali age, he is explicitly admitting that non-Kṣatriyas can also become de facto kings, and in their capacity of being kings, they should be assisted by the Brahmins. Bālambhaṭṭa was not alone in holding this view. Kamalākarabhaṭṭa’s cousin Nilakaṇṭha, the author of Vyavahāra mayūkha explains the word nr̥pa “king” [ Vyavahāramayūkha, p. 2] in wording reminding us of Bālambhaṭṭa: nr̥pah prajā-pālanādhikr̥to yaḥ kaścit, na Kṣatriya eva - “The word nr̥pa ‘king’ refers to whoever is in charge of protecting the people, and is not restricted to a Kṣatriya.” Similar non-Kṣatriya interpretations of the word rājā are found elsewhere in the Dharmaśāstra literature [Dharmakosa, Vol. IV, Pt. II, pp. 780ff.; P.V. Kane 1973: 38-40]. On the other hand, we must contrast Gāgābhaṭṭas views on the same passages. These are found in his Dinakaroddyota Vyavahārakāṇḍa [manu script 37/1866-1868 at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, in Pune]. Citing the same verse of Manu: vyavahārān didr̥kṣus tu brāhmaṇaiḥ saha pārthivah / mantrajñair mantribhiś caiva vinītaḥ praviset sabhām //, Gāgābhaṭṭa says: “Only a properly consecrated king is entitled to look after the business of justice (vyavahāra). … Even though the word rāja refers to a particular Jāti, and in Dharmaśāstric passages, the word rāja often comes without any further specification, in those passages the word rāja refers to a Kṣatriya who is properly consecrated, since only such a consecrated Kṣatriya is entitled to look after justice” [vyavahāradarśane cābhiśiktasya rājno dhikāraḥ/ rājābhiśeka-samyukto brāhmano vā bahu-śrutaḥ / dharmāsana-gatah pasyed vyavahārān anulbaṇam iti prājāpatyukteḥ / … yady api rāja-padam jāti-vāci / rājñā sabhāsadaḥ kāryāḥ ityādi bahuṣu vacaneṣu kevala-rāja-sravanam ca / tathāpi tatra rājapadam abhisikta-Kṣatriya-paraṁ - tad adhikārāt /, Dinakaroddyota, folios 7a—8].²¹

We don’t know at this point when this work was composed in relation to Gāgābhaṭṭa’s role at the court of Shivāji. However, it clearly expresses his view that only a properly consecrated Kṣatriya is entitled to carry out the task of delivering justice. If this was his view, then one can assume that while rendering Dharmaśāstric decisions for Shivāji, beginning in 1664 (cf. śyēnavi-jāti-dharmanirṇaya) and continuing right upto 1674 (cf. Kāyastha-dharmadīpa), Gāgābhaṭṭa was getting anxious about the proper Dharmaśāstric authority of Shivāji. The evidence of the śyēnavi-jāti-dharma-nirṇaya clearly shows that Gāgābhaṭṭa, already since 1664, regarded Shahāji and Shivāji as born in a “pure royal family” (vimala-rāja-kula) and as a de facto Rājā. Sabhāsad Bakhar reports that it was Gāgābhaṭṭa who suggested to Shivāji the idea of royal consecration, and this may indeed be a strong historical possibility. According to Sabhāsad (pp. 78) Gāgābhaṭṭa said that in his opinion, the Muslim kings sat on their throne and ruled with a royal umbrella. Shivāji on the other hand, who had defeated four sultans, had seventy-five thousand troops and had forts, had no throne. He stated that the Maratha Raja should become a Chattrapati “holder of the umbrella.” ²²

Given his own Dharmaśāstric views, Gāgābhaṭṭa was most likely as anxious about having Shivāji properly consecrated, as Shivāji himself may have been about his own consecration.

On the other hand, the Mayūkha of Nīlakaṇṭha was treated as an authoritative text on Dharmaśāstric decisions during the late Peshwa period, and continued to be treated as such during the early British rule. It’s teaching was supported by the British rulers in the British supported Poona Sanskrit Pāthasālā that opened in Pune after 1818. Many of the Sanskrit pandits who were appointed as teachers at this Pāthasālā, including the principal Rāghavācārya, were students of Nīlakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte, and through this Pāthasālā, the influence of conservative Dharmaśāstric views continued to hold sway among the Poona Brahmins, even after the fall of the Peshwa. The role of Nīlakaṇṭha Shastri Thatte can be better understood within such a fuller historical context.

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