THE PUARS OF SENIOR

Abstract

N the year 1714, the Maratha King Shahu and his Chief Minister Balaji Vishwanath between them came to a momentous decision. In a sense, it was a decision to reverse the current of history. Ever since time began, the Deccan had been subjected to waves of invasion from the north — always the north. Men of an alien culture and an alien, intolerant religion, taller, fairer, bigger-made and more fiercc-looking than themselves, men of outlandish habits and customs, men who prayed five times a day and ate their meals in communal platters, men who spoke a strange guttural language which had a written script that went from right to left, had come bearing down upon them in ever increasing numbers, pillaging their land as the mood seized them and inflicting hardships and privations upon the people of the land. The king and his minister now made