They were merely being loyal, instead, to the local deity, whose blessings, Shivaji hoped, would ‘fulfill the desire of creating a Hindavi kingdom’.29 All this was certainly a rejection of an existing system of power built on Islamic ideals, but it does not appear to be a mark of hatred for that religion itself. It was also, simultaneously, the invention of a new court culture, derived from classical Hindu texts, something that came to be broadly encompassed in the term Maharashtra Dharma.
