section_path: Legacy/Contemporaneous view
section_name: Contemporaneous view
paragraph_text: Contemporaneous view
  
  Shivaji was admired for his heroic exploits and clever stratagems in the contemporary accounts of English, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and Italian writers. Contemporary English writers compared him with Alexander, Hannibal, and Julius Caesar. The French traveller Francois Bernier wrote in his Travels in Mughal India:
  
  I forgot to mention that during pillage of Sourate, Seva-Gy, the Holy Seva-Gi! respected the habitation of the Reverend Father Ambrose, the Capuchin missionary. 'The Frankish Padres are good men', he said 'and shall not be attacked.' He spared also the house of a deceased Delale or Gentile broker, of the Dutch, because assured that he had been very charitable while alive.
  
  Mughal depictions of Shivaji were largely negative, referring to him simply as "Shiva" without the honorific " -ji ". One Mughal writer in the early 1700s described Shivaji's death as kafir bi jahannum raft (lit. ' the infidel went to Hell '). His chivalrous treatment of enemies and women has been praised by Mughal authors, including Khafi Khan. Jadunath Sarkar writes:
  
  His chivalry to women and strict enforcement of morality in his camp was a wonder in that age and has extorted the admiration of hostile critics like Khafi Khan.
  
  Shivaji was admired for his heroic exploits and clever stratagems in the contemporary accounts of English, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and Italian writers. Contemporary English writers compared him with Alexander, Hannibal, and Julius Caesar. The French traveller Francois Bernier wrote in his Travels in Mughal India:
  
  I forgot to mention that during pillage of Sourate, Seva-Gy, the Holy Seva-Gi! respected the habitation of the Reverend Father Ambrose, the Capuchin missionary. 'The Frankish Padres are good men', he said 'and shall not be attacked.' He spared also the house of a deceased Delale or Gentile broker, of the Dutch, because assured that he had been very charitable while alive.
  
  Mughal depictions of Shivaji were largely negative, referring to him simply as "Shiva" without the honorific " -ji ". One Mughal writer in the early 1700s described Shivaji's death as kafir bi jahannum raft (lit. ' the infidel went to Hell '). His chivalrous treatment of enemies and women has been praised by Mughal authors, including Khafi Khan. Jadunath Sarkar writes:
  
  His chivalry to women and strict enforcement of morality in his camp was a wonder in that age and has extorted the admiration of hostile critics like Khafi Khan.