1) संभाजीराजांचा हृदयद्रावक शेवट (ता.11.3.1689) :-

By the mid-1680s Sambhaji's armies were engaged deep in the Karnatak, and this drained Maharashtra proper of adequate defense. Aurangzeb learned that Sambhaji himself was, for the most part, residing at Panhala, and on receiving this intelligence he dispatched forces in that direction. In the spring (Chaitra) of 1687 the Mughals first seized Miraj, and then turned to reducing Panhala itself, though that formidable fort was not one to fall easily. Aurangzeb therefore set about strangling it from every side. Because Sambhaji's forces operating from the Nasik region were inflicting heavy harassment on Mughal territory, the Badshah stationed his own son Azam Shah in that quarter. At the same time, to block any attempt by Sambhaji to slip away through the hill paths, Aurangzeb posted his troops at every likely pass, kept a watch on Sambhaji's movements, and set guards even on the secret trails of the Sahyadri. The Shirke sardars, who knew the Konkan country intimately, had by now gone over to Aurangzeb; the Badshah sent them into the Konkan, and through them he stirred rebellion within Sambhaji's own dominions. A contemporary chronicle (the Jedhe Shakavali) records that in the month of Kartik (November 1688), Kavi Kalash fell out with the Shirkes, who turned against him; Kalash fled to Khelna. That same month Sambhaji came down from Raigad to Kalash's aid, fought the Shirkes at Sangameshwar, drove them off, and then went on to Khelna. It appears that the Shirkes had by this time sown treachery among Sambhaji's own men, and it was very probably through this channel that the Mughals came to learn of the movements of Sambhaji and Kalash. The savage reprisals Sambhaji visited upon the Shirkes for their treachery left them and their followers embittered, and they now lay in wait, eager to do their lord harm. When suspicion fell on Sambhaji that Pralhad Niraji and several other prominent men at Raigad were in league with the Shirkes, he had them all thrown into confinement. Meanwhile Kalash and Sambhaji, then at Khelna, gathered supplies and equipment and set out to return toward Raigad.

1) संभाजीराजांचा हृदयद्रावक शेवट (ता.11.3.1689) :-

It was on this return march that Sambhaji and Kalash halted at Sangameshwar, at the village of Navadi near the confluence of the Alaknanda and Varuna rivers, and it was there, on 1 February 1689, that the Mughals seized them. The manner of their capture deserves telling in full. During the siege of Golconda a prominent and able Qutbshahi commander named Shaikh Nizam had come over to Aurangzeb (28 May 1687). The Badshah promptly granted him a mansab of six thousand and the title Muqarrab Khan, and settled various allowances on his kinsmen as well. Since Shaikh Nizam knew the country around Kolhapur thoroughly, Aurangzeb charged him with laying siege to Panhala and bringing in Sambhaji as a captive — a commission he accepted eagerly. The Badshah had, moreover, sent ahead several of his shrewdest and most experienced spies, days in advance, to track Sambhaji's movements and manner of living. These spies now brought word to Muqarrab Khan that Sambhaji was encamped at Sangameshwar, sunk in pleasure and off his guard. Muqarrab Khan at once set out from Kolhapur in haste with a force of two thousand horse and a thousand foot. The descent through the forest of the Amba Ghat cost him dearly — at every stage he lost a good many men — so that by the time he reached Sangameshwar his party had shrunk to a mere three hundred horsemen and a handful of chosen officers. The Jedhe Shakavali records: "On Friday, Magh vadya 7, as Sambhaji Raje and Kavi Kalash, on their way to Raigad, had halted at Sangameshwar, Shaikh Nizam came upon them at a gallop and seized them both alive; the rest of the men got away to Raigad." By the modern motor road Sangameshwar lies seventy miles from Kolhapur, and Shaikh Nizam covered this distance in three days. It follows that Sambhaji's halt at Sangameshwar must have lasted at least four to eight days, for word of his encampment to travel to Kolhapur and for the Khan to time his dash so precisely. This suggests that Sambhaji was, to some degree, careless and off his guard during this halt — he too had his own spies, and had he not been careless, it would have been easy enough for him to escape ahead of Muqarrab Khan's sudden rush.

1) संभाजीराजांचा हृदयद्रावक शेवट (ता.11.3.1689) :-

When the Mughal assault broke upon them without warning, Kavi Kalash rushed out to meet it, but an arrow wound to his right hand brought him down from his horse; at that the few men who had been putting up a fight lost heart and fled. Sambhaji and Kalash then took refuge in the darkness of a cellar. The Khan at once threw a cordon around the house. His son Ikhlas Khan, taking four or five bold men with him, forced his way down the narrow stairs into the cellar and dragged Sambhaji and Kalash up and out. Muqarrab Khan, waiting outside on his elephant, had the two bound at once and hoisted onto the elephant. Some five-and-twenty other persons, together with some women and children, were also taken in that house; these too the Khan had shackled and set, under close guard, upon elephants, horses, and camels. In this fashion, on 1 February 1689 (Magh vadya 7), Muqarrab Khan set out from Sangameshwar with the whole party, bound for the Badshah's camp. Sambhaji and Kalash had, in fact, made Sangameshwar something of a home: they had built houses and laid out gardens there and had made it, for a time, their place of residence. In those days the settlement stretched some two miles from the kasba to the harbor. Even in the author's own time the ruined plinths and foundations of houses still visible at Navadi, on the right as one goes from the harbor north toward the kasba, are probably relics of that period. Kavi Kalash had deliberately chosen this secluded spot for the practice of his mantra-siddhi rites; it lay, moreover, on the road from Raigad to Vishalgad. Sambhaji had stayed there for some time in the summer of 1688, and a contemporary account of that stay is worth recording: "When Sambhaji Maharaj came to Sangameshwar in the hot season, he was lodged near the Sardesai's mansion. When the rains came, seeing the Sardesai's house to be a large one, he moved in and stayed there two and a half to three months. Krishnabai and her son Rangoba Nayak Sardesai, understanding that their lord had come and was asking, on this occasion, for lodging, gave him rooms in their mansion. Later the Mughals seized him, together with his household, and carried him off; at that time they burned the mansion, and smashed the temples of the village, and desecrated the deities. Thus a great deluge of destruction fell upon the place."

1) संभाजीराजांचा हृदयद्रावक शेवट (ता.11.3.1689) :-

In the confusion of the capture, Mhaloji Ghorpade, who had been at Sambhaji's side, was killed; his three sons, among them Santaji, escaped in the melee and made their way to Raigad. It is also recorded that Ranganath Swami, a disciple of Samarth Ramdas and head of the Pali math, had been residing with Sambhaji at Shringarpur; after Sambhaji and Kalash were carried off, the Swami withdrew to Waghapur. According to the Jedhe Shakavali, it was on Falgun vadya 30 — 11 March 1689 — roughly a month and a quarter after his capture, that Aurangzeb had Sambhaji and Kavi Kalash beheaded at Tulapur. News of Sambhaji's capture had reached the Badshah at Akluj even before the prisoner arrived at the camp, and at once Aurangzeb broke out into a great celebration of victory. The Muslims of the camp in particular rejoiced, feeling that they had been delivered from a grave peril, and raised shouts of triumph. Aurangzeb himself felt immense satisfaction at having, within six years, devoured in turn the Adilshahi, the Qutbshahi, and now the Marathas. In gratitude for this success he immediately sent ten thousand rupees in charity to a saint's shrine at Kalburga, and leaving Akluj he arrived on 15 February at Bahadurgad. It was here that Sambhaji and his fellow captives were brought.

1) संभाजीराजांचा हृदयद्रावक शेवट (ता.11.3.1689) :-

While the prisoners were still four miles outside the camp, the Badshah sent orders ahead that "Sambhaji and Kavi Kalash be paraded through in a procession before being brought forward." Accordingly they were dressed in garish, mismatched clothing, jester's caps hung with little bells were placed on their heads, and thus arrayed they were mounted on camels and led, to the sound of music, by Hamiduddin Khan through the length of the camp and brought before the Badshah. Aurangzeb, seated on his throne, was holding court at that moment. As Sambhaji came into view, the emperor descended from his throne, knelt, and offered a prayer to Allah; he then went to the captives, examined them briefly, and ordered them taken away again. The night before, the whole camp had been in such an uproar over the news of Sambhaji's approach that not a soul had been able to sleep. Aurangzeb then took counsel with his advisers on how to dispose of Sambhaji. Some among them urged that rather than kill him outright, he should first be made to write out the surrender of all his forts, and these secured, before any final reckoning. Accordingly the Badshah sent Ruhullah Khan to Sambhaji with this message: "Where have you concealed all your treasure, and which Mughal officers have been corresponding with you? If you will tell us everything freely, and will embrace Islam and enter the Badshah's service, your life will be spared." But it was not in Sambhaji's nature to purchase his life at the price of such humiliation. He was pride itself incarnate, and the mocking procession of the day before still burned within him. As the historian must observe: great-hearted men do not treat a brave adversary in such a fashion; history offers no shortage of instances where even bitter enemies were treated with honor. Had Aurangzeb possessed a like measure of magnanimity, neither his own end nor that of his empire would have proved so lamentable. "In the time of one's destruction, the understanding turns perverse" — and by this conduct Aurangzeb permanently blackened his own name.

1) संभाजीराजांचा हृदयद्रावक शेवट (ता.11.3.1689) :-

Sambhaji flung Ruhullah Khan's proposal back at him with contempt, answering: "Tell the Badshah that this son of Shivaji fears neither death nor torment, and cares nothing whatever for his life. I have no desire to embrace your wicked faith and thereby secure my own everlasting degradation — but if the Badshah wishes to give me his daughter and make me his son-in-law, I will consider his proposal; in doing so, the Badshah would in truth be serving his own good." So harsh and so insolent was this speech that Ruhullah Khan did not have the nerve to repeat it to the Badshah word for word; he conveyed only its substance. Sambhaji's answer, whatever else it was, was undeniably spirited and proud. Given such defiance, Aurangzeb was hardly disposed to forgive him. That very night the Badshah had Sambhaji's eyes gouged out, and Kalash's tongue cut off. He then asked his mullahs for their judgment on what further should be done with the two men; they pronounced that since Sambhaji had committed grievous sin — killing and dishonoring Muslims and plundering their cities — death alone was the fitting punishment. Seeing that nothing further was to be gained from Sambhaji, Aurangzeb now ordered him put to death. All this while the camp had moved from Bahadurgad to Koregaon. For a full fortnight Sambhaji was subjected to the most extreme torment, and finally, at Koregaon on 11 March 1689, the limbs of both Sambhaji and Kalash were hacked off one by one with swords, their flesh was thrown to the dogs, and at last both were beheaded. The two heads were stuffed and prepared, and for several days thereafter were carried in procession, to the sound of music, through village after village, before being finally cast aside. Later the Marathas recovered them and carried them to Tulapur, at the confluence of the Bhima and Indrayani rivers, where they were consigned to the flames.

1) संभाजीराजांचा हृदयद्रावक शेवट (ता.11.3.1689) :-

Tulapur lies about twelve miles northeast of Pune, at the point where the Bhima and Indrayani meet; a little downstream, on the eastern bank of the Bhima, stand the villages of Apti, Vadhu (Budruk), and Koregaon, and it was between Koregaon and Tulapur that the Badshah's camp then lay spread out. Tulapur's earlier name was Nagargaon; it came to be called Tulapur after the occasion, described earlier in the account of Shahaji's life, when Shahaji was weighed against an elephant and Murarjagdev made his famous donation there. Aurangzeb did not even permit Sambhaji the rites due the dead. The actual beheading took place at Vadhu; the severed pieces of the torso, thrown aside, were never recovered, but the head alone was retrieved by the villagers of Vadhu and carried to Tulapur, where it was given to the flames at the confluence. Even today two or three small domed memorials (ghumatis) stand at Vadhu, and these were most probably built later by Yesubai and Shahu at the very spot of the execution — for a surviving record shows that Shahu, on 30 January 1733, granted inam land "for the sweeping and upkeep of the late Swami's Vrindavan at the village of Vadhu." From this it may be inferred that a memorial (vrindavan, or ghumati) was raised at the site of the beheading, while the cremation itself took place at Tulapur; the second of the two domes at Vadhu was probably raised for Kalash. Sambhaji's capture filled Aurangzeb with immense self-satisfaction, and he persuaded himself in his delusion that he had now permanently extinguished the independent Maratha kingdom Shivaji had founded at Raigad. This moment stands as the very peak of joy in Aurangzeb's entire life — and it was precisely from this triumphant high point that the decline of his reign and administration began. For his outstanding service Muqarrab Khan was honored with the title "Khan-i-Zaman Bahadur Fateh Jang," fifty thousand rupees in cash, a mansab of six thousand, costly robes of honor, elephants, and horses. His son Ikhlas Khan received a mansab of five thousand, and his other assistants were given further rewards besides. It is worth noting that the task of moving against Sambhaji had originally, in November 1688, been assigned to Firuzjang, father of Nizam-ul-Mulk; but in the interval Firuzjang's eyes were affected and he went permanently blind, so the Badshah then gave the commission to his own son Azam Shah, who took up station at Chakan, north of Pune, to watch for Sambhaji — but the prize never fell to him.

1) संभाजीराजांचा हृदयद्रावक शेवट (ता.11.3.1689) :-

Even before Sambhaji himself was taken, his brother-in-law Mahadaji Naik Nimbalkar had already met his own tragic end. On Sambhaji's orders he had marched with troops to the aid of Golconda in 1685-86; Aurangzeb seized him together with his family and held him confined in Gwalior fort until his death. After he died, his wife Sakhubai became sati. Mahadaji had a son, Rambhajirao, born of a concubine; Rambhajirao in turn had two sons, Janoji and Ravrambha, who threw in their lot with the Nizam — both of whom appear again later in the history of the Peshwa period.

2) संभाजीराजांची योग्यता :-

There is little need to say much more about Sambhaji's worth as a ruler and a man, for his virtues and failings have already been laid out at various points in this account. His temperament was, by nature, a stranger to discretion and calm reflection. He had no real, deep grasp of statecraft. Shivaji, relying on trustworthy spies and shrewd counsellors, had read the political currents of every quarter and had made his every move accordingly; but apart from Kalash alone, there is no instance to be found of Sambhaji calmly heeding anyone's counsel. Two valiant men, the Mughal prince Akbar and the Rajput leader Durgadas, came rushing to seek shelter with him; the whole of Hindustan, and Rajputana above all, was like a hive of hornets ready to sting the Badshah, and these two men who had come to him were representatives of exactly that spirit — yet for six long years Sambhaji found neither the strength nor the will (or perhaps simply never found the occasion) to fully embrace their cause. This was precisely the narrowness of his political intellect.

2) संभाजीराजांची योग्यता :-

Samarth Ramdas's own comment on the matter is telling. On hearing that the northern prince (Akbar) had arrived, Ramdas is recorded to have said: "If the people of that region can be won over, then between the two of them success is assured — but speed is essential." This opinion of the Samarth's carries real weight, for it shows that contemporaries did not regard such a political stroke as beyond reach. But Sambhaji never grasped the larger, combined politics of Hindustan as a whole. Had he, seizing some favorable moment while the Badshah's forces lay scattered and struggling through the hill country of the Deccan, struck directly at Aurangzeb himself, the Badshah would certainly have been humbled — and with him humbled, the Siddis of Janjira and the Portuguese too would automatically have grown more pliant. And if a direct frontal blow seemed beyond him, then a bold thrust north across the Narmada into Hindustan proper, driving Akbar on toward Delhi and Agra, would equally have cooled Aurangzeb's ardor. There was precedent enough: when Shahjahan himself was still crown prince, his rebellion had twice carried him across the whole breadth of Hindustan, and Maratha sardars such as Jadhavrao and Baburao Kate had even ridden with him on those very campaigns. Daring and courage Sambhaji certainly possessed — but he remained endlessly entangled in the forests around Raigad and Vishalgad.

2) संभाजीराजांची योग्यता :-

Sambhaji was personally brave and adventurous, but he does not appear to have possessed the battlefield judgment or the political cunning that a commander-in-chief requires; and even where he did grasp what was needed, he lacked the patience and far-sightedness to knit together, steadily and advantageously, all the alliances and opportunities available to him. Sambhaji and his companions were, it must be said, superb practitioners of guerrilla warfare; the Rajputs, using this very same method, kept the Badshah starved and harried for two full years. Shahzada Akbar kept pressing this same strategy upon him constantly, and indeed Sambhaji's own forces had once pushed as far as Surat and Broach. And yet — that a man of such evident capacity should, over seven or eight years, accomplish nothing of visible, lasting consequence, and should in the end fall, in so inhuman a fashion, to the enemy's merciless blade — what anguish this must stir in anyone who reflects on it! Samarth Ramdas and Amatya Raghunath Pandit Hanmante had both been available to Sambhaji as company and counsel since Shivaji's own time, but their influence does not appear to have shaped his character. Ramdas wrote him a letter of gentle admonition, and on hearing of his excesses gave open voice to his own grief and disquiet.

2) संभाजीराजांची योग्यता :-

The Venetian traveler Manucci has left a fairly detailed account of Sambhaji; the two men had actually met, and since Manucci was in the Deccan at the relevant time, his assessment of Sambhaji may reasonably be given weight. Manucci writes: "Sambhaji's own officers grew deeply displeased with him because he cast a lustful eye on other men's wives. Even when the urgent necessity of facing his enemies pressed upon him, the ingrained vice of misconduct with other men's wives would not leave him — and it was this very failing that cost him his freedom and, in the end, his life." Ramchandra Pant Amatya, in his own treatise on statecraft (the Rajniti), offers a clear and considered judgment on Sambhaji, one that deserves to be accepted in full. He writes: "Because of the excessive and unrelenting personal confrontation with so formidable an enemy as Aurangzeb, the subjects of the entire kingdom were made to suffer. The flow of goods from other lands and regions ceased. Many soldiers were consumed in the king's service, spent in the warrior's duty. Many, their forces broken, went over to the enemy. Seeing their own lord sunk in vice as if he were an enemy to his own people, some seized forts and territory for themselves and set up independently. Quarrels broke out in place after place. In this unsettled interval, petty and low elements found room to take root and grow firm. What land remained was laid waste, and the forts stripped of their stores. The order and the boundaries of the kingdom were no longer maintained."

2) संभाजीराजांची योग्यता :-

Krishnaji Anant Sabhasad's account of Sambhaji's vices, related five years after Sambhaji's death to his own brother, may reasonably be taken as substantially true. He writes: "He took all the officers of the administration into his confidence and then had them seized. He killed eminent Brahmins — he committed the sin of Brahmin-murder. He killed and imprisoned Marathas and commanders of the army, and stripped them of their honor. Petty men and slaves gained ascendancy. The standing and conduct of great men was overturned. Sambhaji drank intoxicants, smoked ganja, and indulged in amorous dalliance. The forts and the country fell into disorder for want of governance, and the king took no thought for it. He squandered the treasury, lost the entire kingdom, and in the end fell victim to betrayal." And yet — a good many of Sambhaji's own surviving documents, on administration and on judicial decisions, testify to his genuine fondness for impartial justice and to a real concern for the welfare of his subjects. There are numerous references to his summoning parties before him and, sitting in open court together with Kavi Kalash and his officers, personally hearing them out and rendering judgment. He kept, for the most part, unbroken the inams and revenue grants established in his father's time — setting aside, of course, those unfortunate individuals who fell victim to his suspicious and volatile temperament, who cannot fairly be counted among such continuities. Apart from such lapses, his basic human consideration and generosity showed themselves in a great many instances.

2) संभाजीराजांची योग्यता :-

His love for Queen Yesubai remained unwavering throughout, and because he himself was aware that in his carelessness he might at any moment do something rash, the chroniclers record that he kept the royal seal in Yesubai's own keeping. Taken as a whole, Sambhaji's rule proved destructive to the state in many respects; yet if one bears in mind that he paid ample penance for his own transgressions, one's harsh judgment of him inevitably begins to soften. Valor, daring, and fearlessness — qualities visible throughout his career as ruler — show themselves with equal force in the terrible ordeal of his final days. Though he himself faltered gravely in the conduct of his government, through the full measure of suffering he underwent in atonement he stirred a new feeling in the hearts of the Maharashtrian people; and it was on the strength of that very awakened spirit that the Marathas later went on to overthrow the Mughal empire altogether. This is a consideration that must be kept firmly in mind when weighing his true worth.

2) संभाजीराजांची योग्यता :-

Sambhaji possessed no particular scholarly distinction. His father had kept pandits specifically to educate him, but it seems unlikely that, amid the turbulence of those years, he found much leisure for reading and study. He spent some time at the house of Kashi Pandit at Mathura, where, the chroniclers record, he studied a little alongside the other students there. He had a taste for composing verse in Hindi, a taste probably cultivated through his close association with Kalash. Two Hindi poetic works attributed to Sambhaji survive under the titles "Nakhshikha" and "Nayika Bhed," and from these it is fair to conclude that he had grown fond of women and given to romantic, sensuous themes. His counsellor Kalash was himself fairly well read, and since Kalash's own language was Hindi, Sambhaji must have been able to converse fluently in it. That he studied a little Sanskrit in his childhood may also be inferred from a work called "Budhbhushan," a poem preserved under his name. Kincaid's history records the following: "Keshav Pandit Adhyaksha, a friend of Sambhaji's, read the Valmiki Ramayana in his company; a record survives showing that Sambhaji gave this pandit 1,600 laris in 1684. Through his two Hindi compositions, 'Nakhshikh' and 'Nayakabhand,' he gave expression to his taste for romantic sentiment." Keshav Damodar Purohit, the author of "Rajaram Charita," was in all likelihood this same friend of Sambhaji's. In addition, a poet named Maheshdas served as a pandit at Sambhaji's court.

2) संभाजीराजांची योग्यता :-

Sambhaji held a deep reverence for his own faith, and a single extract, chosen from among his many surviving charters, is enough to demonstrate it. Lakhva Lingpa, the mamledar of Torgal, petitioned as follows: in the previous year the Mughal prince Azam Shah had come through with his army and had burned the houses, mansions, and market of the town to ashes; the renowned and sacred temple that stood in the town had been shattered, as had other great shrines; because of this a plague had broken out in the town, people had begun to die, the townsfolk had fled and the settlement had emptied, and ancient images had been desecrated by wicked men. "The Maharaj Chhatrapati is the king of Maharashtra; his shrines ought not to remain in ruins — they should be rebuilt and worship restored there. At present, at Navalgund, the temples have vanished altogether. Now, the Vedmurti Kashinathbhat of Varanasi is a most worthy and virtuous Brahmin; considered rightly, this matter of restoring Hindu worship is indeed a just cause. Immense sums are spent daily at the Maharaj's own court; if a like sum were spent on restoring the god's worship, the merit and the credit of it would accrue to the Chhatrapati Maharaj himself." On this petition the grant was confirmed as an inam, to stand for all to honor (dated 22 August 1685). Many more charters of exactly this character survive. Following the practice Shivaji Maharaj had established — of purifying, through prescribed penance, Hindus who had been forcibly converted by the Mughals, and readmitting them to their own faith — Sambhaji continued the same custom without change. In truth, Sambhaji lacked the capacity to originate new customs or ordinances of his own; but whenever a precedent could be shown of "the late Shivaji Maharaj having done thus," he had no choice but to accept it in full, and so the great majority of his judgments and orders simply followed earlier precedent. One example: a Brahmin named Gangadhar Raghunath Kulkarni, whom the Mughals had converted and kept in their service for a number of years, came and surrendered himself to his own caste, begging the Chhatrapati for penance to purify him; the religious authorities (chhandogamatya) accordingly convened an assembly of scholars, prescribed the penance called for by scripture, and purified him (dated 16 April 1686). There must have been a good many such instances.

3) बायका मुले :-

The name of Sambhaji's wife, Jiubai — better known as Yesubai — must feature prominently in any account of his reign. She was the sister of Ganoji Shirke, and Ganoji was himself Shivaji's son-in-law; Shivaji's wife Soyarabai, in turn, was Ganoji's paternal aunt. The Shirke family thus stood among the closest relations of the Chhatrapati's own household. When Soyarabai intrigued against Sambhaji, it is quite possible that the Shirkes lent her their covert support. Yet setting aside whatever resentment she might have felt over her husband's persecution of her own natal family, Yesubai, within the limits her situation allowed, did what she could to sway her husband's mind toward the kingdom's true interest. She became a full partner in her husband's joys and sorrows alike, and Sambhaji himself was convinced that the qualities the poet ascribes to an ideal wife — minister, friend, and confidante all in one — were genuinely present in his beloved queen. When he went over to join Dilerkhan against his own father Shivaji, it was this same wife who accompanied him; had he been nothing more than a pleasure-loving wastrel, would he have burdened himself with his wife's company on so hazardous a venture?

3) बायका मुले :-

In 1681-82 Dilerkhan seized her, together with her daughter, and held them prisoner in Ahmadnagar fort; it was Sambhaji who rescued and freed her from that captivity. There is no record of any wedded wife of Sambhaji's other than Yesubai; the existence of sons such as Madansingh, born of concubines, suggests he kept other women outside of marriage, and the chronicles use unrestrained language regarding his conduct in this respect. Yesubai is recorded to have borne two children: the elder, a daughter named Bhavanibai, was born on 28 January 1679 at Shringarpur, and a son, Shahu, was born on 17 May 1682 at Gangavali — from which it appears that Yesubai accompanied her husband even while he was on the move. Shringarpur, near Sangameshwar, is a village belonging to the Surve family and lies close to Shirke territory, so Yesubai most likely went to her own natal home for her confinement there. Gangavali lies in the neighborhood of Raigad, near Mangaon. Bhavanibai was later married to Shankarji, son of Harji Mahadik, and in due course became sati.

3) बायका मुले :-

From these particulars one can form some picture of Yesubai's temperament and character. When, in the monsoon of 1681, Sambhaji at Raigad put to death a number of old and experienced officials on account of Soyarabai's conspiracy against him, it was Yesubai who spoke sensible and salutary words to her husband and brought him back to calm. It was she, too, who had Khando Ballal, son of Balaji Avji, restored to the post his father had once held. She must also have used her influence to keep the offices of the Ashta Pradhan — the council of eight ministers — in the hands of the men who had held them before. Given the common experience that impetuous men like Sambhaji, however quick to violent anger, are equally susceptible to affection, one may reasonably infer that Yesubai's quiet influence over the conduct of Sambhaji's government was considerable indeed. When Sambhaji was seized at Sangameshwar, Yesubai was at Raigad. In the negotiations that followed there, it was she who, without regard for her own safety, advised Rajaram to escape and go out into the world for the sake of the kingdom's future, while she herself chose to accept imprisonment at the Badshah's hands — an act of self-sacrifice that must be reckoned truly great. Her sister-in-law Tarabai was likewise a woman of real capability, and arguably an even shrewder political strategist. The achievements of both these women occupy a prominent place in Maratha history, and the life-stories of these two daughters-in-law of Shiva Chhatrapati are as compelling as they are honorable — a credit to Indian womanhood as a whole.