शिवाजी-जयसिंह संवाद

The lightning surprise attack that Shivaji had delivered — striking at Shaista Khan in the very heart of his own camp at Pune and leaving him maimed and humiliated — left Aurangzeb himself badly shaken. For about six months after Shaista Khan's departure and disgrace, the Emperor entrusted the governance of the Deccan to his eldest son Muazzam, known as Shah Alam, together with Jaswant Singh. But in their hands nothing whatever was accomplished toward curbing Shivaji. Weighing the matter carefully, Aurangzeb finally selected a formidable pair of commanders and sent them south against Shivaji: Mirza Raja Jaisingh and Dilerkhan. Jaisingh was a thoroughly seasoned man of affairs, the very general who had helped secure the imperial throne for Aurangzeb himself. He stood foremost in the imperial court of the day, equally accomplished in statecraft and in the arts of war. Moreover, since Shivaji was known as a champion and protector of the Hindus, sending against him this northern Rajput warrior-prince, himself a Hindu, was — as the historian notes — rather like drawing out one thorn with another. Yet Aurangzeb also feared that these two Hindus might secretly conspire together to his own ruin; to guard against this he deliberately sent along his own most trusted personal servant, Dilerkhan, expressly to keep a watchful check upon Jaisingh. Jaisingh at this time was a man of about sixty, who had never in his career tasted failure, and who had become, so to speak, wholly given over in devotion to Aurangzeb. The Emperor furnished him with the finest equipment and an ample treasury and at last, in 1664, sent him off to the Deccan.

जयसिंहाची दक्षिण मोहीम

Jaisingh crossed the Narmada on 9 January 1665 and reached Aurangabad on 10 February. Having settled matters of administration there, he came on to Pune at the beginning of March. Judging that capturing Sinhagad outright would prove too difficult an undertaking, he resolved instead to seize the fort of Purandar first, and pitched his camp at Saswad. Word of his arrival reached Shivaji while he was away at Gokarna-Mahabaleshwar near Karwar; Shivaji hastened back at once to devise countermeasures. On his return he understood clearly that Jaisingh's real aim was to seize Sinhagad and Rajgad and thereby extinguish his Swarajya altogether. But since these hill-forts were ill-suited to accommodate so large a military encampment, Jaisingh directed his first blow instead at Purandar. Dilerkhan accordingly laid siege to Purandar, which was then held and defended by Shivaji's commander Murarbaji, its havaldar (garrison-keeper), who took up its defence with vigour. Beyond this direct assault, Jaisingh also cut off every avenue by which help might reach Shivaji, closing in upon him from every side at once.

शिवाजीची कोंडी

Shivaji now found himself without any remaining base of support. The Mughals had overrun the entire surrounding country, and Jaisingh spent both money and cunning with a lavish hand. Throughout the whole of April the Mughal military movements grew so intense that Shivaji was reduced to the extremity of having nowhere left even to make a stand. It seemed that twenty years of painstaking achievement were about to come crashing down; the whole sky, as it were, had torn open above him. What was to be done next? The full detail of exactly how this crisis came about is recorded at length in the correspondence exchanged among Jaisingh, Aurangzeb, and Dilerkhan, and the reader who wishes to study the episode closely would do well to examine that body of letters. From the moment of Jaisingh's arrival, Shivaji had continually sent his vakils (envoys) to negotiate with him, raising the possibility of a truce or of a personal meeting. To every such approach Jaisingh returned one unyielding answer: "We have no wish whatever for a meeting with you, nor for any treaty. Come and surrender peaceably without further argument, and give up all your forts; accept whatever mercy the Emperor is pleased to grant you. Otherwise we are already engaged in conquering the whole of your territory, and you will not be able to hold your ground against us." This harsh reply plunged Shivaji into deep despair. Observing Jaisingh's evident strategy — first unconditional surrender, and only thereafter any talk of a meeting — and reflecting that, Hindu though he was, Jaisingh showed not the least concern for his own faith, Shivaji was seized with intense indignation. He held long and searching consultations with his mother, Jijabai, and with his counsellors.

पुरंदरचा तह

While these consultations were underway, in the fighting against Dilerkhan, Murarbaji and a great many of his soldiers were killed, and the fort seemed on the verge of passing into Mughal hands. In this extremity, on the advice of all around him, Shivaji himself went in person to Jaisingh's camp at Saswad to meet him, taking with him only a single attendant and his vakil, Raghunath Pandit. Raghunath Pandit went ahead to announce that Shivaji Raje was coming; even as Jaisingh was in the act of replying that no meeting was necessary, Shivaji himself appeared before him. Jaisingh then led him inside and conferred with him at length, keeping him there for two full days. An agreement was struck: Shivaji would surrender twenty-three of his forts into the Emperor's possession, retaining only thirteen for himself, and would henceforward serve the Emperor with loyal devotion. Jaisingh, in due course, had this treaty duly ratified by the Emperor. First Jaisingh sent Shivaji down to the camp below Purandar to meet Dilerkhan; afterward he summoned both the Khan and Shivaji back to himself, and, after further joint discussion, the terms of the treaty were finally settled as described. Jaisingh further pressed Shivaji with the assurance: "You yourself should go to Agra and pay your respects to the Emperor in person; he will then advance your standing, and I give you my word that no harm shall come to your life." On this understanding matters proceeded. Shivaji accepted service under the Emperor, and when Jaisingh set out to conquer Bijapur, Shivaji accompanied and supported him, thereby discharging his part of the bargain in full.

जयसिंहाशी शिवाजीचा संवाद

The full extent of this meeting between Shivaji and Jaisingh, and of Shivaji's submission to the Emperor, is so vast a subject that it cannot possibly be related briefly. Shivaji had cherished great hope that this Rajput prince would prove devoted to his own faith — or that, at the very least, by talking with him he might awaken in Jaisingh some stirring of concern for dharma, draw him into his own great undertaking for swarajya, and thereby humble Aurangzeb's pride. This hope of Shivaji's was not fulfilled at the time. Yet, as fate would have it, ten or fifteen years later Aurangzeb did indeed find himself compelled to wage war against these very Rajputs; had that war come somewhat earlier, muses the historian, it was precisely such an age in which a union of Shivaji with the Rajputs might have brought the creation of a Hindu-pad-padshahi — a sovereign Hindu realm — to fruition through Shivaji's own labours. There survives a perceptive composition in Persian describing this meeting of Shivaji and Jaisingh, in which an eyewitness observer set down their exchange in dialogue form; it well deserves careful study. A little of its substance, rendered here as dialogue, runs thus: Shivaji: You are so valorous a man, and you flaunt your reputation as a Rajput, and yet you are wholly indifferent to your own faith, and take pride in serving that wicked Emperor — this is a most shameful thing indeed. Would it not have been better to die fighting than to live like this? Jaisingh: What you say, I too accept as true. But today this Emperor is all-powerful, and we are his devoted servants; it is our duty to obey his commands. Shivaji: Then when you were yourself a servant of Emperor Shah Jahan, and you betrayed him and went over to Aurangzeb's side, and brought about the killing of Dara Shukoh — where, then, was this loyalty of yours? Where was your shame when you betrayed Shah Jahan's trust? What wrong, after all, had Dara Shukoh done you, that you should have seized him and handed him over into Aurangzeb's hands? Jaisingh: What is past and done cannot now be undone; it bears no relation to the present. Shivaji: You shall yet have to reap the fruits of the sins you have committed. From them there will be no escape.

जयसिंहाचा अंत

Not long after this exchange took place, Jaisingh's cup of sin indeed filled to overflowing. When Shivaji made his astonishing escape from imperial captivity at Agra, the Emperor became convinced that Jaisingh and his son were complicit in that escape, and dismissed them both from service. Having thus fallen into disgrace even while still in the Deccan, this once wholly devoted servant of the Emperor, Mirza Raja Jaisingh, died at Burhanpur on 28 August 1667. Shivaji's harsh, prophetic words to him had proved true.