समर्थ रामदास व आनंदवनभुवन

Samarth Ramdas had himself been closely associated with the shaping of this coronation ceremony and its atmosphere. His celebrated composition Anandavanabhuvan, well known to this day, lets us see just how completely his heart overflowed with joy at this great festival — it is a poem every reader ought to seek out and read for himself. Equally, the depth of regard that Shivaji held for Ramdas is evident from the inam sanad — the grant of a hereditary endowment — that he issued to Ramdas's math at Chafal. In that document Shivaji's own words run, in substance: 'By the grace of the dust of these feet, whatever desires I nursed in my mind, Swami fulfilled them through the power of his blessing. When I resolved in my heart that I should lay this entire kingdom, won through such grace, at your feet and thereafter spend all my days in your service, the command came back that I should continue exactly the dharma I had already been taught — that alone is the true service required of me.' The whole of that letter deserves to be read in full.

सर्वधर्मसमभाव

Service to sadhus and holy men, equal reverence toward all faiths, and the careful maintenance of the varnashrama order together with the other foundational principles and observances of the ancient sanatana dharma — these formed Shivaji's habitual practice, and his own cast of mind was thoroughly sanatani, without the least trace of any modern reforming impulse. Yet although circumstance compelled him to contend, again and again, with Muslim ruling powers, he personally never harboured any hatred toward Islam as a religion; many Muslim gentlemen served him with complete loyalty. Daryasarang Ibrahim Khan commanded his naval fleet. Baba Yakut of Kelshi was counted among his spiritual gurus. Mulla Haidar served for many years as Shivaji's own secretary and took the leading role in conducting his secret negotiations with the Badshah and others; so capable and learned was this Mulla Haidar that, after Shivaji's death, Aurangzeb himself took him into service and appointed him chief Qazi. Although upholding and championing Hindu religion was the chief sacred duty Shivaji set himself and carried through to its end, there was not the slightest hatred in it toward Islam, Christianity, or any other faith. His own guiding principle was that every man should be free to practise his religion exactly as he wished, without compulsion or fanatical insistence from any quarter; his sole objective was that Muslims should give up the persecution they were inflicting upon Hindus. Once Raigad was established as his capital, Shivaji built the temple of Jagadishwar there — and, in the very same spirit, he also had a separate mosque built for his Muslim subjects directly opposite his own main gate. He held Brahmins in particular esteem, though the honorific 'Go-Brahman-Pratipalak' — protector of cows and Brahmins — by which he is popularly remembered, was never a title he assumed for himself; it was one the people themselves put into currency.

गुरुसंग्रह व माणसें जोडण्याचा छंद

A list survives of some forty or fifty individuals whom Shivaji regarded as his gurus, and it includes sannyasis, bairagis, saints, and poets of many different kinds. He became a devoted follower of the bhajans of one Moni Buva of Patgaon. From his youth, Shivaji's great and abiding passion was the gathering of able men into his service; wherever he travelled to some new place — whether through a forest, into a temple, or on a pilgrimage — his very first instinct, wherever he happened to be, was to seek out and quietly identify any exceptional or gifted individual to be found there, so as to draw that person into his own enterprise. One incident illustrates well this watchful, ever-searching habit of his. During the fierce fighting at Salher in 1671, while marching on the Salher-Molher campaign, Shivaji went out of his way at the village of Mudalgaon to seek the darshan of a great ascetic, Devbharati Gosavi, who was then performing penance in a temple of Mahadev there. The holy man gave him his blessing, saying, 'Go — on the ninth day the fort will fall.' The fort duly fell on schedule, and in gratitude Shivaji granted the village of Mudalgaon to that holy man as a mokasa, a revenue assignment. So intense was Shivaji's eagerness, in every moment of difficulty, to seek out and receive the blessings of great and holy men that most of his extraordinary exploits have, in popular memory, become wrapped about with legends of exactly this kind. He was equally quick to seek out and reclaim hardened criminals — thieves, robbers, murderers, dacoits — examining them personally and, where he found ability in them, bringing them close and putting them to useful work; the many legends that have grown up around his forts, when one hears them together, give a real sense of the sheer breadth of his vision and his reach. On one occasion, visiting the scenic shrine of Shri Shaila Mallikarjuna on the banks of the Krishna near Bellary, he became so utterly absorbed in that place that he wished to abandon all his work and remain there permanently; it took his companions considerable effort and persuasion to draw him away and bring him back.

आदिलशाही-कुत्बशाहीचे संरक्षण व औरंगजेबाचा उद्वेग

Although, in the first flush of building his Swarajya, Shivaji had taken a very heavy toll on the Maharashtrian territories of the Adilshahi and Qutbshahi kingdoms, in later years he himself took the initiative to help preserve those same kingdoms from destruction. He personally went and met the Qutb Shah of Golconda, the Tanashah, in an unusual and celebrated encounter that remains one of the memorable episodes in the whole remarkable record of Shivaji's career. Taking his life as a whole, Shivaji stands out as a truly extraordinary man; historians hold that in the past one thousand to fifteen hundred years, providence produced upon this earth only this one figure of such singular greatness. The distress that overtook Aurangzeb on learning of Shivaji's coronation is recorded thus: 'The Badshah was greatly grieved. For three days he did not step outside. He fell into the deepest anguish. It seemed to him that God had taken away the sovereignty of the Muslims and bestowed it upon Shivaji. His anxiety over Shivaji was more than his heart could bear, and he did not know what to do.' It was then that Bahadur Khan Koka, the Badshah's own foster-brother, came and consoled him, assuring him that he need not worry, that he himself would go and utterly subdue Shivaji, and with these words he seated the Badshah back upon his throne. In gratitude the Badshah honoured Bahadur Khan richly, bestowing robes, jewels, and wealth upon him along with seventy thousand cavalry, and he further ordered Dilerkhan to the vanguard in support. Accordingly Bahadur Khan marched against Shivaji's territories. This same khan later established his base at Pedgaon, fortifying it into a stronghold that came to be known as Bahadurgad, and for many years afterward it was here that Aurangzeb's own personal camp came to be stationed. As for Bahadur Khan's supposed feat of subduing him, Shivaji never accepted it at all — indeed he used to refer to Bahadur Khan dismissively as 'pendiche guru,' a phrase suggesting an empty, blustering windbag of no real substance.