संभाजीची दिलेरखानास तक्रार

Paramananda gives a detailed, circumstantial account of the entire episode. His poem runs to 2,146 verses in all, of which more than half are given over to the subject of Sambhaji. According to this account, Sambhaji, on reaching Dilerkhan, laid out his grievance before him. Paramananda does not quote the original Sanskrit verses directly but offers their substance in summary: 'My father's heart,' Sambhaji is said to have declared, 'has been entirely captured by my stepmother. I might as well say I have no father at all. As for my own mother, I never had her to begin with. Saturn's malignant gaze hangs over me. Wicked ministers, Moropant chief among them, stand ready to destroy me. I do not wish to have these demons before my eyes any longer. In truth, this whole kingdom that belongs to my father is rightfully mine and mine alone — there is no reason for me to delay in seizing what is mine.' He continued in this vein: 'Every learned authority everywhere holds that after the father, the kingdom passes to the eldest son. I am my father's eldest son, and I am his superior in learning and in virtue besides. The title of Maharaj ought by right to come to me the moment my father is gone. It is this rightful claim of mine that I wish to secure, through the Badshah's grace and with your help. My only anxiety, day and night, is simply this: how am I to bring under my own control all these lands, these forts, and these hundreds of towns great and small?'

पिता-पुत्रांतील तुटलेला संबंध

This account makes plain enough why Sambhaji had turned so bitterly against his father. Shivaji, for his part, was consumed with anxiety over how his son's grievances might be soothed. To place him under confinement risked provoking some still more reckless act on his part; and in any case, who possessed the power actually to restrain him? Shivaji's own judgment, which the world at large regarded as boundless, proved unequal to this dilemma posed by his son. As he turned the matter over, Shivaji grew ever more restless and despondent at the thought that this kingdom, so lately and so laboriously won, might now be ruined by his own child. A complete and bitter rupture opened between father and son. Rumours that Sambhaji had attempted to poison his father appear in the correspondence of the English factors of the period; how much truth they contain cannot now be established, but the underlying fact that relations between the two had broken down entirely is not in doubt. After Dassera in 1678, word reached Shivaji that Dilerkhan was advancing, and he set off towards Aurangabad to meet and resist him. Before leaving, he placed Sambhaji at Sajjangad, in the company of Samarth Ramdas — though how, indeed, was the presence of Ramdas alone to reform a young man so far gone? Dilerkhan meanwhile set about various schemes and intrigues, and soon learned of Sambhaji's estrangement from his father. The Khan's secret agents made contact with Sambhaji covertly; it is quite possible that Sambhaji himself had already opened some secret channel to the Khan even before this. And the Khan, for his part, was hardly the man to let slip an opportunity to exploit a rift within the Maratha royal house.

भूपाळगड व बिजापूरजवळील अत्याचार

The two sides came to an understanding, and on 11 December 1678 Sambhaji slipped away from Sajjangad, taking Yesubai with him. He first went to Mahabaleshwar for darshan at the temple there, and from there made his way toward Pandharpur, meeting Dilerkhan at Karkumb. The Khan received him with the greatest honour and pledged him support in every respect. Sambhaji, for his part, had no intention of entering the actual service of the Khan or of the Badshah; his sole purpose in seeking Mughal help was to remove his father and secure the Chhatrapati's throne for himself. But whatever their outward professions, both Dilerkhan and Aurangzeb were thoroughly duplicitous men, flattering Sambhaji for the moment while ultimately intending ruin for all concerned. News that Sambhaji had gone over to the Khan reached Shivaji almost at once; one can only imagine what he felt on hearing it. A further calamity soon followed: the Khan, having won Sambhaji's confidence, drew out of him a great deal of valuable and highly sensitive information — about the forts, about the treasury, about the royal household — all of which Sambhaji, flattered and courted, freely disclosed. Promising to win forts and territory for him, Khan and Sambhaji marched together, with their combined forces, first upon Bhupalgad, near Karad, a fort where Shivaji had stored his principal treasure and had lodged the families of his relations for safekeeping. Phirangoji Narsala held command there as its defending officer. After a fierce cannonade, the fort fell to the Mughals on 2 April 1679. Shivaji later reproached Phirangoji for having refrained from directing fire on the Chhatrapati's own son, present as he was among the besiegers — restraint that Shivaji regarded as a lapse in duty. Sambhaji, meanwhile, had the fort's defenders cruelly put to the sword after its fall. The Khan and Sambhaji then turned toward Bijapur, whose people appealed to Shivaji for help; he hastened at once to its defence, forcing Khan and Sambhaji to abandon the Bijapur enterprise and turn instead toward Panhala fort. On the way they halted at Tikota, where a good many wealthy people of the surrounding country had gathered with their hidden treasure for safety. The Mughals fell upon them suddenly; women, to preserve their honour, leapt with their children into wells and perished there. The Khan now began seizing Hindus and extorting money by selling them off — a practice Sambhaji himself protested, though the Khan paid him no heed. The common people cursed Sambhaji for standing by while this was done, he being, after all, the son of the very Chhatrapati who was the acknowledged protector of dharma. From Tikota the same marauding party moved on to Athani, where the identical scene was repeated, and there too Sambhaji's protests went unheeded. Over this the Khan and Sambhaji quarrelled bitterly, and their relations soured completely.

संभाजीचें पन्हाळ्याकडे पलायन

A further cause deepened this rift. The Badshah had sent Dilerkhan a secret order: by whatever means necessary, Sambhaji was to be enticed and sent promptly to Delhi. While the Khan was casting about for some pretext on which to seize him, Shivaji's own secret agents were meanwhile working quietly on Sambhaji's mind, urging him to go to his father, fall at his feet, and beg forgiveness — assuring him that Shivaji would then look after his welfare, whereas the Khan would sooner or later be the ruin of him. A Maratha sardar named Mahadji Nimbalkar, then serving under Dilerkhan — Sambhaji's own brother-in-law, husband of Shivaji's daughter Sakhubai, and stationed close at hand — met Sambhaji secretly and disclosed to him the Mughals' hidden design and the Badshah's actual order, convincing him that the slightest delay would land him in grave danger. On receiving this urgent warning, Sambhaji fled from Athani on the night of 30 November 1679. He gave Yesubai a man's clothing to wear, and together with ten horsemen the two slipped away, going first to Bijapur and from there, without delay, reaching Panhala on 4 December. As soon as word of Sambhaji's arrival at Panhala reached Shivaji at Raigad, he set out and went to meet his son there. Such, in outline, is the story of Sambhaji's flight back from the Mughal camp. It is worth recalling here that Mahadji Nimbalkar's father was Bajaji Nimbalkar, the sardar of Phaltan, who had at one time converted to Islam. Jijabai had had him undergo penance, restored him to caste, and cemented the reconciliation by arranging Sakhubai's marriage to Mahadji — an episode recounted earlier in this history. For his part in enabling Sambhaji's escape, Dilerkhan afterward kept Mahadji Nimbalkar under arrest.