समारोप — शिवाजीचें सामर्थ्य व दुर्गनिर्मिती

Whatever magic there is bound up in the very name of Shivaji, the reader will have gathered from the whole account set out above. What qualities a leader must possess in order to accomplish the uplift and regeneration of his people — this too becomes clear from a study of Shivaji's life. Beyond what has already been narrated, history preserves a great many further episodes and incidents bearing on Shivaji's achievements; not all of them have found a place in this book. Only the more prominent and telling episodes have been chosen for inclusion here. Along the western coast, Shivaji fought repeated engagements with the Siddis and others, and raised sea-forts (jaladurgs) to secure his maritime frontier. Across his kingdom as a whole he adorned some three hundred forts, giving each one a beautiful name — names that for the most part survive to this day. The mere task of devising names for so many forts occupied a considerable number of people. Names such as Bhushangad, Bhupalgad, Bhumandangad, and Bhudhargad, recited one after another, still leave one marvelling at the sheer inventiveness of Shivaji's imagination. Sinhagad, so familiar to us today, bore originally the name Kondana. It was Aurangzeb who renamed it Bakshinda-Baksh — 'the gift bestowed by God.' In his old age, seized by an obsession with these forts, he set out in person to reduce the strongholds of the Maval country. He took Satara and Parli and renamed them Ajimtara and Nur-e-Satara ('the light of Satara,' a reference to Ramdas; the corrupted form 'Nauras Tara' sometimes given for this name is mistaken).

औरंगजेबाची म्हातारपणीची मोहीम व सिंहगडाचा वेढा

Thereafter, the reduction of Panhala and Vishalgad each took Aurangzeb's forces a full year to accomplish. Struggling through mud and every kind of hardship during the monsoon, the Badshah's own generals grew thoroughly disgruntled with the campaign. They took, in time, to secretly negotiating with the Maratha commanders: in exchange for a payment, the imperial standard would be raised over a given fort for a short while, allowing the Badshah to take his satisfaction from the sight of it — and the moment his back was turned, the Marathas would simply retake the fort. This pattern repeated itself, year after year. In the monsoon of 1700, while the Mughal camp lay near Khawaspur, the Manganadi river came down in sudden flood and swept the entire camp away. Amid the uproar in the small hours before dawn, the aged Badshah, hurrying out into the darkness, stumbled and fell, permanently injuring his right leg. Later, in 1703, he laid siege to Sinhagad — a fort that was, in every real sense, the very life and soul of the Maratha people. On 8 April 1703 the Badshah's own standard was finally raised over it. No sooner had he inspected the fort than he renamed it Bakshinda-Baksh — 'the gift that the gift-giving God had bestowed on him' — and withdrew. And no sooner had he gone than the Marathas raised their own flag over Sinhagad once again. Any number of such episodes could be recounted about these forts. To sustain oneself, in whatever circumstances one is given, through sheer strength of intellect — this remains, and will always remain, the essence of human life. It is for this reason that Shivaji's life-story will forever remain a source of inspiration to us. There is no further need to state separately what Shivaji's true worth and stature were — that has already been discussed at length, as the occasion arose, throughout this narrative.

शिवचरित्रकार व संभाजीचें दानपत्र

Many eminent men have written accounts of Shivaji's life, and among them the testimony of those learned contemporaries who themselves took part in the events they describe carries particular weight. Krishnaji Anant Sabhasad, a man who moved closely in Shivaji's own circle, wrote a bakhar (chronicle) that is regarded as exceptionally fine. Many other bakhars exist besides his. But beyond the chroniclers, there were also numerous poets, pandits, and courtiers who worked directly in Shivaji's own service — Gagabhatt, Raghunath Pandit Hanmante, the Nevaskar poet Paramananda, Kavi Kalash, and many other learned and distinguished men who took an active part in Shivaji's undertakings. Because their writings are mostly composed in Sanskrit, they remain unfamiliar to the ordinary reader. Yet within these writings, Shivaji's character emerges vividly and perceptively. Relevant passages from them have already been quoted at the appropriate points earlier in this book; a few further extracts are offered here by way of addition. When Shivaji died at Raigad, Sambhaji was at Panhala. As soon as the period of mourning had passed, the ministers placed Rajaram on the throne at Raigad. The moment this news reached Sambhaji, he marched on Raigad in fury, and on 20 July he deposed Rajaram and seated himself upon the throne — that is, some four and a half months after Shivaji's death, this fortune came to him. To demonstrate that this outcome had come about through the grace of the Goddess, Sambhaji executed a charitable land-grant (danapatra) in her honour and settled a permanent endowment upon her. This Sanskrit danapatra survives; at its head appears the phrase 'svahastoham Sambhurajasya' — 'in my own hand, I, Sambhuraja.' In this document Sambhaji included lengthy eulogies of himself and of the three men Maloji, Shahaji, and Shivaji.

शिवाजीचें गुणवर्णन व ग्रंथाचा समारोप

Of Shivaji, Sambhaji writes, in Sanskrit epithets whose sense may be rendered thus: he was one 'who, from the very outset of his youth, took up the vow of destroying the Mlechchhas [the foreign Muslim powers]'; one 'skilled in shattering the pride of the Lord of Delhi'; and one 'whose protecting arm the ruler of Vijayapur (Bijapur) himself was reduced to entreating.' A further epithet in the same document turns out, on inspection, to describe Sambhaji himself rather than Shivaji: it recalls the occasion when Aurangzeb commanded him to wrestle in his presence, and Sambhaji flatly refused, declaring, 'I do not wrestle' — thereby, in this proud young man's own reckoning, humiliating the Badshah to his very face. The well-known essay 'Shivakalin Shastri-Pandit' ('The Scholars and Pandits of Shivaji's Age') opens with a Sanskrit verse in Shivaji's praise, whose meaning runs: 'Shivaji, to whom doing good for his people was itself an abiding passion; who took the greatest joy in matters of learning; and whose spotless fame spread its vast canopy across every quarter of the compass.' Paramananda's own pen, in particular, overflows whenever he turns to describing Shivaji. One further verse of his deserves quotation, whose sense is: 'How wondrous, how exquisite a life-story is Shivaji's — who indeed is capable of comprehending it fully? He, in conflict with whom, the mighty Lord of Delhi, valorous as Ravana himself, met his ruin.' With this the book draws to its close, in the words with which Sardesai himself ends his narrative: 'Enough now — let this stand as an offering of remembrance to the sacred memory of Shri Shivabhupa (King Shivaji).'