म्हाळदारखानाकडून जिजाबाईची सुटका

For several years, Shahaji waged a determined struggle against the mighty armies of the Mughal emperor. But when the Mughals eventually captured the principal fortress of Daulatabad, Shahaji lost his chief base of support — and how could he, alone, hope to withstand the overwhelming might of the emperor? The Badshah made repeated attempts to seize Shahaji's wife and children. While Jijabai and Shivaji were staying at Shivneri, the emperor's sardar Mahaldarkhan came intending to capture them; but that shrewd woman completely outwitted him. Jijabai had a prior acquaintance with the khan, and the moment she learned that he was approaching under the pretext of paying her a visit, she saw through his true intent. She sent the young Shivaji away, in the care of a single maidservant, to some remote and unknown place, and by this device she saved him, while herself surrendering to the khan. The khan placed her under arrest, but after a short while, once a fine had been paid, she secured her release. For a year or two, Shivaji lived in seclusion in the Maval region with that same maidservant. Once the danger had passed, Jijabai gave that hidden place the name "Shivapur" — a name that has remained bound up with Shivaji's childhood ever since.

शहाजहानचा तह व शहाजीचे विजापुरास प्रयाण

For eight or ten years, Shahaji, relying on his own courage alone, carried on this relentless struggle against Emperor Shah Jahan. Though he did not, in the end, prevail, the struggle nonetheless convinced even the emperor himself that it would not be easy to subdue these Marathas, fighting their guerrilla war in the difficult terrain of Maharashtra. Shah Jahan therefore resolved to settle this war that had been thrust upon him through peaceable means and to return to Delhi; and through intermediaries he sent word to Shahaji: "It would be well for you to come forward peaceably and submit, thereby securing your own safety. For these seven years you have wrought immense destruction upon us, for which you deserve nothing less than death — but if, henceforward, you leave Maharashtra rather than remain here, we shall spare your life." The Adilshah of Bijapur took Shahaji into his own service, assigning him to duties in Karnataka, and accepted from him a pledge that he would never again rise up against the Mughals. Shah Jahan had the terms of this settlement engraved upon a gold plate to give it lasting force, and then set out on his return to Delhi. Shahaji, for his part, was obliged to leave Maharashtra at once and proceed to Bijapur. Shahaji's friend Dadaji Kondadev, of Parner, a capable and trusted administrator, was left in charge of Jijabai and Shivaji, whom Shahaji settled at Pune under his care, before himself setting out for Karnataka. In this way Shahaji navigated his way out of the crisis that had come upon him without suffering either imprisonment or disgrace — a feat for which he has been praised in history ever since. That both Shah Jahan and Shahaji, two such men, played out their politics with such cunning, each achieving his own ends, has remained a subject that even poets have found worthy of admiration.

जिजाबाईचे धैर्य व शिवनेरीवरील प्रसूती

All this shows that at the time of Shivaji's birth, his family's circumstances were exceedingly difficult — and, indeed, the whole of Maharashtra at that time was afflicted, within and without, by war, unrest, and famine. It was thanks to his mother's boundless courage and unceasing vigilance alone that these grave dangers were overcome and a field opened up on which Shivaji could later display his own valor. Whatever the planetary configuration governing the hour of his birth may have been, the true measure of his whole life is to be found in how he turned to his own advantage the very material troubles that beset him on every side from the outset. As her husband was being pursued by her own father, Jijabai saved her own life and made her way to the fort of Shivneri. There was, at that place, no arrangement whatsoever for her confinement — no attendants at hand, no money to call upon. She arrived, alone, at that desolate, abandoned fort, with but a single support to lean upon: the goddess Shivai, whose shrine stood upon that very fort. To this goddess she surrendered herself completely, and the goddess heard her plaintive cry. Though the heavens themselves seemed to be falling in around her from every side, she never once wavered. With the birth of her son came the conviction, confirmed now in her own experience, that God comes to the aid of those who conduct themselves with true faith. "I am now the mother of a son!" — with this new hope rising within her, the rearing of this child became, from that moment, her chief and abiding duty. She now felt she must live, if only for her son's sake, and the ambition grew within her that, through this son, she would restore the honor of both the families to which she belonged — an ambition in which the revival of a fallen Maharashtra itself came to be bound up, as the contemporary poet Jayaram Pindye records in his Radhamadhavavilaschampu (11.10).

जन्मतिथीचा वाद व दादाजी कोंडदेवांची नेमणूक

There has long been a dispute as to exactly when Shivaji was born, though this very dispute has, in its own way, shed fresh light on his biography. For two or three hundred years, the traditionally accepted date has been Vaishakh Shuddha Dwitiya — Thursday, 6 April 1627 — and this has remained his commonly cited birth-date. More recently, however, an extremely reliable chronicle known as the Jedhe Shakavali came to light, and in it the date recorded for Shivaji's birth is Falgun Vadya Tritiya, Friday, Shake 1551 — that is to say, 19 February 1630. Both dates continue to circulate in the country today, referred to respectively as the "old" and the "new" dates, with a gap of some three to four years between them; yet, as Sardesai observes, this discrepancy does no real damage to the historical record. No birth-record made at the actual time has survived. Perhaps Jijabai, at that period, had no sufficiently discerning scribe at her side to set one down; or perhaps official papers drawn up during the mother's own long lifetime were later lost. When Aurangzeb captured the capital of Raigad, Shivaji's government archives kept there were undoubtedly destroyed at that time, and this may well account for the loss. Whatever the case, at the time of Shivaji's birth, Shahaji's war against the Mughals was still ongoing; it was only in 1636 that he freed himself from that entanglement and departed for Bijapur, at which point he left Jijabai and Shivaji settled at Pune and appointed Dadaji Kondadev to look after their affairs. This event took place on Dussera of 1636 — the date being 29 September — and it marks the first significant milestone in Shivaji's own life, he being at that time seven or eight years of age. From this point on, Shahaji's direct involvement in Shivaji's upbringing came to an end, and it was Jijabai and Dadaji Kondadev, the two of them together, who became his guides thenceforward.