आरंभींचीं स्थलांतरें

The first seven or eight years of Jijabai's married life were years of unrelieved trial. Four children born to her before Shivaji had all died in infancy, so her first and constant anxiety was simply whether this child, too, would survive. Her second fear was more immediate and political: Shahaji Raje was then locked in continuous warfare with the Mughal Badshah, and there was no telling when the enemy might seize her or her infant son as hostages. To guard against this she was compelled, for a time, to keep the young Shivaji hidden away in some undisclosed place, and she had to remain constantly alert to every development in the world outside. Shahaji, moreover, had by then taken a second wife, Tukabai, and his attention to the now-set-aside Jijabai had grown thin; she therefore had additionally to keep a careful watch on her husband's own movements and doings. What is remarkable is that through all this Jijabai never once showed the jealousy or spite of a slighted co-wife, nor did she ever, even inadvertently, wound her husband's feelings. On the contrary, she took pains to show him that his happiness was her own happiness as well, and this large-heartedness gradually won Shahaji's respect for her character, so that whatever early friction had existed between them slowly dissolved. When children were born to her rival Tukabai, Jijabai went out of her way to visit and inquire after her, sending gifts and garments on festival occasions with real solicitude, and by this generosity she mended a household that circumstance had torn apart. Absorbed as she was in raising Shivaji, she came, in time, to look back on even the bitter memories of this period with a certain tenderness. Her guiding instinct throughout was to gather people to herself and bind them in loyalty — a policy that her son Shivaji would later make the very cornerstone of his own work of national restoration. She did what she could to gather in and support the scattered members of her own natal family as well; and since both her paternal house, the Jadhavs, and her marital house, the Bhosales, were large and far-flung clans, her network of loyal connections through them meant she was never short of capable men to call upon.

स्थलनामांतील स्मृति

Anyone who looks closely across Maharashtra can still find, scattered here and there, traces of this early period of hardship shared by Jijabai and the boy Shivaji. In recent times Pune has seen new localities named Shivajinagar and Sambhajipark come into use; in just the same way, in those earlier days, a number of place names were created — Shivapur, Shahabag, Shivapattan, Sambhapur, Jijapur, among others — some of which survived while others vanished in the course of time, leaving no trace behind. At the time of Shivaji's birth, the Badshah and Shahaji Raje had been at war for some six or seven years, and during that span a donkey's plough, as the saying goes, had been driven over Pune — that is, the town was utterly laid waste — and the ancestral jahagir lay in ruins. Preserving what remained of it, and simply staying alive, became Shahaji's foremost concern. The centre of this jahagir was Pune, its protecting fortress was Kondana, and beyond it lay the Maval country, forming the westernmost corner of the Adilshahi kingdom. The chief officer entrusted with the administration of this tract was one Dadaji Kondadev, whose official designation was recorded as 'Namjad Kile Kondana va Mahalanihay Prant Pune' — that is, the appointed governor of Fort Kondana and the surrounding district of Pune. He was thus the administrator both of the fort and of the territory dependent on it, serving under the Bijapur crown. The fort of Kondana was later renamed Sinhagad. Dadaji Kondadev was a Deshastha Brahmin, whose family surname was Gochive, though he is also found referred to by the names Parnerkar and Malthankar. Having spent a great part of his life moving through the Maval country, he possessed a thorough knowledge of its deshmukhs and other leading men and of their ways of dealing, and he had very probably observed at first hand the disciplined administration that Malik Ambar had once established. It was chiefly this Dadaji who rendered Shahaji invaluable assistance in his struggle against the Badshah; and when Shahaji later departed for Karnataka, it was to Dadaji that he entrusted both the management of his jahagir and the care of his family. Dadaji took up this responsibility out of personal devotion to Shahaji, and being a man of exceptional conscientiousness, strict impartiality, and practical judgment, he proved of immense value to Shahaji both in raising young Shivaji and in his early training.

शिवापुर, शहाबाग व पुढील स्थलांतरें

On the road from Pune towards Satara, some eighteen miles along, just short of Bhor, lies a village called Shivapur, popularly known by the combined name Khed-Shivapur, since two villages of nearly the same name stand close together there. It was very probably in this very Shivapur that Jijabai, to keep the infant Shivaji out of Mughal hands, kept him hidden for a time in secret, for the Bhosale family held private land in that locality. On this land Jijabai and Dadaji together planted a mango orchard, still known as Shahabag, which is thought to be a memorial to Shahaji himself; the mangoes from this orchard are sold in the Pune market to this day and are reckoned excellent fruit. It was from this connection with Shivapur that, once the Pune residence (the wada) was completed around 1637, Jijabai brought Shivaji from Shivapur to live there — this is the link between Shivaji's early boyhood and the village of Shivapur. After the family settled at Pune, further new localities came into being. Near Pashan there was a village called Sambhapur, which Jijabai founded and named after her elder son Sambhaji; it survived for some fifty or sixty years until it was destroyed by Damaji Thorat in 1715 and never rose again. Close by, another new village called Jijapur was established, which Shivaji later granted as an inam to one Thakar Upadhye for the worship of Morya; this settlement, too, has since vanished. It seemed useful to gather together here, for reference, all of Shivaji's boyhood migrations from place to place. Pune itself did not prove secure enough from the standpoint of defence, and as the building of Swarajya progressed, the need arose for a more defensible, hill-girded refuge; Dadaji and Jijabai accordingly took shelter at Sinhagad, a move that later gave rise to a dispute which will be recounted in its place. When Sinhagad, too, proved unsuitable for their purposes, they secured a second stronghold to have in hand, taking possession of the fort of Torna. There they unexpectedly came upon buried treasure, which they took as an auspicious sign; but as they set about organizing matters there, so many practical difficulties came to light that Torna did not offer the comforts needed either for residence or for administration. They therefore searched farther beyond it and, coming upon a high rocky spur known as Murumdev's hill, chose it instead and raised suitable buildings upon it. The encampment that grew up at its base during this construction was named Shivapattan, and the fort built above it was, once the kingdom was established, named Rajgad. It would be some twenty years later that Raigad, built further on from Rajgad, became the capital — but that part of the story belongs to what follows.