बाळपणची तळमळ

Shivaji was born at Shivneri, near Junnar, which lay at the northern tip of the Bhosale jahagir. From there southward, all the way down to Wai, across the rugged Maval tract of the Sahyadri, he ranged and roamed as he grew, becoming a familiar figure throughout the region, and his earliest years took on something of a wild, untamed cast. Wandering through this wild and naturally beautiful country became, in his boyhood, his consuming passion. Hundreds of contemporary papers describing the condition of this region at that time have since been published, and from them we can form a fair picture of Shivaji's early years. Dadaji and Jijabai found themselves compelled, if only to secure the means of subsistence, to improve this portion of the jahagir and raise its revenue. Lawlessness had spread on every side, and their first task was to put an end to it and establish order and a regular system of justice. They appointed village officers, maintained a local militia, devised measures to improve cultivation and increase output, and encouraged the people to turn to peaceful pursuits. Towards this end they first set their own residence at Pune in proper order, building there a modest mansion that became known for many years afterward as Lalbagh; today that site bears the name Jijamatabag.

शिवाजीची मदतीची तयारी

When Shivaji, brought out of his period of concealment, first came to live in this mansion, he noticed the constant bustle and hurried activity of work and people on every side, and he turned to his mother with a question: 'Mother, what is all this commotion about? You seem anxious and troubled — tell me, is there some task, however small, in which I, young as I am, could lend you a hand?' Hearing her son speak with such composure, Jijabai felt both delighted and deeply gratified. She turned to Dadaji and said, 'The boy is asking; you yourself should answer him properly. It is better that from now on he knows all our affairs — who we are, what our present condition is, and how we are to make our way forward. He ought to understand all this clearly. Shahaji Raje has placed this boy entirely in your hands.' Acting on this, Dadaji took Shivaji aside and gave him a full account of the events of the preceding four or five years. The substance of what Dadaji told him was this: 'Raje, you are still young and do not know our present circumstances. You are the son of that valiant Shahaji Raje, who today has had to withdraw into a distant country merely to save his life. All of us — you and I alike — are living in a kind of exile. We do not even have a settled place to lie down or sit in peace. For seven years now that Mughal Badshah has harried and tormented us; against his overwhelming power, Shahaji Raje could not possibly hold his ground, and it is fortunate enough that he escaped with his life. For fifteen years I have served Shahaji Maharaj, and our future now depends entirely on your own conduct and ability; this body of mine has grown up wholly under his protection. This ancestral jahagir of Pune lies utterly shattered, and only by setting it properly in order again will we be able to survive at all. For years now troubles have pursued us relentlessly. The Muslims have let loose havoc on every side — they summoned a valiant commander like Lakhujirao Jadhavrao to an audience and treacherously put him to death. Shahaji Raje's own mother, Deepabai, belonged to the Nimbalkar family; her brother Bajaji Nimbalkar, who held the Phaltan jahagir, was likewise summoned by the Shah of Bijapur on the pretext of an audience, and there, without cause, subjected to persecution and forcibly given Muslim initiation. To this day he lives at Bijapur, having set up a household in an alien faith — what a degradation of our own religion this is! It is by God's grace alone that no such fate has ever befallen your own mother.'

शिवाजीचा संकल्प

Hearing this account of the family's recent past, the young Shivaji fell silent, struck dumb; within him a fierce indignation kindled, and through that indignation the first faint stirring of his future life's purpose began to churn in his heart. From that moment his thinking began to take on a new cast. The resolve first arose in his mind then that this life should be given over entirely to the restoration of his nation and faith — and that single resolve he held to, without wavering, to the very end of his days. The first part of this great undertaking was to set the jahagir itself in order; after that would come the organizing of his own people into a coherent body; and only gradually, step by step, would it become possible to check the tyranny of Muslim rule. How he set about these various tasks one after another, and how, to make this possible, he first shaped and prepared himself — that story must now be told. Shivaji's jahagir comprised twelve Mavals lying under Junnar and twelve more under Pune, and over this difficult terrain Muslim authority had never been fully established. A 'Maval' is properly a valley enclosed between two ranges of hills with a small stream running through its middle; each Maval had a deshmukh in charge of it and a deshpande, a clerk, to keep its accounts — two officers to a Maval. Shivapur, where Shivaji had spent part of his concealed boyhood, was itself one such Maval. It was across this tract — stretching some hundred and fifty miles in length from Junnar down to Wai, and about thirty miles in breadth — that Shivaji's seven or eight childhood years passed; and in that span he traversed the whole of this country himself, took the measure of its people, learned their customs and ways, and built his later undertaking on that accumulated experience. Because this tract lay to the west, the mavalti, of Pune, it came to be called the Maval country, and its inhabitants came to be known as Mavales — a term covering the full eighteen castes and communities of the region: deshmukhs, deshpandes, and the common cultivating peasantry alike. Having grown up in this hill country, climbing difficult ground and undertaking bold, hazardous work had become second nature to them.

समकालीन साक्ष: शिवाजीचें भ्रमण

One contemporary testimony — given at a time when Shivaji's true worth had not yet become evident to people, and when many feared that this restless boy might get himself into some reckless trouble — records an answer given to just such an anxious inquiry, offered by a man who describes himself as having observed Shivaji's activities closely for eight years. He says: 'For eight years now I have watched this Shivaji's doings closely, and I marvel at his intelligence and his stamina. He is forever roving, day and night, village after village, through every season, indifferent to heat, rain, hunger, or thirst. He will walk into any hut he comes upon, beg and eat whatever morsel is offered him, spend the night there, mix freely with the people, question them endlessly, set their minds at ease, and draw out of them everything — matters of theft and crime, of religion and irreligion, of custom and conduct. In this wandering he seems to lose all track of how much time has passed; he will stay away, out of his own district, for months on end, while his poor mother sits at home in constant anxiety, not knowing where he is, what he is doing, or whether he will return safely at all. Yet when he does return and meets her face to face, he tells his mother of all his experiences and plans, and she cannot help but marvel at him with delight. 'He learns at first hand how Muslim officials plunder people, force conversions on them, break open temples, loot property, and carry off women, heedless of justice or injustice — as though he personally sets right the misrule of an entire lawless realm. He tells people, take heart, why do you endure this oppression — why do you not strike back whenever the moment offers? And even as he speaks this way, he has already gathered around himself, great and small, a considerable body of followers. No one else has so truly tested the mettle of men as he has. He labours himself in mud and rain, swims rivers and streams, takes on dangerous undertakings with his own hands, wrestles, rides horses, wields spear and sword — fear is a thing quite unknown to him. Night makes no difference to him, nor darkness; he is constantly testing and proving himself. He is a consummate master of assuming any disguise he pleases, and his skill at taking on countless different guises to gather intelligence from the outside world is beyond compare. His speech, moreover, is so winning that once a man has met him, that man is his devoted follower for life. He is forever inquiring whether some saint, some extraordinary personage, or some man of rare skill can be found anywhere; and when he does find such a person he will sit for hours together, testing and appraising his powers. Is it not the renowned Tukaram Baba of Dehu? — whenever his kirtan is held, Shivaji will lose himself in it, forgetting hunger and thirst alike. Wherever he goes he gathers companions about him and talks of battles and feats of valour. As for his swiftness, it beggars description — here today, fifty miles off tomorrow; this restless wandering is his constant habit, and no one has the courage to stand up before him. Whatever skill he comes across, he has made it his own. His mimicry of the calls of birds and beasts is so flawless that listeners are easily deceived by it. Difficulty and danger seem simply unknown to him. He has a keenly resourceful mind, and most of the lesser and greater deshmukhs of the Maval country are already devoted followers of his.'

जिजाबाई-दादाजींचें उदार पालकत्व

That such a boy should have found, in Jijabai, a mother of such shrewd discernment, and in Dadaji Kondadev, a guide of such disinterested devotion, must be counted the good fortune of Maharashtra itself. Neither of them ever once tried to check the boy's consuming passion; instead they listened to all he told them, encouraged him in it, pointed out to him, as occasion required, what was good and what was ill-advised, and gave him whatever warnings were necessary. In this way, little by little, his following grew — from a mere fifty or so at first to thousands in time — and even men well practised in every sort of wrongdoing became his followers, turning their particular skills at last to worthy purpose. They built up a clear picture of where the local Muslim officials were stationed, how they conducted themselves, what garrisons the various forts held, and how much resistance those garrisons could be expected to offer should a sudden assault be made upon them. At temples and shrines, on festival days, at fairs, markets, and pilgrim gatherings of every kind, Shivaji and his companions would mingle outwardly as ordinary participants while thoroughly reconnoitring the true state of affairs within the Maval country. They trained themselves in horsemanship, standard-bearing and military drill, wrestling, gymnastics, and hunting, and through these pursuits built up their organization. They mixed as well among troupes of tamasha players, rope-walkers, snake-charmers, and conjurers and other such skilled folk, using this cover to keep advance intelligence of the sudden thefts and raids that commonly occurred at weddings, festivals, and other public gatherings, and devised countermeasures against them in good time. Shivaji had, besides, a great fondness for hearing lavanis and powadas — folk songs and ballads of valour. Reading the temper of every man he met, he and his companions grew masterly in assuming, at a moment's notice, whatever disguise the occasion demanded. The constant, shared preoccupation of this whole circle was how, by their own organization, they might set a check upon Muslim power — and it was here, in these years, that the vision of Swarajya first began to glimmer on the horizon of possibility.