बालराजाची मिरवणूक

For a mere handful of untrained young men to check a mighty kingdom seated firm through years of established power was an undertaking of the utmost difficulty. All the more so because Shahaji Raje himself was a loyal servant of Bijapur, Jijabai was, after all, only a woman of the household, and even Dadaji was himself a paid officer in Bijapur's service. In these circumstances the young Shivaji spoke with Dadaji openly and frankly, and won him wholeheartedly to his side. Dadaji's standing and reputation across the whole Pune-Bijapur region were well established and widely respected. He took the first and most essential precaution: he made certain the Muslim authorities were never given the slightest suspicion of what he and the boy were actually about. The Maval country was poor and backward; Dadaji framed their whole activity in the language of improving agriculture and industry there, relieving the people's poverty, and establishing order so that ordinary life could proceed without fear — representing this, that is, as work that would only strengthen Muslim rule itself. It was under this plausible cover that their first, open undertaking got under way, with full agreement between the two of them. Dadaji's word carried great weight among the people, and he now began touring from village to village with the young Shivaji at his side, holding panchayats, settling disputes, arranging for tanks and wells to secure the water supply, and hearing out the people's grievances — this was the open, visible work that Dadaji set in motion. He had the boy Shivaji dressed in fine clothes and seated in every assembly in the place of honour, as though he were the master himself: a turban on his head with a plume tossing in the wind above it, a sword at his waist, a spear in hand — and when this child-Krishna-like figure took his seat on the high dais at these gatherings, the people felt as though God himself had sent them this new master. Dadaji would rise in the assembly and declare, 'This is now your lord; you must live in obedience to his command. If you go astray he will discipline you; if you conduct yourselves rightly he will do great good for you all.' In this manner a new spirit of vitality stirred through the Maval country. People who had grown listless under centuries of servitude found themselves lifted by a fresh enthusiasm; within a short time they began to say, our own king has come, and they took to bowing before him — his very words were received with reverence, and the whole region hummed, like a beehive, with a demand to move forward with the work still ahead.

मावळांतील नवचैतन्य

Within two or three years this new wind of change had become plainly visible. Revenue from the district began coming in properly. With village guards now appointed, people's livelihoods proceeded without hindrance; foxes, wild boar, hares and other such creatures, which had been ravaging the crops, were now kept in check, and agricultural yields rose accordingly. Dadaji instituted the discipline of submitting the full accounts of the jahagir to Shahaji Raje year by year, laying his own expenditure open to him, and conducting all business strictly under his authority. Hearing that Jijabai and Shivaji's circumstances were steadily improving, Shahaji Raje was well pleased. Jijabai herself would sit in open court and render judgments and settle disputes; the decisions she gave in this capacity survive and are available even today.

शिवाजीचें धार्मिक व नैतिक शिक्षण

Even while this outward work of administration went forward, Jijabai took care, within the Pune residence itself, to arrange for Shivaji's religious and moral instruction. She expressly appointed a puranik, so that Shivaji would hear the Ramayana and the Mahabharata read and expounded along with the wider dharmic tradition, and she engaged a tutor, a pantoji, to teach him reading, writing, and accounts. Within the household, occasions of storytelling and devotional singing were arranged as time allowed, and nearby, at Lohgaon, where Tukaram Baba held his kirtans, Shivaji loved to go as well. His mother was, to him, his highest deity; her happiness became the chief joy of his own existence, and this feeling only deepened with time. Whenever he set out on one of his expeditions he would first bow to his mother before leaving, holding it in his mind always that her loving blessing stood constantly at his back, protecting him. On his return he would tell her, one by one, of his various bold exploits, and hearing them gave her a joy nothing short of ecstatic; even the sky itself seemed to shrink before her happiness. Across this Maval country skirting the Sahyadri, Shivaji went on foot and on horseback and surveyed for himself every fort large and small, every hidden pathway, every mountain pass, and every point of defence. He learned at first hand how the watchmen posted at the various forts actually went about their duties, and which of them were given to vice or plain negligence. Everywhere he went he came upon the harsh realities of Muslim oppression — Hindu temples and the houses of wealthy bankers plundered and carried off by Muslim officials met his eye time and again. Witnessing this filled him with rage, and he would take up the matter with his companions, weighing it over and discussing possible remedies; out of these deliberations plans of action were always carefully worked out. Among this circle a conviction steadily took shape: we too are human beings just as they are, we too possess strength, and if we truly apply ourselves we can meet their oppression with a fitting resistance of our own.

उद्योगाची हळूहळू जडणघडण

It is experience that makes a person wise; when necessity presses, a way forward tends to suggest itself. Not everything in this whole undertaking was perfectly conceived from the very outset. Much as children's play gradually grows, in later years, into the building of a household, something of the same kind happened with Shivaji's endeavour — it too matured only by degrees. That his father was absent through these years must, in fact, be counted something of an advantage, for it meant that the work of the jahagir proceeded under a single guiding hand, without splintering into rival factions. And because of this, the idea that the organizing of the common people might, in time, pose a real threat did not occur to anyone outside at first — nor, indeed, did it occur even to the Adilshah himself, for the Adilshah's entire confidence in this matter rested on his own subedar, Dadaji Kondadev; and since Dadaji himself was party to this very movement, no alarm was ever raised beyond its bounds. There was, however, another eruption that did occur, and that story must now be told.