शहाजीराजांचा विजापूर-प्रवेश

Shahaji Raje's valour had first shown itself under the Nizamshahi kingdom of Ahmadnagar. Once that kingdom fell into Mughal hands, he took up service under the Adilshah of Bijapur. Ibrahim Adilshah, the celebrated sultan of Bijapur, died around 1627 — very near the time of Shivaji's own birth. Though a Muslim, he was a man of a compassionate disposition who treated all religions with even-handed regard, and the Hindus of his kingdom came to hold him in such devotion that they conferred on him permanently the title 'Jagadguru.' On his death his son Muhammad Adilshah succeeded to the throne, and he proved to be the very opposite of his father in temperament. It was this Muhammad who took Shahaji into his service, but only on a bond that barred Shahaji from ever setting foot in Maharashtra again; Muhammad Adilshah was thus obliged to find him some employment away from that home territory. The Shah's general was one Randulakhan, and serving as his principal adviser under him was Kanhoji Jedhe, the chief deshmukh of the Maval country. Kanhoji and Shahaji had been bound by a friendship of many years' standing, and it was through Kanhoji's good offices that Shahaji had gained his entry into Bijapur service in the first place. The Shah accordingly sent the two of them on the task of conquering the Karnatak country. Marathas formed a large contingent within the Bijapur army, and the chief reliance for this campaign rested squarely on Kanhoji and Shahaji, with a body of Maval troops serving under their command. Leaving Jijabai and Shivaji behind at Pune, Shahaji Raje set out at once for the Karnatak campaign under the command of the general Randulakhan. Shahaji's elder son, Sambhaji, accompanied him on this expedition as well. The campaign continued without interruption for three full years, and in the course of it every Hindu principality of Karnataka was brought down one after another.

कर्नाटकांतील हिंदु संस्थानांचा विध्वंस

Among the states thus overthrown was Ikkeri, near Bidnur, along with Keladi, Basavapattan, Sagar, Sira, Bangalore, Mysore, Shrirangapattan, Chitradurg, and Kanakagiri — flourishing Hindu principalities, great and small, that had prospered for centuries in that region. Immense accumulations of wealth lay stored up both in these states and in their temples. Nourished by the waters of the Tungabhadra and the Kaveri, the country was rich and fertile; merchants and bankers carried on their trades there in peace. It was this prosperous land that Shahaji was now obliged to lay waste and conquer, adding its riches to the Muslim treasury. What Mahmud of Ghazni and Alauddin Khilji had once inflicted upon northern India in earlier centuries was now re-enacted, in a refined and updated form, upon this Kannada country — and the bitter novelty of it was that a valorous commander of Shahaji's own stature should be the one made to lay this plunder at the feet of the Muslims. It was, in truth, a case of drawing out one thorn with another; and to secure nothing more than his own livelihood, Shahaji found himself compelled to commit this sin of betraying his own faith. At Ikkeri there ruled a Hindu chief named Virabhadra Nayak, and it was he who was ruined by these Muslim conquerors. Temples were pulled down, idols broken, all the wealth of the land seized and carried off to Bijapur, the houses of rich men burned, people forcibly converted, and Hindu women, to save their honour, flung themselves into wells together with their children and gave up their lives; many others were forcibly defiled by the Muslim soldiery. Cannon fire brought ruin upon the whole countryside.

विजापुरास विजयी परतणें

After three successive years of such campaigns, Shahaji Raje and Randulakhan returned in triumph to Bijapur, their plunder loaded upon hundreds of elephants, horses, and camels. On that occasion Muhammad Shah himself rode out as far as the Krishna river to receive them in person, and with the wealth thus brought back he subsequently raised the two great monuments of Bijapur, the Gol Gumbaz and the Ibrahim Rauza. For a Rajput Hindu gentleman of Shahaji's valour to have rendered such service to the Muslim faith, the Shah lavished praise and congratulation upon him without stint. Scholars reckon that the wealth of the Hindus thus acquired by the Muslims amounted to no less than four crore hons — that is, sixteen crore rupees — in value.

जिजाबाई-शिवाजींची व्यथा

When news of Shahaji's exploits reached Jijabai and Shivaji at Pune in due course, the reader may well imagine what they must have felt on hearing it. Even as their own labours in the Maval country were being devoted to the restoration of their own faith, that Shahaji Raje should, at the very same time, be spending his own valour on the destruction of that same faith — what more painful irony could there be! The whole of Shivaji's history is coloured by precisely this domestic contradiction. Shahaji Raje had risen in the world through service to Muslim power beginning with Malik Ambar, while his son Shivaji's entire life's work, as readers know, sprang from the desire to restore his own faith and nation. Shivaji was, for his part, deeply devoted to his father, yet he could never bring himself to approve of his father's faith-destroying occupation. Shahaji himself, and after him his other son Vyankoji, remained immersed in Muslim service to the very end of their lives. When the Adilshah later declared Shivaji a rebel, Shahaji found himself caught in a painful dilemma, and the Shah even had him imprisoned for a time; in that situation Shahaji maintained his own footing by pleading, 'My son does not obey my authority — let the Shah punish him however he sees fit, I raise no objection' — and by this expedient he managed to hold his ground to the end. Yet this contradiction within the family was never truly resolved. This particular, deep-rooted current running through Shivaji's endeavour and through the whole history of the Marathas is one that students of the period must always keep firmly in view. Shivaji was fierce and uncompromising, while Shahaji was moderate and accommodating; Shivaji wanted nothing less than complete Swarajya, while Shahaji could never bring himself to abandon his servitude to Muslim power. It was in this very tension — between a mother's love for her son and a wife's loyalty to her husband — that Jijabai was forced to live and endure; and it was precisely in this trial that her own true, inherent greatness of character came to be revealed. How that came about we shall now go on to understand.