Who was Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj?

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was the founder of the Maratha kingdom of India.
He was born on February 19, 1630, in Shivner, Poona (now Pune), India. His
kingdom’s security was based on religious toleration and the functional
integration of the Brahmans, Marathas, and Prabhus.

What was the Early life of Shivaji Maharaj?

Shivaji was born when India was under Muslim rule. The Mughals ruled in the
north and the Muslim sultans of Bijapur and Golconda in the south.

Shivaji’s ancestral properties were situated in the Deccan, in the realm of the Bijapur
sultans.

He found the Muslim oppression and religious persecution of the Hindus
intolerable so, by the time he was 16, he convinced himself that he was divinely
chosen for the freedom of Hindus.

He collected a group of followers and began to seize the weaker Bijapur
outposts in 1655. In 1659 the sultan of Bijapur sent an army of 20,000 under
Afẕal Khan to defeat him.

Shivaji, pretending to be frightened, enticed the army deep into a difficult mountain region and then killed Afẕal Khan at a meeting to which he had tempted him by submissive appeals. Overnight, Shivaji had become a formidable warlord, controlling the horses, the guns, and the ammunition of the Bijapur army.

Alarmed by Shivaji’s rising force, the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb ordered his
viceroy of the south to proceed against him. Shivaji raided the viceroy’s
encampment at midnight, in which the viceroy lost his son.

After this, the viceroy withdrew his force. Shivaji provoked the Mughals further by attacking
the rich coastal town of Surat.

Aurangzeb sent his most notable general, Mirza Raja Jai Singh, with about
100,000 men.

This soon forced Shivaji to appeal for peace and to undertake that he and his son would visit Aurangzeb’s court at Agra to be formally accepted as Mughal vassals. In Agra Shivaji and his son were put under house arrest, where they were threatened to be executed.

Escape from Agra

Courageous, Shivaji pretended illness and, as a form of penance, began to send
out immense baskets filled with sweets to be distributed among the poor.

On August 17, 1666, he and his son had themselves carried past their guards in
those baskets.

His supporters welcomed him back as their leader, and within two years he won back all the lost territory and also had expanded his kingdom.

He collected tribute from Mughal regions and raided their rich cities. He
reorganized the troops and established reforms for the welfare of his citizens.

He built a naval force and was the first Indian ruler of his era to use his sea
power for trade as well as for defense.

Provoked by Shivaji’s brilliant rise, Aurangzeb increased torture on Hindus and
imposed a poll tax on them, forced them for conversions, and destroyed
temples, building mosques in their places.

Independent Sovereign

In the summer of 1674, Shivaji had crowned himself as an independent
sovereign.

He ruled his kingdom for six years, through a cabinet of eight ministers called Ashta Pradhan.

After his crowning, his most noteworthy battle was in the south, during which he formed an alliance with the sultans and blocked the spreading of Mughals’ rule over the entire subcontinent.

The stress of guarding his kingdom against its enemies and bitter domestic strife
combined with discord among his ministers brought his end. The Great Shivaji
died after an illness in April 1680, in Rajgarh, his capital.

In an era stained by religious savagery, Shivaji was one of few rulers who
practiced true religious tolerance.