The year was 1895. Under a moonlit night of Madras (now Chennai) summer, a few people had gathered to hear a young monk. In the group was a young doctor. It was a deep interest in spirituality which had brought him there. He had heard about this monk and how his talks were spiritual and mesmerizing as also soothing to the listeners.

In the course of his address, the monk suddenly broke into a song in his flawless melodious voice:

“As forest-fire is to the forest trees, a leopard to the deer-herds,

And a lion to the stately elephants, says Bhushan.

As light is to a patch of darkness, as Krishna was to Kansa,

So was king Shivaji, a lion, towards the clans of Mlechchhas.”

Dr M C Nanjunda Rao, the doctor who came to hear spiritual truths from the sage was shocked. He had read about Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in his history textbooks. The textbooks spoke of Shivaji Maharaj as ‘an upstart robber, a marauder and a treacherous murderer.’ Why was a spiritual monk singing the praise of such a man? On hearing this question, the calm monk flared up and answered:

“… This is what comes of your reading Indian History written by foreigners who have no sympathy for you, nor do they have any respect for your culture, traditions, manners and customs. Is there a greater hero, a greater saint, a greater bhakta and a greater king than Shivaji? Shivaji was the very embodiment of a born ruler of men as typified in your great Epics. He was the type of the real son of India representing the true consciousness of the nation…”

That young monk went on to give a comprehensive yet forceful narration of the life of Chhatrapati Shivaji. All were spellbound. None thought of even taking notes. Fortunately, the doctor later serialized the entire address of that night in Vedanta Kesari magazine of Sri Ramakrishna Mission.

The monk was none other than Swami Vivekananda.

I have narrated this incident to highlight two things. Firstly, the influence Chhatrapati Shivaji had on many of our great leaders in all spheres. And secondly even 130 years later not enough is known about How he was instrumental in ensuring that Hinduism not only survived but also evolved. I will not go into how Chhatrapati Shivaji built his Swarajya from scratch. Much has been written and is widely available for anyone wishing to know. The episodes of Afzal Khan, the escape from Panhala, the martyrdom of Baji Prabhu followed by the attack on Shaiste Khan – are all stuff of legend.

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was born in an India which was very different to the one he left. When he was born, the Mughal empire was at its peak, the Deccan was ruled by Muslim sultanates of Bijapur, Golconda,Bidar,Ahmednagar and Berar and seemed impregnable. At the time of his birth, there had been no Hindu power in the Sahyadris for the past three hundred years!

The Yadavs of Deogiri had ceased being a political power by 1316 AD. The Vijayanagar kingdom of the south and the short-lived rule of Hemchandra Vikramaditya to the north were becoming distant memories. In every direction you looked, the land was being ruled by Turks, Persians, Afghans and Uzbeks. The courtly language everywhere was Persian, the law given on the basis of the Quran and Hadiths. The last great Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar had been eclipsed, and its capital of Hampi completely destroyed two generations before Shivaji birth.

Poverty and decadence had taken over the land and the old practices and customs of Hindus had barely managed to survive. Shorn of royal patronage, and in fact officially persecuted, Hindus no longer enjoy the pomp and splendor of yore. It was an era marked with temple destruction, forced conversions and the like. Without true political power in their hands, life was difficult for the Hindus.

Without the royal patronage offered by the Hindu rulers, Hinduism took a more simplistic form, with focus on Bhakti. A form of simple devotion with emphasis on Kirtan and pravachan by traveling saints. The Hindu religion was kept alive in the face of invasions with the Bhakti Movement, providing the people a much-needed anchor in those trying times. This way, through the route of Bhakti, the saints kept the multitudes within the folds of Hinduism and protected Hindu culture. Thus, their contribution to our country is priceless.

Hindus did manage to rise to high army ranks in the Deccan sultanates, but this was more out of necessity than any magnanimity on part of the rulers. Since the Mughal empire ruling from Delhi in the north, made it difficult to acquire Turks, Afghans, Persians and Uzbek of adequate caliber, they began to recruit locally for certain ranks. The administration was still dominated by foreign elements.

It was in such a social and cultural context that Chhatrapati Shivaji built a polity that was unabashedly Hindu in nature. Chhatrapati Shivaji’s achievement lay in pushing back against the inertia of three hundred years in the Sahyadri when he established his ‘Swarajya’.

Sivaji’s Swarajya

This word Swarajya, belongs really to our ancient philosophical and theological literature. It occurs in the Upanishads to indicate the highest spiritual state, wherein the individual self-stands in conscious union with the Universal or the Supreme-Self. When the self sees and knows whatever is as its own self, it attains Swarajya:— so says the Chhandogya Upanishad. We as Hindus claim to understand this philosophy better, because from Vedic times, our scriptures have known and revered every human individual, whatever his color, creed, country and caste, as Narayana himself. “Har Nar main Narayana”. Every human, the lowest socially as well as the highest, is uniformly saluted by the holiest of our scriptures all over India, as Narayana. This definition of Swarajya is the basis of Swarajya as envisioned by Chhatrapati Shivaji. And this vision of  Swarajya in turn has its roots in the spiritual vision of Bhakti saints of Dakshin Bharat.

Roughly speaking we can say that the history of this religious revival covers a period of nearly five hundred years, and during this period some fifty saints and prophets flourished in this land, who left their mark upon the country and its people indelibly. Particularly in Maharashtra, the Bhakti movement ran parallel to the eclipse of the Hindu power and the rise of the Deccan sultanates.

Interestingly a few of these saints were women, a few were Muslims converts to Hinduism, nearly half of them were Brahmins, while there were representatives in the other half from among all the other castes, kunbis, tailors, gardeners, potters, goldsmiths, repentant prostitutes, and slave girls, even the outcasts Mahars.

What is notable is that the influence of higher spirituality was not confined to this or that class, but permeated deep through all strata of society, male and female, high and low, literate and illiterate, Hindu and Muslims alike.

Far ahead of his time, Shivaji Maharaj, guided by spiritual sages of Bhakti movement, like Sant Tukaram and his own Guru Samartha Ramadas, tried to materialize a society in which diverse communities would be held together by values of spiritual egalitarianism and acceptance of Theodiversity.

Shivaji always gave more importance to worth than birth. He sought the inclusion of the communities, who were in the periphery of the socio-political arena, into the center of Swarajya. Marathas, Kolis, Brahmins, Mahar, Mang, Ramoshi soldiers and tribal communities were included in the military and administrative system of Shivaji. His Swarajya thus paved the foundation for social inclusion and mobility.

He recognized the need for two important developments if the yoke of Islamic rule was to be successfully challenged: One was the return of political power into Hindu hands and the will to sustain it. Second, corollary to the first, was the cultural revival of Hinduism that depended entirely on the success of the first.

When Aurangzeb, in 1688, got Sambhaji, Shivaji’s son, killed, Sidnak Mahar raised a Mahar battalion and it fought valiantly for the Marathas. He was honored by Sambhaji’s son, Shahuji. Sidnak Mahar was made Patil of Kalambi village. The grandson of Sidnak Mahar, also named Sidnak, too fought for the victory of Hindu flag.

After the loss in the second battle of Panipat (1761), it was the victory at the battle of Kharda (1795) that decisively made Maratha confederacy the masters of India. It was the Mahar battalion which played a critical role in the Battle of Kharda.

This is not to say that Sivaji’s Swarajya was a utopia without caste conflicts. There were caste conflicts and forces of social stagnation were still at work. Yet compared to other countries around the world at that time, including in Europe, Swarajya should be considered as the first conscious attempt to break the barriers of social hierarchy, social stagnation and social exclusion.

That the important voices for universal military recruitment in India, against the British colonial policy of martial races/communities, came from Maharashtra, namely Moonje, Ambedkar, Savarkar, is in all probabilities the continuation of the legacy of this inclusive recruitment by the founder of Swarajya.

After that, all social and political movements that happened in India, — Social upliftment, military consolidation, spiritual diversity, democracy — all come from this seed-vision of Shivaji

Thus Sivaji’s Swarajya was propelled by peasants and poets, mystics and militia. In terms of the overall effect and the quantum of impact on human lives, one can say with confidence that Swarajya was more important than the French revolution and Renaissance Enlightenment of the West in making the world more egalitarian. From the Hindu point of view,  Swarajya is a uniquely Hindu nation-building phenomenon.

Shivaji Maratha Confederate – Unabashedly Hindu

Contrary to the views of spin-doctors who want to portray it as secular, Shivaji Maharaj’s ‘Swarajya’ was unabashedly Hindu.

Chhatrapati Shivaji knew his history well. The kingdom of Vijayanagar had been vanquished in 1565 at Talikota. The turning point of the battle had been the declaration of jihad by Adil Shah, which led to two important Muslim commanders-Gilani brothers, of Vijayanagar switching sides, causing mayhem in their own army.

Chhatrapati Shivaji sought to prevent a repeat of that incident. To this end, firstly, he prevented a coalition of the Mughals and Deccan sultanates against him. Second, he also prevented any defection from his ranks. This ruled out any possibility like the defection of the Gilani brothers who, together commanding thousands of troops, had suddenly switched sides from Vijayanagar to Adil Shahi.

A good example of this approach was seen in his Dakshin Digvijay campaign to Gingee.

Chhatrapati Shivaji signed a truce with the Mughals, who were only glad to sign it as they were then engaged in a battle with Bijapur. He sent out presents to the Qutub Shah at Golconda and loudly proclaimed his intention to visit him.

Then he marched through the Adil Shah’s territories at the head of a huge army to reach there. Once in southern India, Chhatrapati Shivaji annexed large portions of the Adil Shah’s territory especially around Gingee and Vellore.

Another point worthy of attention, related to this, is the number of ‘Turkis’ he would then allow to obtain any position of importance in his army or administration. What if one such leader suddenly turns and takes an entire battalion with him? Of course, betrayal on the battlefield was not the preserve of a particular group, as Indian history will unfortunately show. But at least he could prevent a Talikota. 

No Muslim is found in any position of authority in Maratha confederate after 1660. A couple of Muslim administrators existed in the Pune region prior to this, but none after 1660. An infantry commander named Nur Baig disappeared around the same time. There were a couple of Muslim officers in the naval forces, but they were also ousted eventually, as and when Hindus acquired the required skills and experience.

To downplay this approach of the Chhatrapati, a long list of commanders is usually ferreted out to buttress his “secular” credentials.

For our purposes, these information nuggets should suffice:

The Maratha state was a monarchy. The King or the Chhatrapati was the head of the state. He was assisted by a council of eight ministers. The Ashta Pradhan Mandal was a creative genius of Chhatrapati Shivaji. Some historians beleive that the concept of Ashta Pradhan is inspired from ancient hindu tradition- It was the Sukra Niti that propounded the concept of eight ministers. It is important to note that all of his cabinet or Ashta Pradhan were Hindus, bearing Sanskrit titles.

Shivaji Maharaj had 10 bodyguards with him on that fateful day when he killed Afzal Khan. Only one of them was a Muslim. While his importance is not diminished, his genesis is worth noting. He was the adopted/purchased servant of Kheloji Bhosale and had been brought up in a Hindu household since he was a child.

There are at least two known examples of Chhatrapati Shivaji having demolished mosques or churches that were built after demolishing a temple at the site and restoring the temple. He did it not out of spite for any religion, but to show that such acts would not be a one-way traffic.

The temple of Saptkoteshwar in Goa was initially destroyed by the Bahamani sultans but rebuilt by the Vijayanagar kingdom. It was again destroyed by the Portuguese who built a church in its place. It was this church that was pulled down by Chhatrapati Shivaji in 1668 and the present temple built on it.

In southern India, on his Dakshin Digvijay campaign, Chhatrapati Shivaji destroyed the mosque at Tiruvannamalai and rebuilt the temple.

One can only imagine how moral boosting the rebuilding of temples would have been for the Hindus, suffering from three centuries of persecution.

Chhatrapati Shivaji ensured that his Swarajya had a distinctly Hindu look and feel to it, far removed from the prevailing Mughal and Adil Shahi courts. He focused his attention on various cultural aspects while paying equal attention to the administration.

He established a seal in Sanskrit, marking a break from the prevalent Persian. On the topic of language, he also commissioned the Raj Vyavhar Kosh, a work aimed at cleansing the Marathi language of Arabic and Persian influences. He ensured that Marathi became the court language at Raigad. The contemporary court language was Persian, which only a tiny fraction of the populace understood. Shivaji Maharaj immediately endeared his rule to the people by dropping Persian. Court proceedings would now be done in people’s own mother tongue — an event they waited for three centuries to see.

Chhatrapati Shivaji also did away with Persian coinage and minted his own coins with the words ‘Shiv’ and ‘Chhatrapati’ clearly mentioned on them in the Devanagari script.

Chhatrapati Shivaji also started a regnal era. The Muslim rulers used the Islamic Hijri era which was replaced by the Shiv Shak in the territories ruled by Chhatrapati Shivaji. The Shak Samvat, though in use, was mainly for religious purposes. The regnal era established by Shivaji was in use till the beginning of British rule. (Interesting to note that India adopted the calendar based on the Saka era as a national calendar in 1957).

Every time a Mughal emperor ascended the throne the Khutbah was read in his name in all the principal mosques of the empire. This involved invoking Allah, the Prophet Mohammed, the first caliphs followed by the various adherents of the Timur dynasty including the newly crowned emperor.

At such a time, Chhatrapati Shivaji carried out a coronation ceremony which adhered to the Hindu shastras. It was a Rajyabhishek, where an abhishek of the great ruler was ritually carried out to place him as a representative of the gods. The Chhatrapati carried a gold idol of Vishnu in his hands as he ascended the throne meant to represent the king of gods — Indra. The coronation of Chhatrapati Shivaji showed the Hindus that the tree of Hinduism is not really dead; but like the Akshaya Vat tree, it can spring forth new leaves and raise its head to the skies again.

At the other durbars in India, the law was guided by the Sharia and the rulers would seek the guidance of the clerics to deliver the same. Chhatrapati Shivaji put an end to this practice. He in turn appointed a Pandit Rao to help him interpret the Hindu texts on which to mold the governance of his kingdom. Thus Chhatrapati Shivaji’s court at Raigad in 1674 denoted a clear break from three centuries of foreign rule.

The close connection between the religious and political upheaval in Maharashtra is a fact of such importance, that those who have tried to interpret the raise of Chhatrapati Shivaji and Maratha to power as a purely political phenomenon, have rendered it as just a story of adventure without any abiding moral or cultural hues.

In conclusion I would like to say that not only did Chhatrapati Shivaji laid the foundation of the Maratha Confederate, but he also protected the Vedas, the Purana and ensured the name of Ram lived in people’s hearts. (He) Protected the choti of the brahmins, and the roti of soldiers. He protected the janeu on the shoulder and the prayer beads in the hand of the common Hindus. No wonder history calls him “Shivaji the Great”.