Shivaji : (1627/30-80) Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was born in at Shivneri, a hill fort near Pune. Since his father Shāhāji Raje Bhonsle, employed as an officer in the army of the Sultan of Bijāpur, was often absent, he was brought up by mother Jijābai & guardian Dādāji Kondadev who trained him in the art of warfare & administration, & his guru Swami Ramdas Samartha inspired him with the noble & patriotic ideas & infused in him love for the religion & the motherland. From early teens he mixed with young mawalis (a hardy hill tribe) & organizing them into a loyal guerrilla force began to raid neighbouring territories. Beginning with the fort of Torṇa, about twenty miles from Pune, he captured the forts of Chakan, Singhaghad & Purandhar, situated within the territories of the Sultanate of Bijāpur. By 1655 he had occupied the northern part of Konkaṇ on the coast & the fort of Javāli. In 1659 the Sultan of Bijāpur sent a large army under a senior general named Afzal Khan, with instructions to kill him & bring the corpse to his court. Shivaji managed to outwit & kill Afzal Khan who tried to stab him to death after inviting him for negotiations in his camp. Shivaji went on to capture Pratapghad, the Sultan’s fort. The second army sent by the Sultan also failed to subdue him & Shivaji captured his weapons, horses, elephants & warfare materials. Emboldened Shivaji began raiding Mogul territories. Aurangzeb sent an army under Shaista Khan who occupied Pune; Shivaji made a surprise attack. Shaista Khan escaped after most his army was decimated. The second army of Aurangzeb, under Kartalab Khan, met with the same fate. In 1664, Shivaji sacked Surat. But he was defeated by his fellow Hindu king Raja Jai Singh of Amber who had sold his soul to Aurangzeb. By the terms of the treaty of Purandhar, Shivaji ceded 23 forts & acknowledged Aurangzeb’s supremacy. Unwarily, he fell into the trap laid by Jai Singh & allowed himself to be capture & imprisoned when he accepted to go to Aurangzeb’s court in Agra. But soon he escaped & crowned himself an independent ruler & assumed the title of Chhatrapati. Turning south, he conquered Ginjee, Vellore & a large part of Thanjavur. ― The most significant achievement of Shivaji was the welding of the Marathas into a nation. He infused a new spirit of unity & dignity into the Maratha people consisting of 96 clans. In recruitment to services Shivaji showed no partiality to any community. There was no discrimination, no casteism, & no communalism. He, however, laid emphasis on the recruitment of the son of the soil. Prominent among the saintly persons whom Shivaji admired were Tukārām, Baba Yakub, Mauni Baba, etc. Sanskrit poets like Jairam, Paramānanda, Gaga Bhatt, & some Hindi poets received his patronage. Administration: Largely borrowed from the administrative practices of the Deccan states modified by Kautilya’s Arthaśāstra & the Dharma shastras. Shivaji was assisted by a council of ministers. Territories under his direct rule, i.e., which had acquired Swaraj, were divided into provinces while preserving the age old system of Panchayats in the rural areas. The revenue system: An elaborate survey of the land fixed the rent at 33 per cent of the gross produce. Shivaji afterwards demanded a consolidated rent of 40 per cent. Chauth & Sardeshmukhi, the main sources of income, were levied on territories not under his direct control. Chauth or one fourth of the standard revenue was exacted as protection money & against raids by Shivaji’s parties. And territories & principalities which in addition to chauth paid an additional tax called Sardeshmukhi received Marathi protection against other invaders. Both the taxes together made a sizeable income for the Maratha kings. The Armed Forces: Shivaji created & maintained an organized & disciplined army consisting of infantry, cavalry & navy & a well-paid & efficient intelligence or espionage wing. The army mostly composed of light infantry & light cavalry was admirably well-adapted to guerrilla warfare & hill campaign. Forts played an important role in Shivaji’s military system. Every fort was kept under three officers of equal status. They acted together but served as a check on one another. The navy possessed about 200 warships whose job was to protect coastal fortresses. The Portuguese, the British, the Africans & the Moguls were thus effectively kept in check. “In his private life, Shivaji remained immune from the prevalent vices of the time, & his moral virtues were exceptionally high. Sincerely religious from his early life, he did not forget the lofty ideals with which he had been inspired by his mother & his Guru Samartha Rāmdās (q.v.), in the midst of political & military duties. He sought to make religion a vital force in the uplifting of the Maratha nation & always extended his patronage to Hindu religion & learning. “Religion remained with him,” remarks a modern Marathi writer, “an ever-fresh fountain of right conduct & generosity; it did not obsess him mind or harden him into a bigot.” Tolerant of other faiths, he deeply venerated Muslim saints & granted rent-free lands to meet the expenses of illumination of Muslim shrines & mosques, & his conduct towards the Capuchin father (Christian monks) of Surat, during its first sack by him, was respectful. Even his bitterest critic, Khafi Khan, writes: “But he made it a rule that whenever his followers went plundering, they should do no harm to the mosques, the Book of God, or the women of any one. Whenever a copy of the Quran came into his hands he treated it with respect & gave it to some of his Muhammedan followers. When the women of any Hindu or Muhammedan were taken prisoners by his men, he watched over them until their relations came with a suitable ransom to buy their liberty.” [R.C. Majumdar et al, An Advanced History of India, 3rd Ed., 1973, 1974.]
... Early Cultural Writings Shivaji, Jaysingh 26-December-1920 JAYSINGH Neither of us has prevailed. A third force has entered into the land and taken the fruits of your work, and as for mine, it is broken; the ideal I cherished has gone down into the dust. SHIVAJI For the fruit I did not work and by the failure I am not amazed nor discouraged... Page 484 judge him; it was not my office. SHIVAJI God also appoints the man who rebels and refuses to prolong unjust authority by acquiescence. He is not always on the side of power; sometimes He manifests as the deliverer. JAYSINGH Let Him come down Himself, then, as He promised. Then alone would rebellion be justified. SHIVAJI From whence will He come down who is here already in... Therefore I could not accept your overtures. But I gave you the opportunity to accept my own tradition and, when faith was not kept with either of us, I saved my honour and assisted your escape. SHIVAJI God extended to me His protection and moved the heart of a woman to give me love and aid. Traditions change. The ideal of the Rajput has its future, but the mould had to be broken in order that what ...
... three years later, he likewise revived the Shivaji Festival, galvanising public enthusiasm on the issue of-it wasn't opportune to be too clear at the time about the ends! Ganapati was a very pleasant God, and Shivaji was the greatest of the Mahratta heroes: what was wrong in celebrating them? But Ganapati was also the slayer of the demon Gajasura, and Shivaji had given a crippling blow to the great... assumed a religious character, and the question now before the people is whether India - the India of the holy Rishis, the India that gave birth to a Rama, a Krishna and a Buddha, the India of Shivaji and Guru Gobinda - is destined for ever to lie prostrate at the proud feet of a conqueror. 21 And in a later essay, the Bande Mataram affirmed that, "according to the Hindu idea of patriotism... speech or two. On the 24th January, he spoke at Nasik on Swaraj: the favourite theme - Swaraj was amrta, Swaraj was mukti, and this was true as much for the individual as for the nation. Hadn't Shivaji, inspired by the gospel of Tukaram and Ramdas, led the country to freedom? That miracle could be re-enacted once more. On the 26th at Dhulia, the subject being Swadeshi and Boycott. At Amraoti on ...
... rout began. Sure-footed, swift Shouting aloud and singing to the hills A song of Ramdas as he smote and slew. 44 But Shivaji himself stands silent by Baji's prone body, and a vision - terrible and inspiring at once - overwhelms and sustains him: But Shivaji beside the dead beheld A dim and mighty cloud that held a sword And in its other hand, where once the head Depended... Following the Western epic tradition, Sri Aurobindo will not give us a moment's respite, but fairly plunges - in medias res - into the middle of things. After fighting a disastrous battle, Shivaji is in hot retreat, with the. enemy in close pursuit: Silently with set And quiet faces grim drew fighting back The strong Mahrattas to their hills; only Their rear sometimes... like a wild wave Of onset or a cliff against the surge. At last they reached a tiger-throated gorge; Upon the way to Raigurh.. Narrowing there The hills draw close... 36 Shivaji, in dire extremity, entrusts to Baji Prabhou the defence of that crucial gorge. Baji accepts the charge with an eloquent asseveration (of his faith to Malsure: not in this living net Of flesh ...
... Chief, Tanaji Malsure, that living sword: "Not for this little purpose was there need To call the Prabhou from his toil. Enough, Give me five hundred men; I hold the pass Till thy return." But Shivaji kept still His great and tranquil look upon the face Of Baji Prabhou. Then, all black with wrath, Wrinkling his fierce hard eyes, the Malsure: "What ponders then the hero? Such a man Of men, he... Lower in crest, strong-framed, the Rajputs marched; The chivalry of Agra led the rear. Then Baji first broke silence, "Lo, the surge! That was but spray of death we first repelled. Chosen of Shivaji, Bhavani's swords, For you the gods prepare. We die indeed, But let us die with the high-voiced assent Of Heaven to our country's claim enforced To freedom." As he spoke, the Mogul lines Entered... "Exhaust the stubborn mountaineers; for now Fatigued with difficult effort and success They hardly stand, weary, unstrung, inert. Scatter this fringe, and we march on and seize Raigurh and Shivaji." Meanwhile, they too Not idle, covered by the rocks and trees, Straining for vantage, pausing on each ledge, Seizing each bush, each jutting promontory, Some iron muscles, climbing, of the south ...
... into a high religious experience. In fact, the principal merit of the poem is the completely satisfying manner in which the author has revealed the spiritual heart of the Mahratta insurgence under Shivaji, the flaming inspiration of the patriot saint Ram-das which made the former a leader of men who thought and felt and acted as if they were instruments of a divine Power Bhavani, the Goddess believed... at the charge, the surf of steel About them and behind, as they recoiled Or circled, where the footmen ran and fired, And fired again and ran. Then follows an account of how Shivaji had hoped the same morning to take by storm a favourable mountain fortress and command the whole stretch of the adjacent territory but had been driven back by an overwhelming number of Moguls to his... gallops to the Chief, who shows him the strategic position of the gorge and asks him to crown his career of heroism by posting himself there with a picked company in order to hold the enemy at bay till Shivaji should return with reinforcements from Raigurh: "Say with what force thy iron heart can hold The passage till I come. Thou seest our strength, How it has melted like the Afghan's ice ...
... d conviction of the old guards of the Congress in the moral basis and foundation of British rule in India was still shared by Bepin Chandra during 1901-2.... " 69 In 1902, on the occasion of the Shivaji Festival celebrated in Calcutta, he said among other things: "...And we are loyal, because we believe in the workings of the Divine Providence in our national history, both ancient and modem; because... the country, isolating it from other parts of the world, argues its separate national existence. Italy, which is isolated like India, achieved national independence within a space of thirty years. Shivaji, Akbar, Ashoka as well as the Rishis of old are amongst the component parts of the Indian nation. Let us learn from Japan how to awaken the national spirit among the people by a contemplation of... kept in view in guiding the movement for national education in Bengal. In teaching geography, we impress upon the minds of our students that India is their motherland, and that Maharashtra produced Shivaji, that the Punjab was once ruled by Ranjit Singh, and that the Himalayas gave shelter to our ancient Rishis. History and philosophy, too, are taught in a similar manner with a view to awaken the ...
... or worshippers of Ahimsa." 138. How topical it reads today! "On June 1897, on the occasion of the Shivaji festival, Tilak delivered a speech expressing the views that 'great men are above the principles of common morality', and thus justifying the murder of Afzal Khan by Shivaji." — The Indian Nationalist Movement by Dr. S.C. Bartarya. 139. Sarala Devi Choudhurani, the well-known... 77. It is recorded that, during the Mutiny of 1857, behind most of the bands of the insurgents, there were Gurus or religious leaders as the source of inspiration and direction. What could Shivaji have achieved without his Guru, the Yogi Ramdas? There was spiritual power behind the creation and organisation of the Sikh militia. In this connection, the following historical account makes interesting... sufferance is to preach varna- sankara. {ibid.) "The sword of the warrior is as necessary to the fulfilment of justice and righteousness as the holiness of the saint. Ramdas is not complete without Shivaji. To maintain justice and prevent the strong from despoiling and the weak from being oppressed is the function for which the Kshatriya was created. 156 'Therefore', says Sri Krishna in the Mahabharata ...
... PURANI: Sardesai makes out in the course of a talk that Shivaji had no political guidance from Ramdas: Ramdas refused to give any when Shivaji approached him. This is something new. SRI AUROBINDO: What about the ochre-coloured flag? A legend? PURANI: He says that Ramdas gave him advice about the succession to the throne when Shivaji wanted his second son to come to the throne instead of Shambhuji ...
... public life demands. Recently a movement was set on foot in the Deccan to celebrate Mr. Tilak's birthday and pay to the great Mahratta leader almost the same honours as are paid to the memory of Shivaji in the Shivaji Utsav. The whole of Maharashtra prepared to go mad with a frenzy of hero-worship when everything was brought to a sudden end by prompt and imperative prohibition from Mr. Tilak himself. This ...
... Vijayanagara, held its own for centuries against Islam in the hills of Rajputana, and in its worst days still built and maintained against the whole power of the ablest of the Moguls the kingdom of Shivaji, formed the Mahratta confederacy and the Sikh Khalsa, undermined the great Mogul structure and again made a last attempt at empire. On the brink of the final and almost fatal collapse in the midst... life under the old conditions, but neither proved to be of a kind that could solve the problem. The Mahratta revival inspired by Ramdas's conception of the Maharashtra Dharma and cast into shape by Shivaji was an attempt to restore what could still be understood or remembered of the ancient form and spirit, but it failed, as all attempts to Page 443 revive the past must fail, in spite of ...
... does not the image of Delhi as it was during Emperor Akbar's time stand before your mind's eye? That is why, in speaking of the nation, we should recall the great achievements of our ancestors; then Shivaji, Asoka and Akbar at once become an integral part of our nationhood. So too the ancient Rishis. This is taken for granted. If we look at Japan, we see that the Japanese people never forget their ancestors... our rivers, Ganga, Jamuna, Narmada, etc., and what these rivers mean, not merely where they flow. In our national schools, when we teach the children about Maharashtra we describe the land in which Shivaji lived. Speaking about Punjab, we tell the children about the Punjab of Ranjit Singh. Speaking about the geography of the Himalayas, we teach them how the land of the Himalayas has become holy because ...
... of the world we find men of action, great dynamic personalities to be mostly not spiritual but rather mundane in their character and outlook? Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Chandragupta, Akbar, even Shivaji, were not spiritual personalities; their actions were of the world and of worldly nature. And the force they wielded cannot be described as spiritual, and yet how effective it was, what mighty changes... and felt and said that he was only one of hundreds of Vivekanandas that his simple and, modest-looking Guru could create if he chose. Even so a Ramdas. Ramdas was not merely a spiritual adviser to Shivaji, concerned chiefly with the inner salvation and development of his disciple, and only secondarily with the gross material activities, the things of Caesar. The two domains are not separate at least ...
... could not have been possible if the whole country had possessed an organised network of rebels, all trained in guerilla warfare? Our huge country is an ideal setting for this type of warfare which Shivaji and the Marathas had used with so much success, attacking and destroying the government's forces with silent, deadly stealth." "But what about the repercussions? Wouldn't the government retaliate... about Lele, haven't you? Barin knew him. He had invited Lele to meet the young revolutionaries and, if he agreed, to teach them Yoga so that they might be trained to become great and fearless like Shivaji. Lele knew nothing of Barin's secret activities, but the moment he realised what was going on he advised him to give them up. 'You won't succeed,' he said. 'You will get caught and the consequences ...
... whose views agree with the Mirror 's. Mr. Tilak, we learn, has seriously offended our contemporary by giving honour to Mr. Bhopatkar on his release from jail; his speeches on the occasion of the Shivaji festival were displeasing to the thoughtful and enlightened men who congregate in the office of the Indian Mirror ; and to sum up the whole matter, he is a man of extreme views and without "tact"... he thinks. It is not the one man whom the whole Hindu community in Western India delights to honour, from Peshawar to Kolhapur and from Bombay to our own borders; it is one who will not talk about Shivaji and Bhavani—only about Mahatmas. It is not the man who has suffered and denied Page 116 himself for his country's sake and never abased his courage nor bowed his head under the most crushing ...
... On the other hand the strength and success of the Marathas and Sikhs in the eighteenth century was due to the policy of Shivaji and Guru Govind which called the whole nation into the fighting line. They failed only because the Marathas could not preserve the cohesion which Shivaji gave to their national strength or the Sikhs the discipline which Guru Govind gave to the Khalsa. Is it credible that a ...
... sannyasis were well-versed in guerilla warfare. The Sepoy mutiny of 1857 had a number of sadhus and gurus as motivators too. Spiritual backing of armed conflict was always present in the Indian tradition. Shivaji had as his inspiration the great Yogi Ramdas. The Sikh militias were raised in the bosom of spiritual power. No wonder that Hem Chandra Kanungo, whom Sri Aurobindo initiated into... Madras, Lord William Bentinck his job. At the time of the revolt, the fort - a late 14th-century Vijayanagara construction of European design encased by a crocodiles-infested moat, captured by Shivaji in 1677, and garrisoned by the East India Company in 1768 - comprised four companies of His Majesty's 69th Regiment, six companies of the 1st Battalion, 1st Regiment, and the whole of the 2nd Battalion ...
... encouraged and almost induced him to break away from the bonds of love and fare forward seeking avenues of heroic action. Baji Prabhou, of course, was a pure flame of sacrifice that won the day for Shivaji - Thirty and three the gates By which thou enterest heaven, thou fortunate soul, Thou valiant heart. 6 As regards Sri Aurobindo's plays, they too are unmistakably dyed with... could have written it. 18 The word 'Swaraj' itself had first been used by Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar, one of the ablest members of the Bengali revolutionary groups, in his popular biography of Shivaji in Bengali. He also wrote, on Sri Aurobindo's suggestion, Desher Katha, a book giving in overwhelming detail the sordid story of foreign exploration leading to India's economic servitude, and this ...
... discharge not only towards our ancestors. but also to our posterity.... In teaching geography, we impress upon the minds of our students that India is their motherland. and that Maharashtra produced Shivaji , that the Punjab was once ruled by Ranjit Singh. and that the Himalayas gave shelter to our ancient Rishis ." He also favoured learning and harnessing modern scientific inventions of the West for... discharge not only towards our ancestors, but also to our posterity.... In teaching geography, we impress upon the minds of our students that India is their motherland, and that Maharashtra produced Shivaji, that the Punjab was once ruled by Ranjit Singh, and that the Himalayas gave shelter to our ancient Rishis." He also favoured learning and harnessing modern scientific inventions of the West for the ...
... no reason to believe that this depression and this limitation are not removable and are constitutional. But it is not only in Religion that we were great. We had amongst us brave soldiers like Shivaji, Hyderali, Mahadji Scindia and Ranjitsingh. Can we not again claim to have had an important share in the establishment of that mighty structure—the Page 697 Indian Empire—erected indeed ...
... relegates other great Indian names, allowing for three or four only, to the second plan and even there belittles them in comparison with corresponding European immortals. In what Page 250 is Shivaji with his vivid and interesting life and character, who not only founded a kingdom but organised a nation, inferior to Cromwell, or Shankara whose great spirit in the few years of its mortal life swept ...
... men in these revolutionary groups was a Mahratta named Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar who was an able writer in Bengali (his family had been long domiciled in Bengal) and who had written a popular life of Shivaji in Bengali in which he first brought in the name of Swaraj, afterwards adopted by the Nationalists as their word for independence,—Swaraj became one item of the fourfold Page 51 Nationalist ...
... secular). 146, 149 Shakespeare, 77 Shakti, 13,15, 139 . 152 -153 se e also India. strength Shankaracharya, 29 . 87 , 92. 94-95, 97,112,204 Shastra, 69. 86-87, 89. 146 Shiva, 29. 98(fn). 123 Shivaji,46 Shudras, 29,119,120-121 Sikh Gurus, 146 Sikhs, 63 Snide, Nana Saheb, 218 Socialism/Socialists, 103, 135, 174,215. 220 soul-force, 124, 191 spiritism. 200 spirituality, 50. 51 , 92, 135 ...
... stars, made individual. It is the East that must conquer in India's uprising. It is the Yogin who must stand behind the political leader or manifest within him; Ramadas must be born in one body with Shivaji, Mazzini mingle with Cavour. * The men who would lead India must be catholic and many-sided. When the Avatar comes, we like to believe that he will be not only the religious ...
... play the leading parts. The conception is admirable. An inoffensive pleader sitting among his briefs, to all appearance harmless, unmilitary, civilian, but in reality a masked Tamerlane, Napoleon or Shivaji, full of dark and tremendous schemes; a disarmed and helpless mob of workmen and peasants who are really a dangerous, well-equipped and well-organised army of a hundred thousand Jats capable of ov ...
... utsavas are all part of such a patriotic discipline. It is this against which the efforts of the bureaucracy are being directed, by the Risley Circular, by the prohibition of Page 456 the Shivaji utsava outside the Deccan, by the attack on our melas and other public occasions where such training is possible. For the same reason the active participation of College students in political ...
... Arthur Helps took their place as an instructor of youth, the gospel of Philistinism in its naked crudeness was beaten into the minds of our children when most malleable. Thus Ramdas was following Shivaji into the limbo of the unreturning past. And if God had not meant otherwise for our nation, the Sannyasin would have become an extinct type, Yoga been classed among dead superstitions with witchcraft ...
... a word and tries to fit all human life into it. The sword of the warrior is as necessary to the fulfilment of justice and righteousness as the holiness of the saint. Ramdas is not complete without Shivaji. To maintain justice and prevent the strong from despoiling and the weak from being oppressed is the function for which the Kshatriya was created. Therefore, says Sri Krishna in the Mahabharat, God ...
... concession or by a struggle between nationalism and separatism. But we do not understand Hindu nationalism as a possibility under modern conditions. Hindu nationalism had a meaning in the times of Shivaji and Ramdas, when the object of national revival was to overthrow a Mahomedan domination which, once tending to Indian unity and toleration, had become oppressive and disruptive. It was possible because ...
... "along". Two proper names call for a little explanation. Bhavani is the Goddess-Spirit of India in its martial aspect, guarding the culture and religion of the country with a supernatural sword. Shivaji, fired by the sense of danger to the soul of Hinduism from Aurangzeb's Muslim fanaticism and autocracy, was a devotee of Bhavani and supposed to have been inspired and guided by Her. His devotion was ...
... the Supreme Power creative of the universe. A virile offspring of this political mysticism is Baji Prabhou, based on the actual episode of the self-sacrifice which Baji Prabhou, a lieutenant of Shivaji, made in order to cover his master's retreat. Here is a blank verse no longer packed with colour and sorcery, passion and fantasy, yet betraying no dearth of expressive intensity. It is Sri Aurobindo's ...
... period was marked by political instability for several centuries until Akbar and some of his successors infused stability to a certain extent, it was clear that great leaders like Rana Pratap and Shivaji, through their unyielding spirit and battles were preparing for the reaffirmation of the old Indian values and images that had the power of revival and resurgence. The opulent and prosperous India ...
... on of native chieftains; at the same time they exploited the disunity among various Indian kingdoms, to subjugate the entire subcontinent. The Marathas - the successors of Shivaji - had built a Maratha empire; but they were notorious for their plundering raids, and many states were forced to pay them protection money as a means of direct and indirect subjection. In 1761, Afghan ...
... in North India followed by the Jats, Marathas and Sikhs. In the South, this struggle was embodied in the Vijayanagar Empire. This struggle for independence came to its peak when the Marathas under Shivaji almost brought to an end the Muslim domination of India. The Muslim conquest was effected rapidly enough in the north, although it was not entirely complete there for several centuries, but ...
... Shankara Chettiar, Calve, 375,380,382,391 Shankaragauda, 579 Shams-ul-Alam, Maulavi, 309,321,365ff Sharma, Balai Dev, 252 Shelly, P. B., 30, 31, 177 Shivaji, 115ff, 190,257,280,293,498 Shore, F. J., 12 Singh, Guru Govind, 257 Singh, Karan, 47fh, 256fn Singh, Prithwi (Nahar), 578 Singh, Sardar Ajit, 234, 235, 242 ...
... (1825-1917) began his career as an educationist but later turned to politics. He was the first Indian to be elected a member of the British Parliament. Page 35 From the land of Shivaji came the Maharash-trians. "The Maratha race, as their soil and their history have made them, are a rugged, strong and sturdy people, democratic in their every fibre, keenly intelligent and practical ...
... men in these revolutionary groups was a Mahratta named Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar who was an able writer in Bengali (his family had been long domiciled in Bengal) and who had written a popular life of Shivaji in Bengali in which he first brought in the name of Swaraj, afterwards adopted by the Nationalists as their word for independence, – Swaraj became one item of the fourfold Nationalist programme. He ...
... He has a weak face, nothing of the grand father in him. His father had more brilliance and dash. Pratap Singh has a soul – but not a strong one. Page 215 Jaysingh Rao was dull. Shivaji Rao was intelligent. I taught him French; he was a good student. Dhairyashil showed signs of premature development of lust. All that was due to the servants of the palace. Indira was more interesting ...
... not a record of saints and ecstatics alone, but includes also poets, sculptors, painters, scientists, polymaths, rulers, statesmen, conquerors, administrators. Asoka, Chanakya, Chandragupta, Akbar, Shivaji, Guru Govind Singh, these are in the golden roll-call as much as Gautama Buddha, Mahavira, Sankara, Ramanuja, Chaitanya, Nanak: All this mass of action was not accomplished by men without ...
... that India was won by Moghul or Briton, but from a small privileged class. On the other hand, the strength and success of the Marathas and Sikhs in the eighteenth century was due to the policy of Shivaji and Guru Govinda which called the whole nation into the fighting line. 27 When that cohesion or that discipline failed, the Mahratta and the Sikh power also dissipated itself. Then alien ...
... grandiose millenniums of her history, to complete the work which Srikrishna began, which Chandragupta and Asoka and the Gupta Kings continued, which Akbar almost brought to realisation, for which Shivaji was born and Bajirao fought and planned.... The day of the independent village or group of villages has gone and must not be revived; the nation demands its hour of fulfilment and seeks to gather ...
... for such a long time. "Even then, there remained such an accumulation of warrior-force that a mere fraction of it kept the country safe; great men like Chandragupta ... Vikram ... Pratap ... Shivaji, etc., fought the country's misfortune with the strength of that warrior-force. Only the other day, in the Gujerat war [1848] and the funeral pyre of Lakshmibai [the Indian Joan of Arc, died 1858] ...
... political mind, but the soul of the people by linking its future to Page 644 its past; it worked by a more strenuous and popular propaganda which reached its height in the organisation of the Shivaji and the Ganapati festivals. His separation from the social reform leader, Agarkar, had opened the way for the peculiar role which he has played as a trusted and accredited leader of conservative and ...
... the manuscript, has been used as the text. A defective version of this piece was published in The Standard Bearer on 7 November 1920, and subsequently in The Harmony of Virtue (1972). Shivaji, Jaysingh. Chandernagore Manuscript, II: 6-7. The typed copy, which is subsequent to the manuscript, has been used as the text. A defective version of this piece was published in The Standard Bearer ...
... By the Way 05-December-1907 The Scots who had not with Wallace bled but emigrated from the land of Bruce and his spider to exploit and "administer" spider fashion the land of Shivaji and Pratap, met again this year for their great national feed. The menu began with relishes and proceeded through the wedded delights of ice-pudding and liqueurs to a regale of confidences and confessions ...
... Swaraj when you were harassed by Mahomedans. A similar commandment was conveyed to you through Tukaram, Ramdas and others, Page 835 and in obedience to this commandment all Marathas joined. Shivaji, the warrior, came from you, and Swaraj was established in Maharashtra. The poor were rescued from molestation by the wicked and the country prospered. The present state of affairs is similar. The ...
... grandiose millenniums of her history, to complete the work which Srikrishna began, which Chandragupta and Asoka and the Gupta Kings continued, which Akbar almost brought to realisation, for which Shivaji was born and Bajirao fought and planned. The organization of our villages is an indispensable work to which we must immediately set our hands, but we must be careful so to organize them as to make ...
... Europe. Let us not therefore despise these mighty instruments. God has created them and the natural human love for them for very great and abiding purposes. Even in these few years the Ganapati and Shivaji festivals, instituted by the farseeing human sympathy and democratic instinct of Mr. Tilak, have done much to reawaken and solidify the national feeling of Maharashtra, and we can all feel what a stimulus ...
... practical and deliberative. National festivals and days of ceremony are the best means of creating enthusiasm and sentiment; that is the function of occasions like the 7th August and the 16th October, the Shivaji Utsav and similar celebrations. We must resolutely eschew all vestiges of the old festival aspect of our political bodies and make our assembly a severely practical and matter-of-fact body. Secondly ...
... our safety, our ease. The Mother asks all before she will give herself. Not until Surath Raja offered the blood of his veins did the Mother appear to him and ask him to choose his boon. Not until Shivaji was ready to offer his head at the feet of the Mother, did Bhavani in visible form stay his hand and give him the command to free his people. Those who have freed nations, have first passed through ...
... stars, made individual. It is the East that must conquer in India's uprising. It is the Yogin who must stand behind the political leader or manifest within him; Ramdas must be born in one body with Shivaji, Mazzini mingle with Cavour. The divorce of intellect and spirit, strength and purity may help a European revolution, but by a European strength we shall not conquer. The movements of the last century ...
... This is a line from AE's poem "Krisna". sanskrita totaka: a poetical metre in Sanskrit. Tukaram: famous poet and saint of Maharashtra. He was a senior contemporary of Shivaji I on whom his poems and teaching had a great influence. Mirabai (1498-1547) was the daughter of Raja Ratan Singh, married to Bhoj Raj Rana, ruler of Mewar. She became a mendicant in the name ...
... Beppo and Don Juan" which he was strictly forbidden to read at home. 4. Autobiographical Note written in 1951. Sethna's Papers. Page xviii Then followed the lives of Shivaji and Napoleon in verse form, plus an imaginary account of a Utopia in verse, a few plays, "thousands of gnomic couplets", twenty-six novelettes each with an interesting alliterative title like "The ...
... a word and tries to fit all human life into it. The sword of the warrior is as necessary to the fulfilment of justice and righteousness as the holiness of the saint. Ramdas is not complete without Shivaji. To maintain justice and prevent the strong from despoiling and the weak from being oppressed is the function for which the Kshatriya was created. Therefore, says Sri Krishna in the Mahabharata, God ...
... narratives of greater "human" interest developed in another cast of blank verse: Urvasie, Love and Death, Baji Prabhou, the last-named a martial episode of the time of the great Mahratta leader Shivaji. Then there are dramas ranging over many epochs and types of human culture: Page 94 Perseus the Deliverer, Rodagune, The Viziers of Bassora, Vasavadatta, Eric. The translation of ...
... but doesn't call it a conquest. Nadir Shah, he says, couldn't. SRI AUROBINDO: Because he didn't want to, perhaps. Savarkar has suddenly shot up into a powerful personality. And how does he call Shivaji an emperor? He is no more an emperor than Fazlul Huque. (Laughter) ...
... India possesses a resounding roll of great Page 92 names who endeavoured to give her this solid political and economic unity; Bharata, Yudhishthira, Asoka, Chandragupta, Akbar, Shivaji have all contributed to the evergrowing unification of Indian polity. But still what they realised was not a stable and permanent thing, it was yet fluent and uncertain; it was only the hammerblow ...
... 185 -Mm;beth, 185 Shankaracharya, 8, 215-16, 229, 276 Shaw, Bernard, 140, 145, 254 -Back to Methuselah, 140 Shelley, 194 Shiva, 268 Shivaji,93, 394, 396 Shylock, 100 Sisupala, 80 Socrates, 16, 150,219-20,222,229,273 Solon, 219 Spain, 72 Sparta, 25 Spengler, Oswald, 238 Sri ...
... Chaitanya, Tukaram (vii) Establishment ofKhalsa: Guru Gobind Singh (viii) Vijay Nagar (ix) Annals of Rajputana (x) Rana Pratap (xi) The rise of Maratha Power (xi) Shivaji (xii) Sufism VII (i) Arrival of Europeans in India. East India Company (ii) Conflict and chaos of the 18th century Page 196 VIII (i) Triumph of the ...
... prepared for an armed revolt. He had a genius for organisation and started the newspapers 'Kesari' and 'The Maratha' in 1881; later in the early 1890s he started the annual celebration of 'Shivaji Festival' and 'Ganapati Festival' which served as a platform for people to join in the Nationalist Movement against the British. It is evident that the leaders of the Congress did not ...
... strings the whole time, unfit though I was for a spiritual life. At this time, I was fully occupied in writing on a variety of subjects - physical sciences for the young, a biography of Shivaji for the University, a history of the national movement for the Congress, novels and short stories for the general reader, and a number of reviews for periodicals. Strangely enough, it was a writing ...
... of India, the Muslims were the rulers of almost the whole of India. In the later part of their rule, however, as part of the cultural revival, they met with strong resistance from Hindu rulers like Shivaji, Krishna Dev Raya and others. The Hindu mind had awakened to the danger of Islamic domination. Then came the British conquest as a result of which both Hindus and Muslims became subjects in the British ...
... the emergence of the Muslim majority province of East Bengal and Assam. According to the Muslim leaders, the anti-Urdu agitation in U.P., and Bihar; the cow-protection activities, the setting up of Shivaji Clubs, the demand for elections on a non-denominational basis which would preclude Muslims from getting elected without Hindu backing, and finally the agitation again the partition of Bengal - all ...
... period was marked by political instability for several centuries until Akbar and some of his successors infused stability .to a certain extent, it was clear that great leaders like Rana Pratap and Shivaji, through their unyielding spirit and battles were preparing for the reaffirmation of the old Indian values and images that had the power of revival and resurgence. The opulent and prosperous India ...
... man's voluntary effort fails. India possesses a resounding roll of great names who endeavoured to give her this solid political and economic unity; Bharata, Yudhish-thira, Asoka, Chandragupta, Akbar, Shivaji have all contributed to the evergrowing unification of Indian polity. But still what they realised was not a stable and permanent thing, it was yet fluent and uncertain; it was only the hammerblow ...
... culture and makes it grow. An example would make the point clear. Let us consider the forms which the " will to freedom" assumed in the course of Indian History. In the 17th century, at the time of Shivaji, the movement for freedom started with the cry of " Swadharma " and " Swaraj " and the method adopted was guerilla warfare. After three centuries the same "will to freedom ' burst forth with the ...
... — Uriu", February 12 and 19, 1910 respectively. The others were first published by the Standard Bearer : "Mazzini — Cavour — Page 382 Garibaldi", November 7, 1920, "Shivaji—Jai Singh", December 26, 1920, "Littleton — Percival", May 29 and June 5, 1923. SABCL: TheHarmony of Virtue, Vol. 3 15 . CORRESPONDENCE WITH SRI AUROBINDO Sri ...
... modern conditions of humanity we should all agree. But it is not true as an axiom of political science which Mr. Hemchandra seems to proclaim. The Maratha Empire which was brought into existence by Shivaji owed its origin to religious inspiration. So was Sikhism responsible for the power of the Khalsa in the Punjab. All students of world history will certainly remember how the Islamic political power ...
... saint of Maharashtra, was a great Page 11 patriot and wanted to remove the Mughal yoke. But he did not take to political organisation as his own work-he only prepared the ground and Shivaji organised the politic, activity. Was Ramdas an escapist ? Ramakrishna after a long and arduous life of Tapasya. gives out to the world that the sincere practice of every religion leads to the ...
... Morley and their mighty will. Be loyal still, my prosperous countrymen, Nor heed the moaning of the million's pain. For serfdom in our very bones is bred, And our religion teaches us to dread,— Shivaji's creed and Pratap's though it be,— More than the very devil disloyalty. O constitutionally agitate your tails And see whether that agitation fails. The course of true love never did run smooth ...
... will. Be loyal still, my prosperous countrymen, Nor heed the moaning of the million's pain. For serfdom in our very bones is bred, Page 241 And our religion teaches us to dread,— Shivaji's creed and Pratap's though it be,— More than the very devil disloyalty. O constitutionally agitate your tails And see whether that agitation fails. The course of true love never did run smooth ...
... self-determination. But before these movements of self-determination could take shape, they were destroyed by the Mogul invasion, which created the Mogul empire. This was followed by the rise of Shivaji's empire and just when it seemed that a new life was about to rise in the regional peoples, there came the intrusion of the European nations, in particular the British. The failure of the Peshwas and ...
... without any consideration of the individual's fitness. Khare, ex-chief minister, also said to the Mahrattas, "You don't know what Swaraj is, you never had it." SRI AUROBINDO: They had it during Shivaji's time; at that time they were all united. Among the Sikhs too there was unity, though later on it broke down. The Rajputs, of course, didn't know what unity was. Europe is now inheriting. The ancient ...
... patriotism; making their stand in "a tiger-throated gorge", Baji and his band of stalwart warriors resist the invaders and make a Thermopylae of Raigarh. It is Baji's "finest hour"; he has upheld Shivaji's trust, and he has changed a possible Mogul victory to a complete rout. Love and war: the tried old themes of epic and romance; and in Ilion Sri Aurobindo attempted an epic on a much ...
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