Do not think of yourselves too highly and learn from him how to live always.” The saint reminds him that while Sambhaji should give up on violence and anger, he should forgive old employees who did so much for the Swarajya and make them work under his wishes. “Remember your father, Shivaji, and compare your actions with his. Swami Ramdas, a revered saint from the bhakti tradition reminds Sambhaji of his duties as a king and responsibilities towards his subjects. The cruelties that had marked Sambhaji’s seizure of power had disturbed the ailing Samarth Ramdas who wrote a letter to Sambhaji reminding him of his father’s greatness. Samrath Ramdas’ advice to the young Chhatrapati Historians have also suggested Rani Soyrabai’s sudden death in the circumstances due to suspected poisoning by Sambhaji’s contrivances. An array of ministers sympathetic to Soyrabai’s cause were arrested – including Janardanpant Hanmante, Kanhoji Bhandwalkar the famed Peshwa Moropant Pingle alongside Pant Sachiv Annaji Datto whose houses were attacked by Sambhaji’s comrades. Sambhaji’s accession to the throne was anything but a peaceful transition of power in Maratha politics. While Sambhaji managed to outthrow Soyrabai and her son from political relevance quite swiftly, it was for him to win the trust of the court veterans who were miffed with him, much owed to his open idiosyncracies. The path to his elevation as a king was however laced with the designs of Soyrabai, the most powerful among Shivaji’s queens, who projected her son Rajaram as the fitting candidate. Sambhaji, who was kept confined at the Panhala fort owing to his past shenanigans, managed to crown himself as the next Chhatrapati at Raigad on January 10, 1681. In 1680, Shivaji Maharaj had left the Swarajya throne without naming his heir, upon his death. In this essay, we explore the story of Sambhaji’s life and his Hindutva through his correspondence with the people of his time.īorn as an unpredictable child with his own whims in the family of Bhonsales, Sambhaji always had his own ways of doing things. Today, while there are many upholders to the legacy of the Great Maratha, an unconsented heir to his throne in the form of his elder son, Sambhaji remains one-of-a-kind personalities in the annals of history. Chhatrapati Shivaji asserted the Hindu identity in the mainstream of medieval Indian polity by his establishment of the ‘Hindavi Swarajya’ as an indigenous challenge to external aggression. Much of the intellectual discourse catapulted by Hindu historians have painted Shivaji as the original father of Hindu Nationalism, for obvious reasons.
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March 2023
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