Shivaji’s son Sambhaji had been barely two years old when he had lost his mother Saibai in 1659. He had grown up under the shelter and watch of his father and, importantly, his grandmother, Jijabai. He had lived through an unforgettable experience in Agra with his father and had been part of his thrilling escape. Shivaji had appointed tutors to educate him, and the boy had developed, much like his paternal grandfather, a particular liking for the Sanskrit language, which he would go on to master. From the early 1670s, Shivaji had started getting him involved in important administrative work, and at the time of the coronation, Sambhaji, then seventeen years old, had been given the honour of sitting ‘on an ascent’, as the British envoy had remarked.
Once Shivaji became king, Sambhaji naturally became the heir apparent. But there was trouble – of an all-too-familiar nature among royal families – brewing within the household.
Just as Sambhaji had been given due honour at his father’s coronation, so had Soyrabai, as the seniormost among Shivaji’s surviving wives. Soyrabai had given birth to a son on 24 February 1670. He was named Rajaram. The boy was just four at the time of Shivaji’s crowning, but Soyrabai already seemed keen to make him, rather than the elder son, the heir apparent. Shivaji had only these two sons, though he had married eight times (most of which were political matrimonial alliances in view of his rising power). During her lifetime Sambhaji’s mother Saibai was his seniormost wife, and after her death, Soyrabai. He had six daughters as well, all of whom were married into various Maratha families, but they have been largely invisibilized by the historical record as they played no role in his entire political enterprise, subsequent to their marriages. Three of these daughters – Sakwarbai or Sakhubai, Ranubai and Ambikabai – were born to his first wife, Saibai; and three other wives bore him one daughter each: Soyrabai gave birth to Dipabai, Sakwarbai to Kamaljabai, and Sagunabai was the mother of Rajkuvarbai. Shivaji’s other four wives – Kashibai, Putlabai, Laxmibai and Gunwantabai – did not have any children.
When Shivaji had fallen severely ill for a month early in 1676, rumours started swirling in parts of the Deccan that he had died. It was around this time that news of serious differences within Shivaji’s household spread all across the Deccan. Among them were reports of Sambhaji’s allegedly unruly conduct. But Sabhasad – who later worked with Soyrabai’s son Rajaram, whom she was setting up against Sambhaji – makes no mention of them, and the historian Kamal Gokhale, who wrote a scholarly biography in Marathi of Sambhaji, says stories of Shivaji’s elder son’s alleged misconduct began to originate only after the coronation of 1674 and were most likely spread by Soyrabai to discredit him.
What was nevertheless true was that tensions had started rising in the family, and Sambhaji appeared to have been extremely dissatisfied about his place within it, and with how things were moving. In 1674, his grandmother, his major source of solace, had also died. So, on 13 December 1678, Sambhaji, at the age of twenty-one, took a step that left his father stupefied. He left Satara, where he was staying at the time, for Pedgaon and joined the Mughals under Diler Khan. The records don’t make clear what the immediate trigger was for his defection.
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For the Mughal empire, this was an extraordinary slice of luck, but it would not last long. Sambhaji was with Diler Khan when the Mughal governor attacked and seized the fort of Bhupalgad to the south-west of Pandharpur from the Marathas in April 1679. Diler Khan treated the garrison that was captured, and the local village population that had moved into the fort for shelter, with great cruelty. One hand of each member of the garrison was hacked off, and many villagers were reduced to becoming slaves. Diler Khan also launched a campaign against the Adil Shahi, and Siddi Masaud wrote to Shivaji for help as the Mughals threatened the state capital of Bijapur. Shivaji immediately offered his assistance, sending a force of ‘10,000 horse and 10,000 oxen laden with grains’ to protect Bijapur, and also personally carrying out raids in Mughal territories of the Deccan, including Jalna, which was both pillaged and captured.
Diler Khan had to lift the siege he had mounted on Bijapur, partly because it was well defended, and partly because the top Mughal decision-makers could not agree on whether an attack should be launched on the Adil Shahi capital. On his way back, Diler Khan sacked the town of Tikota and, for no reason, imprisoned 3,000 of the town’s ordinary inhabitants. From there, he moved to Athani, where again he perpetrated atrocities on the populace despite the complete absence of any provocation.
Sambhaji, having grown up in the Shivaji ethos, where wanton harassment especially of ordinary civilians was not the norm, was immensely disturbed by Diler Khan’s actions and decided that he did not really fit into the Mughal scheme of things. He escaped from Diler Khan’s camp on 20 November 1679, and father and son were reunited, after a rebellion that lasted less than a year but sent shock waves through the Maratha kingdom. The issue of succession nevertheless remained unresolved, though, according to Sabhasad, Shivaji planned to divide his territories between his two sons. Sabhasad’s version states succinctly that there was ‘much rejoicing’ as father and son met each other after almost a year of serious separation.
Shivaji said to Sambhaji:
My boy, do not leave me. There is enmity between us and Aurangzeb. He intended to commit treachery against you. But the Sri [God] has kindly rescued you and brought you safely back. A great deed has been done. Now you, my eldest son, have grown big, and I have learnt that it is in your mind that you should have a separate kingdom. This is also in my interest. I shall give you a kingdom then. I have two sons. You, Sambhaji, are one; and Rajaram is the second. So I shall divide all my kingdom into two. The kingdom of Jinji – stretching from the Tungabhadra to the Kaveri – is one. The second is a kingdom on the other side of the Tungabhadra extending up to the river Godavari … You are my eldest son. I confer on you the kingdom of the Karnataka; the kingdom on this side I give to Rajaram. You two sons should rule over these two kingdoms. I shall henceforth meditate on the Sri and thus secure my welfare.
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To this, Sambhaji replied, ‘My fortune lies at the feet of Your Majesty. I will live on milk and rice [at peace] and meditate at your feet.’
The anguish of separation having been acute on both sides, the exhalation of relief at the reunion was similarly considerable. Shivaji had zealously laboured to build his own raj, and he fervently desired that his elder son Sambhaji should be on his side to secure its present and its future.
Thoughts of all of his family members were evidently occupying Shivaji’s mind, for soon thereafter, he wrote a letter to his half-brother Ekoji or Vyankoji urging him to take proper care of his southern territories; as we have seen, the two brothers had partitioned their father’s southern estate between them. Shivaji had heard that Ekoji had suddenly withdrawn into his shell, had turned indifferent to his own state machinery, was neglecting affairs of state, and was seriously contemplating becoming an ascetic. Shivaji reminded him of their father’s renown as a military general, of his own ceaseless striving that had helped him establish his own kingdom; he urged Ekoji not to entertain thoughts of turning into a recluse but to take care of his own health and matters of state, and to expand his state and run it competently so that he could earn ‘fortune and renown’. ‘If you exert your best efforts and attain fortune and happiness in those parts, I will only be contented and full of pride that my younger brother has accomplished so much,’ Shivaji wrote in his outreach to his half-brother.
This excerpt from Vaibhav Purandare’s ‘Shivaji: India’s Great Warrior King’ has been published with permission from Juggernaut.