The oath of Swarajya
Episode 2 of 6 in Shivaji Maharaj: the story of Swarajya.
Narrated with an AI voice.
- Reading time
- 6 min
- Listening time
- 9 min
- By
- DharmikStudio Originals
- Narration
- AI voice
Read along
Namaskar. Last time we met the boy at Shivneri and his mother in Pune, and the young men of the Maval valleys who became his friends. Today those young men climb a hill together.
**
South-west of Pune, near the town of Bhor, there is a flat-topped hill. On it stands a small, plain temple of Shiva, called **Raireshwar**. It is not grand. Stone walls, a low roof, a linga inside. In the monsoon the whole plateau turns green and yellow with flowers.
Maharashtra's tradition says that around **1645**, when Shivaji was about fifteen, he came here with a group of companions from the Maval. Before the linga of Raireshwar, they made a promise. They would work to set up **Swarajya**, their own rule, in this land.
How do we know? Partly through tradition, handed down in families and in old accounts. And partly through a letter. In a letter of that year to an official named Dadaji Naras Prabhu Deshpande, Shivaji writes that the god of Raireshwar had given them success, and would see the Swarajya through. The letter uses the words **Hindavi Swarajya**, the self-rule of the people of this land. Like many old letters, it has been studied closely by historians. The memory of the oath, though, is very old and very dear.
**
What did Swarajya mean to these young men? It was not a word from a textbook. Think back to what we heard last time. Villages ruined when armies passed. Farmers who could not be sure of their own harvest. Local officials who could take what they liked because nobody above them was watching.
So Swarajya, for them, meant something plain. A ruler close enough to hear you. Taxes you could pay and still eat. A soldier who would not walk into your field and take your grain. Justice that did not depend on who your family was.
And very early, the young Shivaji was tested on exactly that last point.
**
Around the same time, a complaint reached him about the **patil**, the headman, of a village called Ranjhe, near Pune. The patil had wronged a woman of his village. A patil was a powerful man. His family had held the post for generations. Many young rulers would have looked the other way to keep such a man happy.
Shivaji did not. He had the patil brought before him, heard the case, and had him removed from office and severely punished. A document about the case survives. For the people of the Pune country, the message was clear. Under this young man, a headman's power would not protect him if he harmed the people he was meant to serve.
**
Shivaji's letters carried a seal. It was in Sanskrit, and it was not a boast about battles. Let us hear it.
**प्रतिपच्चन्द्रलेखेव वर्धिष्णुर्विश्ववन्दिता। शाहसूनोः शिवस्यैषा मुद्रा भद्राय राजते॥** *pratipaccandralekheva vardhiṣṇur viśvavanditā | śāhasūnoḥ śivasyaiṣā mudrā bhadrāya rājate ||*
In plain words: "Like the thin line of the moon on the first day of the bright fortnight, growing day by day and honoured by the world, this seal of Shiva, son of Shah, shines for the good of all."
Look at the image he chose. The new moon. Not a sword, not a lion. Something small that grows slowly and steadily, a little more each night. And the last word is **bhadrāya**, for the good, for welfare. The seal says what the rule is for.
**
Now the promise had to become a place.
Around 1646, when Shivaji was about sixteen, he and his companions took charge of the fort of **Torna**, high on a ridge south-west of Pune. It was under Bijapur's control but lightly held, and according to the accounts it changed hands without fighting. Sabhasad, who wrote the earliest Marathi account of Shivaji's life, tells that while the fort was being repaired, a store of old treasure was found buried in it. Shivaji did not spend it on himself. He used it to build a new fort on a nearby hill called Murumbdev, which he renamed **Rajgad**, the king's fort. Rajgad would be his home and his capital for many years.
If you ever climb Rajgad, you will see why he loved it. The hill spreads out in three long spurs, each ending in a fortified terrace called a **machi**: Padmavati, Suvela and Sanjivani. In the centre, higher still, sits the inner citadel, the balekilla. From the top you can see ridge after ridge of the Sahyadri, and on a clear day the smaller forts around it. It was a home that could watch over its whole neighbourhood. Jijabai lived there too, and much of the daily work of the young state, its letters, its accounts, its hearings, was done on that hilltop.
Other forts in the area followed, some by agreement with the local chiefs, some by quick action. Kondana, which later became famous as Sinhagad. Purandar. His companions from these years are names every Marathi child knows: **Tanaji Malusare**, **Yesaji Kank**, **Baji Pasalkar**. Farmers' sons, holding forts on their own hills.
**
Then came a hard test, of a different kind.
In 1648, the court of Bijapur detained Shivaji's father, Shahaji, far away in the south. The family's position was suddenly in danger. A Bijapur force also came against Purandar, and Shivaji's men held the fort.
But Shivaji did not answer with anger. He was eighteen. He could have tried something rash. Instead, he used patience and diplomacy. He opened contact with the Mughal prince Murad Bakhsh, who was then governing in the Deccan, so that Bijapur would think carefully before harming Shahaji. Other nobles also spoke for Shahaji. In 1649 Shahaji was released.
And after that, for several years, Shivaji kept quiet. He did not take new forts. He strengthened what he had, looked after his lands, and waited. The historians Sarkar and Sardesai both note this long pause. It says something about him. Courage is not only in moving forward. Sometimes it is in holding still, for the sake of the people who depend on you.
**
Let us gather what we heard today.
Tradition says that around 1645, at the small Shiva temple of Raireshwar, Shivaji and his Maval companions promised to work for Swarajya, and a letter of that year speaks of the god of Raireshwar helping to establish it. For them Swarajya meant fair and close rule: bearable taxes, safe fields and equal justice. The young Shivaji proved it early by punishing the powerful patil of Ranjhe. His Sanskrit seal compared his rule to the new moon, growing day by day, for the good of all. With Torna and Rajgad the promise found its first home. And when his father was detained, he chose patience and diplomacy over haste.
**One thing to take with you.** The seal chose the new moon, which grows only a little each night. Pick one good habit you have been meaning to start. Do a small piece of it every day this week, as small as you like, and let it grow slowly.
In the next episode we go up into the forts of the Sahyadri, and then down to the sea, to see how Shivaji built both a chain of hill forts and a navy.
*[Temple bell. Silence 2 seconds.]*
**Credits (read out):** Written by the DharmikStudio team from Jadunath Sarkar's Shivaji and His Times, G.S. Sardesai's New History of the Marathas, the Sabhasad Bakhar and published letters of Shivaji Maharaj. Narrated with an AI voice. If you hear a mistake, please use "Report a mistake" on this episode.