Agra, and the long road home
Episode 5 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
Namaste. Last time we saw how Shivaji Maharaj ran his state, down to a farmer's vegetable patch. Today we leave the Deccan altogether. We travel north, to the Mughal capital at **Agra**. This is a story with no battle in it at all. It is a story about honour, about patience, and about keeping a clear head when you are far from home and not free to leave.
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First, how did he come to be going to Agra?
In 1665 the emperor **Aurangzeb** sent one of his most able commanders to the Deccan. This was **Mirza Raja Jai Singh** of Amber, an experienced general and a careful diplomat. His campaign pressed hard on the Maratha forts, and the fort of **Purandar** was under siege. Shivaji Maharaj judged that it was wiser to make terms than to lose everything. In June 1665 the two men met and agreed the **Treaty of Purandar**. Shivaji gave up twenty-three forts and kept twelve. His son **Sambhaji**, then only about eight years old, was given a rank in the Mughal service. Jai Singh then urged Shivaji to go to Agra and meet the emperor in person. He promised that he would be treated with honour, and he asked his own son, **Ram Singh**, who was at court, to look after him.
It was a hard decision. Going north meant putting himself in the emperor's hands. But Jai Singh had given his word, and there was a chance that a settlement at the court would bring some peace to the Deccan. In March 1666 Shivaji set out from Rajgad with young Sambhaji and a small party. Before leaving he put the state in the care of his mother, **Jijabai**, with trusted ministers beside her.
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He reached Agra in May. On the twelfth of May 1666 he was brought into the court. It was a grand day, the celebration of the emperor's birthday, and the hall was full of nobles in their fixed places.
We have a close account of what happened, because Rajput officers present at court wrote letters home to Jaipur, and Sarkar used them. Shivaji came forward and made his offering. Then he was led back and made to stand among nobles of the rank of five thousand, behind men he considered below him. No one spoke to him. He had come a thousand miles on a promise of honour, and he felt he was being shown his place.
He did not stay silent. He spoke out angrily to Ram Singh, turned his back on the throne and moved away from the line. Some accounts say he fainted from the heat and his feelings; others say he simply refused to stand there. Either way, the court had seen something it did not expect. A guest from the Deccan had refused the place he was given.
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The consequences came quickly. He was not allowed back at court. He was lodged in a house near Ram Singh's quarters, and a large guard was placed around it under **Faulad Khan**, the city's police chief. For about three months he was, in plain words, a prisoner who was politely called a guest.
This is the part of the story I find most moving, because it shows a side of him we do not always talk about. A man who had spent his life on horseback in the hills now had to sit in a closed house and wait. He wrote petitions. He asked to be allowed to go home. He sent most of his men back to the Deccan, a few at a time, so that fewer people would be at risk. And he stayed calm.
We should also remember **Ram Singh** in this part of the story. He was the emperor's officer, and yet his father had given Shivaji a promise. The court letters show him caught between the two, and for a time he stood as surety for his guest's good conduct. Keeping your word when it has become inconvenient is its own kind of courage, and the Rajput prince showed some of it in those weeks.
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Then he fell ill, or said he did. The chronicles say that to give thanks for his recovery, and to ask blessings, he began sending large baskets of sweets every day to holy men, to Brahmins and to fakirs in the city. The baskets were carried out on poles by porters. At first the guards opened them and checked. After some days they grew used to them and let them pass.
On an evening in August 1666, Shivaji and Sambhaji left the house hidden in two of those baskets. This is how Sabhasad tells it, and Sarkar accepts the outline. Behind them, **Hiroji Farzand** lay on Shivaji's bed, covered with a sheet, with only his hand and Shivaji's ring showing. A young attendant named **Madari Mehtar** sat pressing his feet, as a servant would for a sick master. When the guards looked in, all seemed normal. Some hours later Hiroji and the boy walked out, saying the master was sleeping and must not be disturbed. By the time anyone looked properly, the room was empty.
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Now the road home. It was more than a thousand miles, and the whole empire would be looking for him.
He did not go straight south, where he would be expected. He went first toward **Mathura**. Sambhaji was too young for a hard, fast ride in disguise, so Shivaji left him there with a trusted Brahmin family, relatives of his minister Moropant Pingle, who kept the boy safe and brought him home later. Then Shivaji and a few companions travelled as wandering sadhus, their faces smeared with ash, moving by roads that pilgrims used. The chronicles differ on the exact route. Some say he went east as far as Prayag and Kashi before turning south.
In September, or by some accounts later in the year, he reached **Rajgad**. The story is told in Maharashtra with great tenderness. A tired sadhu came to the gate and asked to see the queen mother. Jijabai looked at him and did not know him. Then he bowed and put his head at her feet, and she knew her son. Whether every detail happened just so, we cannot say. But the feeling in it is true. A mother had waited for months, not knowing whether she would see him again.
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So let us gather it.
After the Treaty of Purandar, Shivaji Maharaj went to Agra on a promise of honour. In court he was placed below his rank, and he refused to accept it. For about three months he was held under guard, and he stayed patient and clear-headed. He left hidden in baskets of sweets, as the chronicles tell it, left Sambhaji safe in Mathura, and walked home in disguise, until his mother saw a sadhu at her gate and found her son.
**One thing to take with you.** In Agra, Shivaji could not use his strength. He used patience instead, and a plan made slowly. When you next feel stuck in a place you cannot leave, try doing one small, steady thing each day toward the way out. Small steps add up.
In our last episode we go to Raigad, where in 1674 Shivaji Maharaj was crowned Chhatrapati, and we ask what he left behind.
**Credits (read out):** Written by the DharmikStudio team from the Sabhasad Bakhar, the Jedhe Shakavali, the Rajasthani court letters, and the histories of Jadunath Sarkar and G.S. Sardesai. Narrated with an AI voice. If you hear a mistake, please use "Report a mistake" on this episode.