The crowning at Raigad, and what remained
Episode 6 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
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Namaste. Last time Shivaji Maharaj walked home from Agra in the clothes of a sadhu. Today, in our final episode, we come to **Raigad**, a great flat-topped hill in the Sahyadri with cliffs on almost every side. In the summer of 1674 it was crowded with guests, priests, soldiers and envoys, all come for one ceremony. And then we will sit with the question every series like this must end with. What did he leave us?
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First, why a coronation at all?
By 1674 Shivaji had been building Swarajya for about thirty years. He held forts, a navy, a treasury and an army. Yet in the eyes of the world around him he was still, on paper, a rebel. The sultans of Bijapur and the Mughal emperor could call him a landholder who had risen above himself. Treaties and letters needed a sovereign's name behind them. His own people, and the officers who served him, needed to know that the state they served was a state, with a king who had been properly crowned and could not be dismissed as a local chief. A coronation settled that question.
There was also a question of tradition. Coronation by Vedic rites had not been performed for a ruler in that region for a long time. Shivaji invited a learned scholar from Kashi, **Gaga Bhatt**, known across India for his knowledge of dharma-shastra. Gaga Bhatt examined the matter, accepted Shivaji's family as Kshatriya, and agreed to perform the rites.
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The ceremonies ran for days. Shivaji first went to Pratapgad to worship the goddess Bhavani. On Raigad he received the sacred thread, and was weighed against gold and other gifts, which were then given away. And on the sixth of June 1674, on the thirteenth day of the bright fortnight of Jyeshtha, he was anointed with the waters of holy rivers and sat on the throne. He took the title **Chhatrapati**, the lord of the royal umbrella. From that day a new era began to be counted, the **Rajyabhisheka Shaka**, the era of the coronation.
We have a witness from outside. The English East India Company had sent an envoy from Bombay, **Henry Oxenden**, to settle a trade agreement. He was present at the court and wrote of the throne, the gifts and the crowd in his diary. He was a foreign trader with no stake in Maratha pride, which makes his account useful to historians.
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A coronation is a single day. What made it matter was what came with it.
Shivaji gave his council of eight ministers, the **Ashta Pradhan**, formal titles and duties. The Peshwa became the Mukhya Pradhan, the chief minister. There was the Amatya for revenue and accounts, the Sachiv for correspondence, the Mantri for the king's daily affairs, the Senapati for the army, the Sumant for relations with other states, the **Nyayadhish** for justice, and the Panditrao for religious matters and charity. Each had his own work. None held everything. It is the same thinking we saw in the forts in episode three, where no single officer held all the keys.
He also paid attention to language. For centuries the courts of the Deccan had used Persian words for offices and records. Shivaji asked a scholar, **Raghunath Pandit**, to prepare a dictionary of government terms in Sanskrit and Marathi, the **Rajyavyavahara Kosha**. It was not a rejection of anyone. It was a way of saying that the people of this land could run their own affairs in their own words. A gold coin, the hon, and a copper coin, the **Shivrai**, were struck in his name.
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And then, a farewell. **Jijabai** had lived to see it. She had raised him on stories of Rama and the Pandavas in a ruined Pune, and watched over his state while he was away in Agra. About twelve days after the coronation, on the seventeenth of June 1674, she passed away at Pachad, at the foot of Raigad. Those who tell this story in Maharashtra often say that she had been waiting only for that day. Whether or not we put it so, it is hard not to be moved. The first teacher of Swarajya saw it crowned, and then took her leave.
A second, smaller coronation was held in September that year by a tantric teacher, **Nischalpuri**, who felt some rites had been missed. Historians record both ceremonies.
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The last years were busy. In 1677 Shivaji led a long campaign into the south, toward Jinji and Vellore, which brought large lands under Maratha rule and led to difficult talks with his half-brother **Venkoji**, who ruled at Thanjavur. It was a campaign of diplomacy as much as of arms, and we will leave its details for another day.
He came back to Raigad, and in the spring of 1680 he fell ill with a fever. On the third of April 1680, Shivaji Maharaj passed away on Raigad. He was about fifty years old. His samadhi stands on the fort today, and people still climb the long steps to bow there.
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For a long time after, he was remembered mostly in the villages, in the songs of wandering singers called **shahirs**, who sang ballads, powadas, about him at fairs and festivals. In 1869 the social reformer **Jyotirao Phule** wrote a long powada on Shivaji, calling him a king of the farmers and the common people. A few years later, in the 1890s, **Lokmanya Tilak** helped start public celebrations of Shiv Jayanti, and the restoration of his samadhi on Raigad. Today schoolchildren in Maharashtra build clay models of forts at Diwali, families climb Raigad and Shivneri on holidays, and his name is given to airports, stations and universities. Each generation has found in him what it needed. The farmer found a king who protected his field. The reformer found a ruler of the common people. The student finds courage.
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So what did he leave?
He left a state, of course, and it outlasted him. After very hard years it grew into a power that shaped India for another century. But if you go back over the five episodes before this one, I think you will find the answer is quieter than that.
He left a way of ruling. Soldiers paid by the state, so that no district became a private estate. Land measured, and the farmer's share fixed. A letter telling officers not to take a stalk of vegetables by force. Places of worship of every faith left unharmed, as even a historian on the other side recorded. Offices shared among eight ministers. Words of government in the people's own language. And behind all of it, a mother in Pune telling a boy that a king exists for his people.
**One thing to take with you.** Shivaji Maharaj is remembered for his courage. But what he built lasted because of fairness in small things. This week, take one small responsibility that is yours, at home or at work, and do it a little more fairly than you need to. That is how Swarajya begins in a home.
This is the end of our series. Thank you for listening with us, all six sittings. If a part of the story moved you, share it with a child in your family, in your own words. That is how these stories have always travelled.
**Credits (read out):** Written by the DharmikStudio team from the Sabhasad Bakhar, the Jedhe Shakavali, English factory records including Henry Oxenden's diary, 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.