“Chhatrapati Shivaji’s Real Treasure”, The Dharma Dispatch, October 7, 2025
“DESCRIBING THE DAILY routine of Chhatrapati Shivaji, Acharya Jadunath Sarkar pays him an evocative tribute in his classic, Shivaji and His Times. His words make the visual come alive before our eyes:
Shiva began by bowing to his guru Ramdas Swami and his mother Jija Bai and receiving their blessings. The unhappy discarded first wife of Shahji, now verging on eighty, had forgotten her husband’s neglect in the love and devotion of her son, and rejoiced to see, before she closed her eyes, that he had reached the summit of human greatness as the crowned king of the land of his birth, an irresistible conqueror, and a strong defender of the religion which was the solace of her life…she glo-ried in the glory of her victorious and orthodox son. A kind Providence seemed to have prolonged her life only to enable her to witness the scene of his coronation, for she died twelve days after it.
Jadunath Sarkar’s choice of invoking Jija Bai reveals the Sanatani inside him. His tribute to Shivaji is really a tribute to the profound womb that birthed him; it is the Acharya’s homage to the mother that chiselled the lad Shiva into becoming the very Murti of Kshatra, which knew near fear nor weakness……”
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