Yugpurusha is a special concept of India. Our religious principles are eternal
but
according to different eras, Yugpurushas come to restore the religion. Yugpurusha knows the eternal principles, interprets them as per the age and
takes care that the society
based on these eternal principles is protected. According to this concept, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj
was a man of the era in the full sense.
Before the emergence of Shivaji Maharaj, most parts of India were occupied
by Muslim invaders. They used to demolish Indian
temples and abduct Hindu women.
The invaders used the then farmers, villagers and poor people
in their army. Therefore, whenever two Muslim
rulers fought, no matter which of them won,
thousands of Hindu soldiers were killed in that war. During that period, hundreds of Hindus lost their lives in wars but not for their land and religion. Shivaji Maharaj inspired these
simple poor people
to use their bravery in the
interest of the country.
Shivaji Maharaj
gave a new form to the war. During
that period, small kings and
Kshatriya warriors in Rajputana and elsewhere used to fight till death for their
land
and religion. If they felt that their defeat was certain against an army many
times
larger than theirs, then the brave Hindu soldiers of Rajasthan would fight
till
they were killed in the name of upholding the honor of Kshatriyahood. Certainly, this was bravery, but as a result, not only did we not get victory, but the will of our common people
to fight the invaders also gradually weakened.
Shivaji Maharaj
developed new dimensions of war. They believed that wars are
fought for final victory. If final victory is to be achieved then interim migration or
compromise, even self-surrender, must be done. There is no place for mere sentimentality in the path of final victory. Therefore, when Afzal Khan, to enrage Shivaji, destroyed famous Hindu temples coming in his way, Shivaji did not
react. His colleagues were getting disturbed and started thinking, “What
is the meaning of such life or independence when they are not able to protect their own
temples. “We should rather
protect these temples by sacrificing our lives
than
see them destroyed.” But Shivaji Maharaj told them, “If we go to the plains to fight Afzal Khan, we will all be killed. Today our power is limited. Therefore,
we cannot invite our destruction by going before the enemy. If we defeat Afzal Khan in these hills, our power will increase and as a result of this increased
power we will get our temples rebuilt.” This is what he did also. Whenever they
felt that fighting
the Muslim invaders would result in their defeat and heavy loss
of
life and property, they would dodge from the battlefield and remain busy in gaining enough power. They were determined for complete victory.
Before the rule of Shivaji Maharaj,
it was a custom that whenever a Hindu king won a battle, he used to celebrate his victory,
but did not completely destroy
the
defeated enemy. Due to this, the enemy reorganized his power and attacked the Hindu king with more force and destroyed him completely. Hindu kings did not oppress defeated enemies, because
before the entry
of Muslim invaders in India, wars were fought
merely for the sake of war (this is described in the book “Transcending Conflicts: Indian and Eastern Way” published
by Global Foundation for Civilization Harmony) Is). The defeated Hindu king did not attack the victorious Hindu king again. Even when a king was defeated in such attacks, his kingdom,
his people, his traditions and customs were allowed to remain intact. Therefore, a king's defeat was only his personal defeat and there was no upheaval in his empire. But this scenario changed
after the Muslim invasions.
Muslim invaders, after defeating
the Hindu kings, destroyed all the temples of that state, abducted women and converted the common people or killed them. Hundreds of Hindu
scholars were also murdered. Therefore, in those changed circumstances,
it was necessary to carry forward the victory won in the war and regain control of our lost land by continuously attacking the enemy.
This is what Shivaji Maharaj did. After defeating Afzal Khan, he did not remain silent, nor did he celebrate his victory, nor did he return to Raigarh
where his wife had died a month earlier
and his son Sambhaji was only one and a half
years old. Shivaji Maharaj continued
fighting for two and a half years and won many forts and Adilshah's land. Before Adilshah
could recover from the shock
of Afzal Khan's defeat, Shivaji had snatched a large part of Adilshah's empire
from his possession. Before the Muslim invasions, every community and every sect of India respected the traditions of others. Hindus welcomed
and respected everyone with a big heart. For us, every person born was a Hindu.
Therefore, we never found it necessary to convert them. We have always respected the worship methods of other religions. But when the Muslim invaders conquered the Hindu areas and forcibly converted many Hindus
into Muslims, the Hindu society
had no mechanism nor idea to bring those
converted Hindus back into their religion. Yugpurush Shivaji Maharaj
saw this. When he prayed to the pundits to accept
the convert Bajaji Nimbalkar back into
Hinduism, the pundits said that there is no such provision
in our scriptures. Immediately he said to the pundits, “If such a provision does not exist then make it now.” In this way Bajaji Nimbalkar was made a Hindu again. But in a
society where such religious
conversions never took place, there was no
positive reaction to such incidents. This required personal example. After Bajaji
Nimbalkar became a Hindu again,
no one was ready to marry his daughter to
his
son. At such a time, Shri Shivaji Maharaj got his daughter married to Bajaji
Nimbalkar's son and again gave social recognition to his family. It is necessary to adopt new rules, popularize them and implement them. Shivaji Maharaj did
the
same, which proves that he was a man of the times.
Chhatrapati
Shivaji Maharaj
went to conquer
the south. At that time, when he
went to Tiruvannamalai, he came to know that before his army reached there, the Muslim army had converted two temples there into mosques. Time was short so they did not demolish
the temple but converted it into a mosque. When
Shivaji Maharaj came to know about this, he was enraged and said that both the temples should be purified and reestablished as temples. This was also a specialty of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
He never disrespected the Muslim sect or Allah or the Quran.
That is not India's method
either. But when Muslim invaders insulted the Hindu religion,
destroyed temples,
forcibly converted people, then Shivaji Maharaj understood that to protect our culture, we need to keep our temples
safe, and bring our converted people
back to our religion. It is necessary to bring. Till then hardly any king had thought
about this and unfortunately even after a few centuries passed, the Hindu society
did not do any further
work
on this subject.
Another characteristic of Yugpurusha is that he inspires people to live and die for a higher ideal rather than limiting themselves to their sect and religion. Therefore, with the inspiration of Shivaji Maharaj, be it Maratha,
Brahmin or Lohar
– all these castes presented themselves for the establishment of Hinduvi Swaraj. He established the ideal of serving one's religion
and nation by rising
above castes in everyone's heart. Not only Hindus, but also Muslims
like Madari, Mehtar
or Ibrahim Khan, being united with the nation
and its traditions, offered their lives for the establishment of
Swaraj to
protect
it. Some ignorant
and
selfish Muslims also opposed such Muslims. Shivaji Maharaj
was the undisputed heart-emperor of the people of all communities. In Bengal, Swami
Vivekananda once told his disciples on a full moon night about the fame of Shivaji Maharaj and many important information related to him throughout the
night. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj thought
about the welfare of the nation in every way, he was a visionary. The Maharaja
understood this very well that the British had come to India not for trade but to grab the land. The strength of the
British is their navy and if they have to be stopped then India should also have a
good
navy, thinking this, Shivaji Maharaj set up an excellent navy and built forts. If his work had continued
in the next centuries, it would not have been possible for
the British to occupy India.
Shivaji had instilled the feeling
of patriotism among the common people
to such an extent that even after his death, people continued fighting against the
heretics with the same intensity and stubbornness and Aurangzeb had to leave his capital
and fight in South India for 27 years. At that time Sambhaji Maharaj and
Rajaram Maharaj had died. There was no king to lead the people,
but the society stood up. The Hindus gave such a tough fight that Aurangzeb had to try
and fight
for 27 years, yet he did not succeed; And he died of a broken heart in the south itself. Perhaps this is such an example in the history of the world that a so-called
king left his capital and struggled
for 27 years and died.
I have heard an example
that when the Defence Minister of Vietnam visited India, he told that he wanted to garland
the statue of Shivaji Maharaj.
The Indian Defense Ministry was surprised.
When he was asked the reason for this special prayer, he told that his small country
had fought against the powerful America by taking inspiration from Shivaji Maharaj.
Yugpurusha is not bound by the boundaries of any community or regions.
Shivaji Maharaj
was not related only to Maharashtra, if it was so then he would not have gone to Srisailam in Andhra Pradesh and submitted a suicide note and would not have written a warning letter to Aurangzeb against demolishing the
Kashi Vishweshwar temple in Varanasi.
Shivaji Maharaj's favorite goddess Maa Tulja
Bhavani was not only in the temple of Tuljapur, but he found her in every goddess temple. In fact, he considered Bharatmata to be the geographical and
cultural form of Mother Tulja Bhavani. It is not right to call such a man of this era merely ‘King of Marathas’. He never called
his kingdom Maratha
Rajya, but called it 'Hindavi Swarajya'. That is, a state of Hindus which
is established on its 'self'. A man of the era has to be born at some place, but his vision is for the welfare of the entire nation and the world and that is why Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was truly
the 'King of India'.
His actions
and thoughts reflected his determination for
complete victory. This
campaign of complete victory continued even after his death as he became an
eternal inspiration. That is why poet Bhushan had written,
