Probably the most audacious and clever covert military operation in medieval history was Shivaji’s night raid against the Mughul commander Shaista Khan. In the words of a famous historian, Professor Sarkar, “Shivaji dealt a massive blow at the Mughals, a blow whose cleverness of design and neatness of execution and completeness of success created in […]
THIS DAY IN HISTORY: Shivaji, Baji Prabhu & the Battle of Pavan Khind
Baji Prabhu Deshpande was one of the great lieutenants of Shivaji’s era. He sacrificed his life defending Shivaji in a heroic last stand known as the Battle of Pavan Khind (Battle of the Sacred Pass) in which his force was vastly outnumbered, possibly by a ratio of 35 to 1. In the battle he lost […]
Jijabai – mother of Shivaji and eternal symbol of faith & courage
Jijabai (1598 – 1674) was the mother of Shivaji, one of the most famous and successful Hindu rulers of all time. The life story of Jijabai, is no less inspiring than that of Shivaji, and takes an equally proud place in the history of the Hindu people. Jijabai’s father, Lakhuji Jadhav Rao, was a leader […]
Shivaji, Baji Prabhu & the Battle of Pavan Khind
Baji Prabhu Deshpande was one of the great lieutenants of Shivaji’s era. He sacrificed his life defending Shivaji in a heroic last stand known as the Battle of Pavan Khind (Battle of the Sacred Pass) in which his force was vastly outnumbered, possibly by a ratio of 35 to 1. In the battle he lost […]
[Hindu resistance] The Marathas after the death of Shivaji
After Shivaji’s death in 1680, the Moghul Emperor Aurangzeb thought to himself that the Marathas would henceforth be easy to crush, erroneously thinking that the sustenance of this new Hindu kingdom rested on one able man alone [Shivaji]. Like so many other uprisings in that period, he thought the Maratha movement too would receive its […]