New History of the Marathas v1.c7.18

v1.c7.18

In the meantime two of Shahji's sons were growing up with him and breathing the prevalent atmosphere. The elder Sambhaji now about twenty years of age was directly working under his father. His second wife's son Ekoji was now about ten and fast coming into his own. The third son Shivaji lived with his mother in Maharashtra and was slowly building up his character in the independent surroundings of the western hills, untrammelled by any regulations of service or of any superior commands, although nominally he too was answerable both to his father and to the Sultan of Bijapur. He received the best training then available under the care of a loving mother and a wise guardian, and grew up manly and self-reliant. In 1640 his mother got him married to a girl from the Nimbalkar family of Phaltan, named Saibai. In the art of government, however, his direct contact with the neighbouring people of the turbulent Mawals on the one hand and his intimate pupilage under the consummate Dādāji Kondadev on the other, gave him some very unique experience of a revolutionary character. He thus started his own organization, military, civil and revenue, which could not long be concealed from the public gaze. His precocious and wild enterprizes reached Shahji's ears through the latter's agents at Bijapur. Shahji thought it necessary to restrain him and keep him on the traditional path of service and strict obedience to their Muslim sovereign. So Shahji, acting either on his own initiative or under gentle hints from Bijapur, called Shivaji to his presence along with Jija Bai, Dadaji and their personal staff. That he had to see his newly wedded daughter-in-law was given out as the plausible excuse. Though the actual date of the visit is nowhere recorded, it may be presumed that for about two years between 1640 and 1643, the party was away from Poona, mostly at Bangalore and a short while at Bijapur on the way back. What happened during this long visit, how their mutual relations were adjusted, what particular points of policy were evolved, we can surmise only by reading between the lines of stray and scrappy notices occurring in the *bakhars* and in the writings of poets like Jayaram and Parmanand, which have to be coordinated with the Persian accounts of the Muslim writers as well. As conjecture and imagination can alone become one's guide in solving these hazy but important questions, there is bound to be ample room for difference of opinion.³