Chatrapati Shivaji Charitra

SR No.: 034490
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Vaman Sitaram Mukadam
Publisher: Vaman Sitaram Mukadam
Publication Year: 1934
Total Pages: 720
Language: Gujarati
Classification: Book_Gujarati
File Size: 45 MB

Page 686

રાજવંશીઓ, સત્તાધારીઓ, ઇતિહાસકારો, વિદ્વાના, મુત્સદ્દી, મહાન પુરુષા, દેશભક્તો અને નામીચા આગેવાને એ
છત્રપતિ શિવાજી મહારાજને
જુદે જુદે પ્રસ ંગે તેમજ આ પુસ્તકદ્વ્રારા અર્પણ કરેલી
youivell (?)
Shivaji was not the first in India to liberate the motherland from foreign thraldom. Chandragupta Maurya had freed India from Greek rule in the 4th cetury B. C. Chandragupta of the Gupta dynasty had established Hindu empire in the 4th century A. D. after overthrowing the Scythians. Vishnuvardhana of Malva had driven out in 635 A. D. the Huns who had caused a havoc in India for more than half a century. Rana Pratap of Udaipur had tried hard to keep aloft the standard of freedom in the days of Akabar. But Shivaji's place in history is much higher than that of any of these great men. Greek and Hun rule in India was hardly well established, when the Mauryan emperor Chandragupta and the Malva ruler Vishnuvardhana appeared on the scene to reestablish the national independence. The foreign rule was well established in India for about three centuries and more, when the Guptas rose and put an end to it. But the Scythian rule embraced only a portion of northern India and had not stunned the national consciousness to the same extent as was the case with the Muslim rule at the time of Shivaji. Shivaji's contemporaries were looking on the Muslim rule as a divine dispensation. Even the sturdy and freedom-loving Rajput chiefs had reconciled themselves to it; their highest ambition was to get the highest post in the Moghul administration and they had not the slightest scruples in fighting in the conquerer's army against their own countrymen fighting for the country's independence. The Muslim rule had become well established in India for more than half a dozen centuries, and by Shivaji's time the last Hindu bulwark Vijayanagar had collapsed, and practically no Hindu independent state worth the name was in existence. God's images were broken with impunity by the victorious Mlechchha in innumerable places; the masses had come