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The fact that Shivaji respected the sanctity of mosques and the honour of women is accepted even by his enemies and this alone, in times when temples were constantly demolished and Hindu women violated or carried away as slaves by Mahomedans, would suffice to place him in tho rank of the greatest Heroes of the world.
The life of Shivaji again is all the more charming by the fact that it is full of wonderful incidents in which he always succssfully extricated himself from the dangerous positions into which his enemies placed him, with a resourcefulness and a courage which are unsurpassed in the history of the world and which excited the admiration of even his enemies. Such thrilling incidents as his duel with Afzalkhan, his march in a dark rainy night from the fort of Panhala pursued by the horsemen of Siddhi Gohar, his surprising attack on Shaistekban at midnight in his own camp when surrounded by thousands of soldiers, his escape from confinement at Agra under the very nose of Aurangzeb, his safe return after an incognito travel through Northern India, eluding the vigilence of all officers of the Moghul Empire, and finally his coronation by which he announced the foundation of an independent Maratha Kingdom in Maharastra by anointing and crowning himself as king with the Hindu religious Vedic ceremony of Rajyabhishek, strike us like almost the incidents of a romance. Neither the most powerful Moghul Empire nor the immediately neighbouring Kingdom of Bijapur which both had strenuously tried to destroy him, could prevent this ceremony from being performed nor could they nullify it during Shivaji's life by conquering him.
C. V. Vaidya. M. A. L. L. B. (Hon. Fellow, University of Bombay; Vice Chancellor, Tilak University; President Bharat Itihas Shamshodban Mandal, Poona. )
Shivajee was certainly a most extraordinary person; and however justly many of his acts may be censured, his claim to high rank in the page of history must be admitted. To form an estimate of his character, let us consider him assembling and conducting a band of half-naked Mawalees through the wild tracts
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
| SR No. | 034490 |
| Book Title | Chatrapati Shivaji Charitra |
| 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 |