It was in the year 1627 that Shivaji was born. That year wad destined to be the beginning of an epoch on account of that birth. Before Shivaji was born, hundreds of gallant souls had fought and fallen martyrs in resisting the onslaughts of the Muhammadan foes and in defence of the honour of the Hindu race. Fighting as bravely as any of these martyrs and warriors who fell vanquished in the field before him. Shivaji was destined to win and create a wave of triumph which gathered in strength as it proceeded and carried the Hindu banner on its crest from glory to glory, from achievement to achievement, for a period of hundred years or so. The tide of Muhammadan conquest that followed the arms of Mahomed of Ghazni rolled down with irresistible force till all Hindusthan lay submerged under it. Shivaji was the first person to raise his head above it and to command, in his stern Maratha accents: Thus far shalt thou go; but no farther’ Till the appearance of Shivaji on the political scene, it could be roughly stated that from the Himalayas tot he seas - wherever the Hindu arms met those of the Muhammadans, before 1627, the Hindus were sure to lose, now because of the sudden disappearance or death of their leader, now through the treachery of a minister here or a general there - but somehow or other every decisive struggle was sure to prove disastrous to the Hindu flag. One has only to recall Dahi’s fate, Jayapal’s fights, Anangapal’s stand, Prithvi Raja’s fall, the black day of Kalingar Sikri, Devagiri or Talikota to convince one of the melancholy truth of the above statement. But the hand of Shivaji took hold, as if bodily, of this cursed destiny of our people and gave a right about-turn and set her there, facing our opponents as sternly as she did us till then. Never again had the Hindu flag to bend before the Muhammadan crescent. From the Himalayas to the seas, wherever the Hindu arms met those of the Muhammadans after 1627, the Hindus sure to win and the Muhammadans sure to lick the dust, whateviB be their strength or however tumultuous were their war of’ Allah-ho-Akbar!’—God be victorious! God doubtless proved victorious, but it was the Hindu God. After 1627, one findsGod definitely enlisted on the Hindu side—on the side of the image worshipper, and setting his face sternly against the irnagjll breaker; one has only to recall the capture of Sinhgad, thedefence of Pavankhind, the careers of Govindsingh, Band Bahadur, Chhatrasal, Baji Rao, Nana, Bhau, Malharrad’; Parasharampant, Ranjit Singh and other numerous Maratiif Rajput and Sikh generals who beat the Muhammadans wherever and as often as they met. This turn, so momentous andl!! triumphant, which the political fortunes of the Hindu took, was doubtless due as well to the great spiritual and national ideal which Shivaji and his spiritual preceptor Shri Ramdas placed before our race, as to the new strategical methods and the new weapons they introduced into the battlefield. Maratha warfare was asl truly an addition to the science of war as it was in vogue then among Hindus, as the Maharashtra Dharma was a new force! animating the dying spirit of the national life of the Hindu race.
This ideal which inspired the leaders of that War of Hindu Liberation with such faith and gave such vitality was Hindu! Pad-Padashahi—the establishment of an independent Hindu- Empire; and the method of warfare, that made Maratha arms more than a match for the Muhammadan power, and ultimately crowned the Hindu brow with laurels of victory, was the surprise or guerilla warfare.
We shall observe how the consciousness of this:noble ideal animated their efforts from generation to generation, gave to their distant and widely scattered activities a unity of aim and kinship of interests, made them feel that their cause was the cause of their Dharma and their Desh,—a mission worthy of the efforts of their saints and soldiers alike—carried the Marat has in triumph from step to step to the gates of Delhi, to the banks of the Indus in the north and the seas in the south; and how it raised the story of their deeds to the grandeur of a great national epic that every Hindu mother can proudly sing to her infant, in strains far more triumphant and ennobling thflll the ballads that tell us how our day was lost, how our banner was torn and how, ultimately, our foes triumphed.
It was in 1627 A.D. that Shivaji was born. The ancient chroniclers of his life tell us that, as he grew, the lad began to feel keenly the political subjugation of the Hindu race. He saw with bleeding heart how the temples of his God were trampled down by alien feet and how the ashes of ancient glory were dishonoured and desecrated. His brave mother, Jijabai, fed his spirits on the glories of our Hindu race, 011 the memories of Shri Krishna and Sri Rama, of Arjun and Bhima, of Abhimanyu and Harschandra; nay, the very atmosphere that he breathed was tense with great expectations and aspirations. All talked of a deliverer to come to rescue the Hindu world-the people whose ancestors talked face to face with Gods and Angels and whom Shri Krishna had pledged his word never utterly to forsake. The very traditions of the lad’s family assured him that his own house was destined to be the cradle of such a national deliverer as that. Was it possible that it all foretold his coming? Could he be the chosen champion of his people, the chosen instrument of God? Whether it was to be so or not, one thing was certain- his duty was clear. He for one would not succumb to the paltry hopes of the easy life a satisfied slave, a humoured and patted dependant of an alien master who had smashed the throne of his nation and battered down the alter of his Gods. He for one would risk all and work and fight and, if need be, die in facing fearful odds for the ashes of his forefathers and the temples of his Gods; or, if he be destined to win and survive and remain a victor in the field, then he would lay the foundations of a great and glorious Hindu Empire, even as Vikramaditya or Shalivahana did-an empire, that would be, a notable realisation of the anxious dreams of generations of his people, of the object of the longing prayers of the saints and sages of his faith.