Shivaji blazed the trail of a new victorious Hindu era
By H.V. Seshadri
IT is on this day—the Jyes-htha Shukla Triodashi of 1674—named Anandanama Samvat that Shivaji was coronated. The grand function took place atop the 5,000-ft high Raigadh fort in Maharashtra. He became thereafter a full-fledged chhatrapati—a Hindu emperor in his own right.
In Maharashtra, the day is celebrated as Shiva Rajyarohana Utsav—the day Shivaji was coronated. However, the RSS celebrates it as the Hindu Samrajya Dinotsav. The reason for this is simple. Shivaji himself, as a teenager, had taken the pledge to establish Hindavi swaraj and not his own kingdom. He had also declared that it was the will of God that the move should succeed. On his royal seal, he had declared that this auspicious raja mudra of Shivaji, the son of Shahji, would grow like the moon on the first day of Shukla Paksha and be venerated by the entire world.
Evidence of the all-Hindu character of the function came in abundance even at the time of the coronation. Jayaram, a gifted teenaged poet, came all the way from Tamil Nadu to pay his poetic tributes to Shivaji. Gaga Bhatta, a Vedic scholar of great repute, arrived from Kashi and prepared a new scriptural text to install Shivaji as a sovereign Hindu king. Waters from the seven sacred rivers of the country were brought for his holy bath.
