Shivaji built a kingdom from a single captured hill fort
At sixteen, Shivaji took Torna Fort, by trickery or a bribe, while the Bijapur court was distracted by its sultan's illness. Inside he found a large treasure, which he spent building a new stronghold, Rajgad. From that base grew the Maratha Kingdom, and in 1674 he was crowned its Chhatrapati at Raigad.
Born around 1630 in the hill fort of Shivneri and named after a local goddess, Shivaji grew up amid a power struggle between three Deccan sultanates and the Mughal Empire. His father Shahaji, a Maratha general, switched loyalties repeatedly but always held on to his estate at Pune, while Shivaji and his mother Jijabai were often moving from fort to fort. The historian James Laine argues it was Jijabai, proud of her royal Yadava ancestry, who inspired her son's ambition of a Hindu kingdom.
After Torna he quickly took Purandar, Kondhana and other forts near Pune, pushing west to Kalyan. Bijapur responded in 1648 by imprisoning his father, and Shivaji paused his expansion from 1649 to 1655. In 1659 Bijapur sent the veteran general Afzal Khan after him. With neither side able to break the stalemate at Pratapgad, the two leaders met in a hut below the fort, supposedly carrying only swords. Shivaji wore hidden armour and concealed weapons, the meeting ended in Khan's death, and Shivaji's troops routed the Bijapur army. He then freed his prisoners and sent them home with gifts.
A year later, escaping a siege at Panhala by night, he was saved by Baji Prabhu Deshpande and 300 men who held a narrow pass until cannon fire from Vishalgad signalled that Shivaji had reached safety. The pass was renamed Pavan Khind, the sacred pass, in their honour.
His relations with the Mughals swung between alliance and war; at one point he became a Mughal vassal and received the title Raja from Aurangzeb. He hired people of every caste and religion, including Muslims and Europeans, and built a Maratha navy. He died in 1680. Around two centuries later Jyotirao Phule revived his memory, and later nationalists, including Bal Gangadhar Tilak, celebrated him.
Source: Shivaji
