Part 4: Death of Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj & His Son
In the 4th and final part of Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, we’ll tell you about how the Maratha empire continued to flourish even after the demise of the almighty Shivaji Maharaj.
After the death of Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Aurangzeb thought now the Maratha Empire will finally collapse but later his myth got busted when Sambhaji took over the crown and became Chatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj who took forward the empire as well as his father's majesty. However, the death of Chatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj is also as legendary as his father himself. He also had given a tough fight to the Mughals, Siddis, as well as to the Portuguese.
During his last battle with Mughals in 1689, Sambhaji Maharaj was captured by a Mughal commander Muqarrab Khan. After capturing Sambhaji when the commander took him to the king, he asked him to convert himself into Islam and hand over his territory to Mughals in return to set him free. However, Sambhaji quite obviously didn’t accept his offer, due to which the Mughal commander lost his cool. It is said that Shambhaji’s nails were ripped, eyes were gouged and he tied him outside the palace where his body was fed to wild dogs while he was alive as he kept on praising Lord Shiva. He reportedly was torn apart from the front and back with ‘Wagh Nakh’ (Tiger claws). After a few days when there was nearly no flesh left in his body but he was still alive, Aurangzeb himself came back to him. He said, “If only one of my sons would have been as determined as you, I would have ruled the entire world,” saying that he chopped off Sambhaji’s head with an axe.
His corpse was further subjected to brutal torture, cut into pieces and thrown in the river. After Sambhaji’s death, Shivaji’s second son Rajaram became the king of the Maratha empire and Mughals continued to fight with Marathas almost for the next 35 years, but they never succeeded. Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj spread the Maratha Empire right from Karnataka to present day Pakistan. And today at the end of this article, living in the 21st century with all our heart, we feel proud to call him our ancestor who’ll remain our King forever. This was “THE CHATRAPATI SHIVAJI MAHARAJ” for you.
