Shivaji's Coronation (1674) and the Rise of the Marathas

Shivaji’s coronation took place on 6 June 1674 at Raigad, a hill fort in the Western Ghats of India, where the Maratha leader was crowned Chhatrapati, or sovereign king. The ceremony capped three decades in which Shivaji had carved out a state from the lands of the sultanate of Bijapur and resisted the Mughal Empire. The kingdom it proclaimed grew into the Maratha power that dominated much of India in the eighteenth century.

Background: the Deccan in the seventeenth century

In the early 1600s the Deccan plateau was divided among Muslim sultanates, chiefly Ahmadnagar, Bijapur and Golconda, while the Mughal Empire pressed in from the north. Marathi-speaking Hindu warriors served these states as soldiers and landholders.

Shivaji’s father, Shahaji Bhonsle, was one such commander, serving Ahmadnagar and then Bijapur and holding the Pune region as a jagir, a grant of land revenue. Shivaji was born at Shivneri fort, near Junnar; the date usually used today is 19 February 1630, although some historians favour 1627. He grew up mainly in Pune with his mother, Jijabai, who is remembered as a strong influence on him.

Rise against Bijapur

From the mid-1640s, while still a teenager, Shivaji began seizing hill forts in the Sahyadri mountains, starting with Torna. Control of forts allowed him to dominate the surrounding countryside. Bijapur saw him as a rebel.

In 1659 Bijapur sent its general Afzal Khan against him. On 10 November 1659 the two met for talks below Pratapgad fort; Shivaji killed Afzal Khan during the meeting, each side later accusing the other of treachery, and his troops routed the Bijapur army. In 1660 Shivaji was besieged at Panhala and escaped, while his commander Baji Prabhu Deshpande held off pursuers at the pass of Ghod Khind (later named Pavan Khind) at the cost of his life.

Conflict with the Mughals

Shivaji’s raids soon brought him into conflict with the Mughals. In April 1663 he led a night raid on the Pune quarters of the Mughal governor Shaista Khan, Aurangzeb’s uncle, who escaped after losing fingers. In January 1664 Shivaji sacked the rich Mughal port of Surat.

Aurangzeb responded by sending Raja Jai Singh of Amber, who besieged Purandar. By the Treaty of Purandar in June 1665 Shivaji surrendered 23 forts and agreed to visit the emperor. At Agra in May 1666 he was received coldly, protested and was placed under house arrest. In August he escaped; tradition says he was smuggled out in large baskets of sweets, a story widely told but not confirmed in every contemporary account.

From 1670 he recovered most of the surrendered forts, including Sinhagad, whose capture is associated with his commander Tanaji Malusare, and sacked Surat a second time in October 1670.

The coronation at Raigad

By 1674 Shivaji ruled a sizeable territory, but in law he was still the son of a Bijapur noble. Orthodox Brahmins questioned whether the Bhonsle family qualified as Kshatriyas, the warrior caste from which Hindu kings were traditionally drawn.

Shivaji invited Gaga Bhatta, a respected scholar from Varanasi, who supported a genealogy linking the Bhonsles to the Sisodia Rajputs of Mewar. Preliminary rites included Shivaji’s investiture with the sacred thread. On 6 June 1674 he was consecrated and enthroned at Raigad, taking the title Chhatrapati. Large sums were distributed in gifts to Brahmins and guests. Shivaji was weighed against gold and other valuables in the traditional tula ceremony, and the treasure was given away in charity.

The choice of Raigad was deliberate. The fort, on a steep-sided hilltop with only a few approaches, had been rebuilt as Shivaji’s capital, with a palace, markets and administrative buildings on its summit.

Among those present was Henry Oxenden, an envoy of the English East India Company from Bombay, who negotiated a treaty with the new king and left a written account of the event. A new regnal era, the Rajyabhisheka era, was started from the coronation.

Jijabai died on 17 June 1674, less than two weeks later. On 24 September 1674 Shivaji underwent a second coronation following tantric rites, led by Nischalpuri Goswami.

The new Maratha state

The coronation gave the kingdom institutions. Shivaji governed with a council of eight ministers, the Ashta Pradhan, each with defined duties. He favoured paying soldiers in cash rather than with land grants, and he promoted Marathi and Sanskrit in administration; the Rajyavyavahara Kosha, a dictionary replacing Persian official terms with Sanskrit ones, was compiled at his court.

He also built a navy and sea forts such as Sindhudurg on the Konkan coast. In 1677-1678 he led a campaign into the south, in alliance with Golconda, and took Jinji and Vellore, which later served as a Maratha refuge.

Shivaji died at Raigad on 3 April 1680. His son Sambhaji succeeded him but was captured and executed by the Mughals in 1689.

Key people

• Shivaji (1630-1680), founder of the Maratha kingdom, crowned Chhatrapati in 1674. He is remembered as a skilled commander of guerrilla warfare and a careful administrator.
• Jijabai (c. 1598-1674), Shivaji’s mother, who managed the Pune estate during his youth and lived to see his coronation.
• Shahaji Bhonsle (c. 1594-1664), Shivaji’s father, a general of Bijapur who held lands in both the Pune region and around Bangalore in the south.
• Gaga Bhatta, a Brahmin scholar of Varanasi who presided over the Vedic coronation and wrote in support of Shivaji’s claim to Kshatriya status.
• Sambhaji (1657-1689), Shivaji’s eldest son and successor, whose capture and execution by the Mughals did not end Maratha resistance.

Myths and facts

Many popular stories about Shivaji come from later ballads (powadas) and nineteenth-century chronicles. The escape from Agra in baskets of sweets is the best known; contemporary sources agree that he escaped, but details vary.

Another common belief is that Shivaji’s movement was simply a Hindu uprising against Muslim rulers. In fact, he fought Hindu as well as Muslim opponents, had Muslim officers and soldiers in his service, and at times allied with the sultanate of Golconda. At the same time, he presented himself as a protector of Hindu religion and Brahmins, and the coronation used traditional Hindu forms of kingship. Historians therefore describe a mixture of political pragmatism and religious identity.

Timeline

• 1630, 19 February: Shivaji is born at Shivneri (the date usually adopted today).
• c. 1645-1646: Shivaji seizes Torna fort.
• 1659, 10 November: Afzal Khan is killed near Pratapgad.
• 1664, January: First sack of Surat.
• 1665, June: Treaty of Purandar with the Mughals.
• 1666, August: Shivaji escapes from Agra.
• 1674, 6 June: Coronation at Raigad.
• 1674, 24 September: Second, tantric coronation.
• 1680, 3 April: Shivaji dies at Raigad.

Legacy

The state Shivaji crowned in 1674 survived Aurangzeb’s long war in the Deccan. In the eighteenth century, under the Peshwas, the Maratha confederacy became the strongest power in India, until its defeat at the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761 and, finally, in the Third Anglo-Maratha War of 1817-1818.

In modern Maharashtra Shivaji is a central hero. His coronation anniversary is celebrated at Raigad, and his name is given to airports, railway stations and universities. Historians continue to debate how he should be understood: as a regional state-builder, a defender of Hindu rule or a pragmatic king who employed Muslims and Hindus alike.

Why it matters

The coronation of 1674 transformed a successful insurgency into a kingdom. By claiming full sovereignty in the face of the Mughal Empire, Shivaji created a state that would, within a century, reshape the political map of India.