Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Jayanti is
a festival and public holiday of the Indian state of Maharashtra, India,
commemorating the birth of Shivaji, an 11th-century Maratha warrior king of the
famed Maratha Empire.
Started as a government-sponsored tradition, Chhatrapati Shivaji Jayanti has since grown into a national holiday celebrated across Maharashtra.
Shivaji Maharaj was a devoted Maratha, who had faced oppression from the Mughal Empire and other enemy rulers.
The Mughals declined to help Shivaji Maharaj was a Royal Commander of the Prince of Poona.
In order to secure the safety of his court, he retreated to the Bhima River fort which was held by a weak Maratha army.
He had to wait for three months for the invasion of the Mughal's to be postponed.
Then he got back to Pune.
Shivaji Maharaj started a revolt with the aid of Brahmins, Rajputs, Jains, and other communities.
According to legends, Shivaji's courage, firmness, charisma, and intelligence turned the tide.
The Rajputs under their leader Chhatrapati Sogaji battled and defeated the Mughals at the Battle of Sinhagad in 1675.
The Mughals then fled to the Deccan Plateau and fought against Shivaji's army, who recaptured most of their forts and territories in Maharashtra and a significant portion of the Deccan Plateau.
Shivaji was successful in his two attacks on the Maratha capital at Pune in 1680 and 1688.
He converted the Hindu community to the Rajasthani faith, renaming the area as Maratha-Rajeev (Maharashtra-land), which is still the name of the region today.
In 1698, Shivaji left Pune with an army of 500,000 troops and marched towards Pune, where his son Sambhaji was to rule the Maratha Empire.
Shivaji's army engaged in a long battle with the forces of the Mughals near the town of Satara, today known as Satara.
The city of Pune came under siege from May–July 1698.
The besieged kingdom now required a massive supply of provisions for its soldiers.
With Pune surrounded and running low on supplies, Shivaji made a decision to escape with most of his troops, leaving behind a small force of 12,000 troops, 12 ships, 12 cannons, and two million rupees in gold, silver, and jewelry, for the safety of his son, Sambhaji.
On 18 October, a contingent of Maratha soldiers mutinied and killed him.
The Mughal forces under the command of Sher Afghan Khan defeated the Maratha army, defeated its allies, and captured all the large Maratha fortresses, including Pune.
Shivaji's mortal remains were then hidden inside a granite obelisk in the nearby Pune fort, where they still rest today.
Shivaji was proclaimed an "Indian national hero" by the nationalist leaders such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
In 1893, an annual state-level the observance was established, and in 1924, the state government became the first to proclaim 18 December as the official day of observance.
After the Indian independence, Shivaji was included as one of the ten Presidents of the constituent states of the Union of India in 1950.
In 1970, following the merger of the States of Bombay and Maharashtra, 18 December was proclaimed as Maharashtra's state holiday, from the year 1974.
Further, the Shivaji Jayanti was included in the seventh schedule of the Indian Constitution.
It is officially a non-working holiday.
In Maharashtra, a program called Shivaji Jayanti Abhishek was started in 2005 by the Pune District Maratha Seva Sangh.
The program is based on the traditional Marathi song, "Shivaji Jayanti Ek Wargana Jivan".
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