How Raigad's significant location makes it the seat of Maratha Government.

 

 As a Marathi people we have a special kind of respect with all the forts in Maharashtra. These are nothing but the living examples of our glorious past. Out of all the forts the Fort Raigad is more important in connection with the glorious empire of Great Shivaji Maharaj.

 In this article we are going to see how Raigad became so much important in Medieval times and how it came to become the capital of Maratha empire.

Raigad unique location brought it much importance in medieval time. It is located in Western Maharashtra which is known as Konkan. What makes Raigad unique is its geographical location which is between Sahyandri Mountain ranges and the Konkan region of Maharashtra.

The Sahyandri Mountain range is extends from Southern Gujarat to Kerala which is around 635km. This range contains peaks with average height upto 2000 to 3500 feet. Somewhere it goes upto 4000 ft.

This Sahyandri Mountain range has created a long coastline along the western part Indian and this is known as Konkan. This region has different names in different states.

There is natural demarcation due Sahyandri mountain range. Konkan and Deshpathar(plataue) and Ghatmatha and Mavle-Nere are the different names for this natural regions.

Sahyandri has various mountain ranges like Satmala Range, Balaghat range and Mahadev range. Raigad fort is located in Mahadev range.

Various mountain passes were constructed to connect the seaports with the main trading centres likes Paithan and Junnar.

Naneghat, Malshej ghat, Borghat ,Varandh ghat and Ambenali ghat were some of the important mountain passes connecting  the inaccessible regions in Konkan.

In India majority of the forts in India are located on top of the mountains. There are very few forts which are situated on that flat landscapes.

 Maharashtra is famous for its mountain located forts. The Eastern range of Sahyandri contains more ancient as well as medieval forts. Each fort had a unique story associated with it.

Even though the forts were constructed in a very difficult terrain but the main motive behind such locations was to gain control over the larger area.

Many forts in Sahyandri were made for the purpose of controlling the transport through the main mountain passes.

Kanchan-Manchan Ghat near Nasik, Amboli ghat, Thalghat, Kalyan Chaoul Ghat, Pimpri Ghat, Nane ghat, Madhya ghat are some of the main mountain passes in the Sahyandri mountain rage. And many forts were constructed for controlling these routes like Hatgarh, Balwantgarh, Harishchandragarh, Langana, Kangori, Rohida and Chandragarh etc.

Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj had constructed many sea forts for gaining the control over the trading ports on the western coast. Alibaugh ,Sindhadurga, Khanderi, Vijaydurga, Arnala and Padamdurga are some of the main sea-forts of Shivaji Maharaj.

The konkan region has a very dense cover of forest. This area received more rainfall compare to the eastern side of the sahyandri. Konkan receives nearly 90 to 100 inch of rainfall on an average. This make the region again more inaccessible.

Now let us consider the location of Raigad fort. It in located in the today’s Raigad district and it is 24 km from Mahad. Mahad was a famous trading port in those times and hence Raigad had a great control over it.

The Raigad fort is surrounded by the many little mountains so it is very difficult to see it from distance. It can be only seen from Torna and Rajgarh fort. This very inaccessibility of Raigad makes it important for the strategic purposes.

Not only mountains but also Raigad fort is surrounded by the various river beds. On north and east there is Kal river and on South there is Gandhari river. This explains why Raigad was selected as a capital of the Maratha empire.

If we go into history we found that there are various names for the Raigad fort. Rasivata, Tanas, Nandadeep, Islamgarh, Badenur, Bhivgarh, Rahir are some of the names of Raigad which were used in different period of time.

Islamic documents mentioned Raigad as “Rahir”. The Europeans used the term “Gibraltar of East” for Raigad. Aurangzeb used to denote it as “Uttamgarh” (Best fort)

Shivaji Maharaj and the Raigad.

Firstly shivaji Maharaj selected Rajgarh as a capital of the empire and them it is shifted to Raigad. We have to go  into the history to find the reason for that.

In 1636 Shahaji maharaj tried to create a sovereign state under the Nizamshahi but it was destroyed and he  was given the Jagirdari with the rank of 12000 cavalry. He was transferred to Karnataka.

He was also given the Jagirdari of Pune Pargana. This pune paragana contains total 290 villages.

Before going to Karnataka Shahaji appointed Dadaji Konddev as his representative to the Pune Jagir. Dadaji was already A Subedar of Kondhana fort at that time.

In 1642 Dadaji transferred all the pune Jagir to the Shivaji and also sent him some officers like Peshwa, Dabir, Sabnis, Mujumdar etc.

After returning from Karnataka Dadaji also conquered some regions on the western side of Pune district. This are was under the control of Deshmukh families who also had some army under their command.

Dadaji and Shivaji decided to united all those Deshmukh families and establish an independent rule of Marathas. After that Shivaji captured forts like Kondhana, Rohida and Torana etc.

Initially the empire was very limited and contains very few forts like Kondhana, Rohida and Torana. The capital Rajgarh was very near to Pune and hence it was prone to enemy attacks . Also Rajgarh does not have an enlarged plateau to carry out administrative activities from there.

Hence Shivaji Maharaj felt the need of shifting the capital to the new place.

In the March of 1656 Shivaji Maharaj captured the Javli valley and during this time the Rayri(Raigad) fort came into the hands of Shivaji.

The Raigad fort gave many advantages to the Maratha empire. Due to this all the major routes and mountain passes in Konkan came under the control of Shivaji and it also helped in gaining control over the trade and military transportation over this area.

The only route from Pune to Raigad is through Katraj Ghat which passes through villages like Bhor, Hirdoshi, Mahad etc.