A Rajput from the Deccan
Shivaji’s Discursive Identities
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12797/CIS.27.2025.02.05Keywords:
Braj, Deccan, linguistic ecology, Rajput, ShivajiAbstract
This article explores Shivaji’s use of Braj Bhasha poetry to construct and assert his identity in the furtherance of his royal consecration and realisation of his geopolitical ambitions. Departing from the cultural environment of Deccani sultanates with their established patronage of Dakani and Persian, Shivaji employed Braj to appeal to Hindu aristocracy, most notably Rajput chiefs, linking himself genealogically to the Sisodia Rajputs. Śivrājbhūṣaṇ, poetical treatise commissioned by him, blends indigenous Hindu themes with Persianate royal imagery, reflecting complex political and cultural strategy to claim legitimacy and imperial status. Drawing on Dirk Kolff’s hypothesis on warrior identities (1990), the article attempts to consider Shivaji’s Rajput affiliation as both pragmatic and indicative of flexible social identities shaped by military alliances. The study situates one of Shivaji’s literary and political endeavours within a broader tradition of Braj Bhasha literary cultivation in the Deccan, tracing its origins to Shivaji’s father, Shahaji, and poets such as Cintāmaṇi Tripāṭhī. This transregional literary engagement reinforced Shivaji’s royal authority and positioned him within the competing cultural landscapes of early modern India.
References
Asopa, J. N. 1999. Origin of the Rajputs. In: S. S. Ratnawat and K. G. Sharma (eds). History and Culture of Rajasthan: From Earliest Times upto 1956 A.D. Jaipur: Centre for Rajasthan Studies: 40–52.
Bangha, I. 2011. Rekhta: Poetry in Mixed Language: The Emergence of Khari Boli Literature in North India. In: F. Orsini (ed.). Before the Divide: Hindi and Urdu Literary Culture. New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan: 21–83.
Bendrey, V. S. 1960. Coronation of Shivaji the Great—Gāgābhaṭṭakrt̥ aḥ Śrīśivarājābhiṣekaprayogaḥ — or the Procedure of the Religious Ceremony Performed by Gagabhatta for the Consecration of Shivaji as a Hindu King. Bombay: P. P. H. Bookstall.
Bharadwaj, R. (ed.). 2007. Rajavyavaharakosha of Raghunatha Pandit: Persian-Sanskrit Phraseology. Delhi: Vidyanidhi Prakashan.
Borek, P. 2019. Zapis przeszłości w Indiach. Dworska kultura literacka języka bradź. Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka. https://doi.org/10.12797/9788381380737. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12797/9788381380737
Borek, P. 2020. Watch Out, Pun! Śleṣa in Brajbhasha Courtly Literature. In: Cracow Indological Studies, 22(2): 103–126. https://doi.org/10.12797/CIS.22.2020.02.06. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12797/CIS.22.2020.02.06
Busch, A. 2011. Poetry of Kings: The Classical Hindi Literature of Mughal India. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199765928.001.0001. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199765928.001.0001
Busch, A. 2012. Portrait of a Raja in a Badshah’s World: Amrit Rai’s Biography of Man Singh (1585). In: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 55(2–3): 287–328. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341237
Chattopadhyaya, B. D. 2001. The Emergence of the Rajputs as Historical Process in Early Medieval Rajasthan. In: K. Schomer et al. (eds). The Idea of Rajasthan. Explorations in Regional Identity. Vol. II. Constructions. New Delhi: American Institute of Indian Studies, Manohar: 161–191.
Divākar, K. 1970. Bhoṁslā rājdarbār ke hindī kavi. Kāśī: Nāgarīpracāriṇī Sabhā.
Dua, H. R. 1992. Hindi-Urdu as a Pluricentric Language. In: M. Clyne (ed.). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110888140.381
Pluricentric Languages: Differing Norms in Different Nations. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter: 381–400.
Eaton, R. M. 2005. A Social History of the Deccan, 1300–1761: Eight Indian Lives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521254847. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521254847
Eaton, R. M. 2014. The Rise of Written Vernaculars: The Deccan, 1450–1650. In: F. Orsini
and S. Sheikh (eds). After Timur Left: Culture and Circulation in Fifteenth-Century North India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press: 111–129. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199450664.003.0004. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199450664.003.0004
Fuchs, S. 1973. The Aboriginal Tribes of India. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Gordon, S. 2016. In the Aura of the King: Trans-Asian, Trans-Regional, and Deccani Royal Symbolism. In: South Asian Studies, 32(1): 42–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2016.1174429. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2016.1174429
Guha, S. 2011. Bad Language and Good Language: Lexical Awareness in the Cultural Politics of Peninsular India, ca. 1300–1800. In: Sh. Pollock (ed.). Forms of Knowledge in Early Modern Asia. Durham–London: Duke University Press: 49–69. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822393580-003. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11cw6b7.6
Hens, S. 2020. Beyond Power and Praise: Nayacandra Sūrī’s Tragic-Historical Epic Hammīra-mahākāvya as a Subversive Response to Hero Glorification in Early Tomar Gwalior. In: South Asian History and Culture, 11(1): 40–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2020.1719751. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2020.1719751
Hooja, R. 2009. A History of Rajasthan. New Delhi: Rupa and Co.
Hooja, R. 2018. Maharana Pratap: The Greatest Rajput Warrior. New Delhi: Juggernaut Books.
Khan, D. S. 2003 [1997]. Conversions and Shifting Identities: Ramdev Pir and the Ismailis in Rajasthan. New Delhi: Manohar and Centre de Sciences Humaines.
Kolff, D. H. A. 1990. Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market in Hindustan, 1450–1850. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kruijters, G. 2009. Xenophobia in Seventeenth-Century India. Leiden: Leiden University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5117/9789087280680
Laine, J. W. 2001. The Epic of Shivaji: Kavindra Pramananda’s Śivabhārata. Hyderabad: Orient Longman Limited.
McGregor, S. 2003. The Progress of Hindi. Part I. The Development of a Transregional Idiom. In: Sh. Pollock (ed.). Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia. Berkeley–Los Angeles–London: University of California Press: 912–957. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520926738-021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520926738-021
Saran, R. and N. P. Ziegler. 2001. The Meṛtīyo Rāṭhoṛs of Meṛto, Rājasthan: Select Translations Bearing on the History of a Rajpūt Family, 1462–1660. Vols 1–2. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan.
Szyszko [Turek], A. 2011. Radźputowie – stereotypowi bohaterowie Radźasthanu. In: Przegląd Orientalistyczny, 3–4: 142–150.
Śāstrī, O. (ed.). 1969. Śivā-bāvanī. Dillī: Hindī Sāhitya Saṁsār.
Śrīkr̥ ṣṇadās, G. 1918. Prastāvnāsahit—Kavirāj bhūṣaṇkī saṅkṣipt jīvnī. In: G. Śrīkr̥ṣṇadās (ed.). Śivrāj bhūṣaṇ kāvya. Kalyāṇ–Mumbaī: Lakṣmīveṅkaṭeśvar: 1–32.
Downloads
Published
Versions
- 2025-12-05 (2)
- 2025-11-25 (1)
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
