JOIN USDevelop Shivaji Maharaj tourism circuit, says Governor Ramesh Bais
In the run-up to the 350th coronation ceremony of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Maharashtra governor Ramesh Bais on Friday asked the government to take up a project to develop a tourism circuit on the life and times of the legendary Maratha warrior - an important figure of Indian history.
Shivaji Maharaj (19 February 1630 – 3 April 1680) was coronated in Raigad Fort on June 6, 1674 - and it is from here he laid the foundation of ‘Hindavi-swaraj’ or self-rule of Hindu people.
The coronation of Shivaji Maharaj is an important landmark in the history of the Indian subcontinent.
The 350th anniversary of the coronation would be celebrated at the Raigad Fort in a big way.
Ahead of the event, the governor flagged off the Sahastra Jal Kalash Yatra from Raj Bhavan in Mumbai to the Raigad Fort in the presence of the state’s cultural affairs minister Sudhir Mungantiwar.
The water from the Jal Kalash collected from various rivers across the country will be used for the 350th coronation ceremony.
“We must develop a Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj circuit,” Bais said.
A series of events have also been planned at the Raigad Fort.
Once impregnable by military standards, the Raigad Fort - in the Sahyadri mountain ranges - is an ideal representation of the intelligent Maratha architecture in the 17th century. One of the strongest forts in the Deccan Plateau and known as ‘Gibraltar of the East’ or ‘Durg Raj’, the King of Forts.
Earlier known as Rairi, Shivaji Maharaj seized the fort from Chandrarao More in 1656. For over a decade, it was renovated and strengthened. The villages of Pachad and Raigadwadi are located at the base of the fort.
After the death of Shivaji and thereafter the killing of his son Sambhaji Maharaj in 1689, the fort was captured by Mughals under Aurangzeb in 1818, and later it was the target of an armed expedition of the British East India Company.