Sinhagad & Tanaji

Tonight a new act begins: The Crown. After his escape from Agra, Shivaji rested and rebuilt for a few years. Then, in 1670, he set out to win back the forts he had been forced to give up at Purandar — one by one. And the very first fort he wanted back was an old friend of ours: Kondhana.

Do you remember Kondhana? On Day 7 young Shivaji gave it up to save his father. On Day 13 he escaped to it after the Lal Mahal raid. At Purandar he had to hand it to the Mughals. It stood on a huge flat-topped mountain close to Pune, guarding the roads all around, and now it was held for the Mughals by a tough Rajput commander named Udaybhan Rathod, with a strong garrison.

For a job this hard, Shivaji turned to his oldest friend: Tanaji Malusare. Do you remember him from Day 4, the Mavla "fearless as a lion"? I told you then that an unforgettable night was waiting for him far ahead. Tonight is that night.

The tradition says that when Shivaji's call came, Tanaji was busy preparing for the wedding of his son, Rayba. The whole house was full of guests and music. But when Tanaji heard what Shivaji needed, he set the wedding aside and said the famous words:

"आधी लगीन कोंढाण्याचं, मग रायबाचं""First the wedding of Kondhana — then my Rayba's."

Kondhana's walls guarded every easy way up. But on one side the mountain dropped away in a sheer, rocky cliff, so steep that the defenders hardly bothered to watch it. "No one can climb that," they thought. And that is exactly the side Tanaji chose.

On a dark winter night — the night of the 4th of February, 1670 — Tanaji, his brother Suryaji, and a band of picked Mavlas crept through the darkness to the foot of that cliff. No torches, no talking. Just the cold wind, and the black rock rising above them into the stars.

And here comes the most beloved legend of all. People say Tanaji had a tame ghorpad — a big monitor lizard — named Yashwanti. They tied a rope to her, and she scrambled up the rock and gripped it so tightly that the first climber could pull himself up. (That is a legend; historians think the Mavlas climbed with rope ladders and sheer skill. But Maharashtra has loved Yashwanti for centuries.)

Hand over hand, one by one, the Mavlas climbed up the cliff in the dark. Fingers found cracks; toes found ledges no wider than a coin; nobody looked down. At the top they slipped over the wall and fell upon the surprised guards. Shouts rang out, alarm drums boomed, and Udaybhan's soldiers poured out to meet them. A fierce battle raged across the top of the mountain in the darkness.

In the thick of it, Tanaji came face to face with Udaybhan himself. The two great warriors fought long and hard, and in the end both of them fell. Tanaji, Shivaji's oldest friend, gave his life on the fort he had promised to win.

When the Mavlas saw their leader fall, their hearts shook, and some turned back toward the cliff. But Suryaji stood in their way. The tradition says he had the ropes cut, and called out to them: would they run away and leave Tanaji lying there? Ashamed and fired up, the Mavlas turned back, and fought on until the fort was theirs. Then the thatched huts on the summit were set ablaze, and the great fire was a signal to Shivaji that Kondhana was won.

Shivaji hurried there — but his joy turned to grief when he learned that Tanaji was dead. And the words he is remembered as saying have echoed through Maharashtra ever since:

"गड आला, पण सिंह गेला""The fort is won — but the lion is gone."

Tradition also says that Shivaji did not forget Tanaji's promise to his own family. He saw to it that Rayba's wedding went ahead, and treated the boy as if he were his own son. And Kondhana was only the beginning. In the months that followed, fort after fort that had been given away at Purandar came back into Shivaji's hands — Purandar itself among them. The tide had turned.

Now for the honest part. That Tanaji captured Kondhana in a night attack in February 1670, and that both he and Udaybhan were killed, is history. Yashwanti the lizard is legend. The two famous lines come down to us through tradition and old ballads, not from a written record of those very days. And people often say the fort was renamed Sinhagad, "the Lion's Fort," in Tanaji's honour — but one old chronicle seems to use the name Sinhagad even earlier, so the name may already have existed. Either way, Tanaji's story made that name his forever.

Today Sinhagad stands just outside Pune, and thousands of people climb it every weekend. Up on top is a memorial to Tanaji, and many visitors stop there and bow their heads. When we go, we can look over the edge of that cliff, and imagine climbing it in the dark.

Goodnight — tonight's badge: sinha, "the lion" — "gad ala, pan sinha gela": the fort was won, and the lion who won it is remembered for ever.