Page:Shivaji and His Times.djvu/193

1666] fare placed before them, saying that the troopers of the brigand Shivaji had recently robbed the villages. She cursed them and their master to her heart's content. Shivaji noted the names of the peasant and the village carefully, and on his return home, summoned the family of his host and gave them more than what they had lost.

A late tradition gives a charming picture of the scene of Shivaji's home-coming. "He went to the gate of Raigarh, where his mother resided, and requested admittance to the presence of Jija Bai. The guards informed her that some strange Bairagis or religious medicants were at the gate of the fort and requested to see her. She desired that they should be admitted. When they came into her presence, Niraji Pant blessed her after the manner of the Bairagis; but Shiva advanced towards her and threw himself at her feet. She did not recognise him and was surprised that a Bairagi should place his head on her feet Shivaji then placed his head in Jija Bai's lap and took off his cap. She immediately perceived, by a mark on his head, that he was her son and embraced him." (Raigarh Life in Forrest, i. 17.)

His return to Rajgarh (towards the end of December 1666) was followed by widespread rejoicings among his family, officers and subjects. It was a national deliverance, as providential as it was romantic.

He spread a false report that Shambhuji had