MOTHER BHAVANI OF TULJAPUR

HISTORICITY

From the inscriptional and iconographical evidence, it can be adduced that this Rudraswarupini was left to herself to safeguard her own position and glory during the Muslim conquest of the south, unlike the fortunate Mahalakshmi of Kolhapur, Pandurang Vittal of Pandarpur etc. who laid hidden in the dark hovels of the ardent devotees and were installed later with grandeur unheard of! Added to this discomfiture, as it were, the invader AfzaI Khan, knowing that Mother Bhavani was the family deity of his arch enemy Shivaji ordered at once to raze the temple to the ground and the image to be smashed to millions of pieces and powdered in a quern; but to what effect? Alas! he was paid in his own coin. For, the Mother prophesied his end in three weeks in a resonant aerial voice that reverberated the whole Sahyadri Hills. Yes in a fortnight's time that remorseless bigot joined the dust, decomposed and disintegrated to the dishonour of the whole clan of iconoclasts. This incident took place in 1659, when Adil Shahi of Bijapur sent general Afzal Khan, his commander to capture Shivaji, who proudly boasted that he would take Shivaji to the capital, dead or alive before the end of his campaign. 

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