Story of Rao Jodha Rathore’s inspiration
Rao Jodha Rathore was the ruler of Mandore in Rajasthan. He was born on 28th March 1416 and lived till 19th February 1630. He was a illustrious soldier and founder of the city of Jodhpur. During his struggle for Mandore he had to suffer many years and ultimately his persistence paid off.
A story is told if him during the days of his failures to capture the Mandore and areas around it. It goes like this:
“Once, late at night, Rao Jodha stopped at a farmers house. They did not recognize who he was. He was given a bowl of hot khichdi, an Indian stew. Jodha put his fingers in the centre of the bowl and burnt his fingers. The farmer’s wife commented, “Stranger, you are making the same mistake as our king (Jodha) is. Khichdi is hottest in the centre and coolest at the edge“.
This prompted Jodha to stop worrying about Mandore and just focus on outlying forts, which he managed to win with ease”.
This is taken verbatim from Wikipedia at the URL given below:
Take me to Story of Rao Jodha Rathore
Incident that inspired Shivaji
Shivaji the great was the founder of Maratha Kingdom. H was born on 19th February 1630 (date is often disputed) and lived till 3rd April 1680. During his father’s time, the areas under him were not left intact and the land he ruled was fragmented and Shivaji got a very small state near Pune. He had to fight so many fights and face untold difficulties to capture and united the states and then went on to expand the regime.
During the times of distress and struggle, an incident is said to have happened with him which gave him the clue to win the areas.
There are some nice anecdotes too. Chhatrapati Shivaji was going through a spate of defeats when he visited a commoner’s house in disguise. The old lady offered him a bowl of hot khichdi. Shivaji dipped a finger right in the middle and got burnt.
She said, “Oh, brave soldier, you are just like your king. You start from the inside first. Just like he attacks kingdoms instead of the periphery, you are eating this hot khichdi inside-first. Why don’t you try to eat the corners first and then attack the center?” Shivaji realized his mistake — and learnt a strategic battle lesson.
The above is the story taken verbatim from The Hindu newspaper with URL
Take me to Story of Shiva Ji
There is a time difference of about 200 years between the lifetimes of Rao Jodha Rathore and Shivaji. From the similarity in both the stories, some questions arise. Possibilities are like
1. Both the incidents happened exactly as is told.
2. Since story related to Rao Jodha Rathore is almost 200 years older, it might had been known to people in Maharashtra also. And some historian fitted the Jodha’s story to Shivaji’s biography.
It is a common methodology of the biographers to insert such inspiring stories to create more interest in the readers