Matoshree of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj - Rajmata Jijau Birthplace, Sindkhed Raja

Jijamata, (Rajmata Jijau) was born on 12 January in 1598, at Sindhkhedra in Buldhana district. Rajmata Jijau was the Matoshree of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, the founder of the Hinduvi empire.Today this place is not only a historical place but also a tourist destination. Jijau Maa Saheb was born on 12 January 1598 in the Bhuikot palace. The Rajwada, which has an impressive grand entrance, is situated near the Mumbai-Nagpur highway in Sindhkhed Raja. There is also a garden built in the same area of municipality. Here is the place of worship of Lakhujirao Jadhav. This magnificent thing is bigger than the whole Hindu Rashtra Samadhi of India. The place where Jijau played the color is the palace of the palace. In this Mahal, the marriage of ShahajiRaje and Jijau was discussed.

Here is the ancient temple of Nilkanteshwar, the inscription inscribed by the King Lakhujirao Jadhav for the revival of the temple. In front of this temple there is a massive bar arranged by stairs to the bottom of the square. The Hemadpanthi Rameshwar Temple is in the 8th to the 10th century.

A beautiful example of the formation of the great forts during the tenure of Rajerao Jagadevrao Jadhav was that of Kalkoth. The timeless walls of this superb and strong, are 20 feet wide and the same height. In addition to this, there is a 40-foot-tall walled fort called Sachkarwada, which can be seen on an intersection, there are internal roads, well inside, wells, sub-basement and subway. So the entrance of this object is also very beautiful.

Moti lake is a very good way of releasing water for irrigation and a very good example of water irrigation. The front part of this lake is built like a fort, and the area of excavation is beneficial. Besides Chaitanya, the awning lake is also a tourist attraction. A three-storey building has been built in the middle of the pond. This is a statue built in a very streamlined manner.This means that the sculpture made by the use of numerous idols and sculptures together Also, there is a bhajnabai well, in those days, water was supplied through the well drained canals, and there is also a stairway to reach the bottom.

Now a small village in the district of Buldhana, Sindkhed Raja is best known as being the hereditary fief of the Jadhays, who were important landed Maratha nobles at the court of the Nizam Shahs. Lakhuji Jadhav, who is credited with most of the sixteenth-century architecture here, was famously the father of Jijabai (1598-1674 ), who was the mother of Shivaji Bhonsale, founder of the seventeenth-century Maratha kingdom. Though there is evidence of early occupation of the site, little is known about it historically. The only buildings that are datable from the Nizam Shahi period are the fortified mansion in the centre of the village, a large walled enclosure called the Kala Kot, a building known as the Rang Mahal, a small artificial reservoir with a pavilion in the midst, and the dams that create the reservoir. The grandest extant building is the memorial built in honour of Lakhuji Jadhav, who ruled here through the latter half of the sixteenth century. The fortified mansion, locally known as Lakhuji Jadhav's wads, is a large enclosure with high walls, covering an area of 90 by 85 metres. At the centre is a large elevated platform of 40 by 40 metres on which the ruins of the actual residential structure stand. Small rooms surround a central courtyard in this building, and it is architecturally unremarkable. One of the rooms is believed to be the birthplace of Jijabai Bhonsale (nee Jadhav). There are traces of a wooden superstructure. The palace is dateable to the last quarter of the sixteenth century.

To the west of the village of Sindkhed Raja is the impressive memorial (samadbi) built for Lakhuji Jadhay. It is a large double-storied masonry building, not unlike the Islamic tombs built in this period. There is a tripartite division of the facade, with two blind arches flanking a small doorway. Internally the space is organised as a pancayatana temple, with one central cella surrounded by four smaller sanctums in the four corners. All the cells contain sivalingas and suggest Saivite affiliations. In terms of architectural decoration, several motifs that can be seen on Bahmani and Nizam Shahi buildings are to be seen. Lakhuji

Jadhav was killed by the Nizam Shahs in Malik Ambar's regency because he had defected to the Mughals. He died sometime around 1600 CE. In the grounds are several smaller memorials, which are the scale of small cenotaphs and commemorate the lives of other members of the family. They all appear to be of a later date. To the west of the village is also a large tank called Chandani Talab, with retaining dams on the eastern and southern side. In the midst of the water body is a two-storied pleasure pavilion, not unlike the leisure architecture in the palace complexes of the Nizam Shahs. The southern wall of this tank also contains within it a number of pleasure chambers, including a hammam. The village contains a number of spatially distributed temples and a few small mosques, following much the same pattern as Nizam Shahi towns.

The whole village of Sindhkhed Raja, including its significant buildings, are an emulation of Nizam Shahi architecture, albeit on a smaller scale. Like the royal court, the residence is placed at the edge of the settlement. But, other than that, the presence of small garden pavilions and waterworks, memorials and tombs, along with the scattered places of worship and prayer, are all similar to Ahmadnagar and Junnar.

Urban Systems: Water Supply and Civic Buildings The water-supply systems of the Nizam Shahs were the most sophisticated in the Deccan, with an understanding of local geology and hydrology, often lifting water to high plateaus from lowland areas. The Nizam Shahs often incorporated local building craft and knowledge in their attempt at creating a regional identity. Their technology was a happy co-existence of local and imported knowledge. A good example is the hill of Manzarsumbah. Water is raised almost a hundred metres from a series of tanks carved into the intermediary compact basalt. The technique of carving water tanks in porous impure layers of rock (amygdaloidal basalt) sandwiched between two layers of compact basalt is traditional knowledge in the Deccan, and many Buddhist caves have a potable water supply based on this technique.74 However, the lifting systems and the subsequent network of conduits, pipes, and cisterns are frequently based on technology imported from Iranian regions. Most of the hydraulic technologies in the early modern Deccan were first utilised by the Nizam Shahs.75

How to Reach:

By Air

Nearest Airport is Aurangabad which is 92 km away.

By Train

Nearest Railway Stations are Jalna (33 km) and Aurangabad (96 km).

By Road

Regular State Transport Buses are available from any Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation Bus Stand.