1) अकबराचे भग्न मनोरथ (सन 1683-88) :-

How eagerly Shahzada Akbar and his companion Durgadas had come to Sambhaji Raje seeking shelter has already been told. Had Sambhaji possessed the skill of winning men to his side and the cleverness to read a political situation, this was as fine an opportunity as any to humble Aurangzeb once and for all. Durgadas's own selfless sacrifice had brought with it the whole might of the Rajputs, ready to be placed at Akbar's — and through him, Sambhaji's — disposal. Even while camped in the Deccan, Akbar was kept minutely informed of every negotiation and intrigue unfolding at the Badshah's court, because his own full sister, Zinat-un-Nisa Begum, moved with full authority near Aurangzeb and worked ceaselessly, right up to the end, to bring about a reconciliation between father and son. It was this same Begum who had always felt genuine affection for Shivaji Raje and Sambhaji Raje, and it was she who, after Sambhaji's eventual execution, took Yesubai and Shahu under her protection. Akbar's secret correspondence with this Begum was extensive, and some part of its substance reached Sambhaji's ears as well. Yet, knowing all this, Sambhaji extended no real backing to the Shahzada. On the contrary, the Badshah's own schemes kept succeeding one after another, and it was not long before Akbar realised, to his bitter dismay, that he had been badly mistaken in placing himself under the protection of Shivaji's son. Having walked into this difficult corner, Akbar found that even the road back out of his father's clutches had closed behind him. Aurangzeb had blocked every route to the north, so that only two choices remained: either to waste away miserably in the wild hill-country of the Konkan, or to attempt an escape by sea to Iran. Even the sea route was fraught with danger, since both the Siddi of Janjira and the Portuguese were, to a considerable extent, agents of the Badshah, and Akbar lived in constant dread that they would seize him and hand him back to his father. Even so, he eventually resolved to take that very risk — though, as will be told, it took him three or four years to actually bring it off. Meanwhile the Rajput kings of Udaipur, Jodhpur, and elsewhere had grown so weary of Aurangzeb's relentless persecution of their faith that they were simply waiting for the day Akbar would at last make his way north. Once before, this very plan had very nearly succeeded, but Aurangzeb's cunning had turned the tables and left the Shahzada badly exposed; the Rajputs felt keen remorse at having been outwitted into betraying him. Word of this regret reached Akbar after he arrived in the Deccan, and the Rajputs began urging him, by whatever means, to slip away north again.

1) अकबराचे भग्न मनोरथ (सन 1683-88) :-

To make that escape possible, Akbar felt that some sharp blow first had to be struck against the Badshah, and so he repeatedly pressed Sambhaji Raje to gather a large force and fall suddenly upon some vital target — Junnar, Ahmadnagar, Aurangabad, or Burhanpur — arguing that the capture of any one such place would instantly turn the whole game around. Set aside the lesser skirmishing, he urged, and strike boldly at something of real consequence. It was, in essence, a call for Sambhaji to repeat the kind of audacious stroke by which Shivaji had once turned Shaista Khan's years-long campaign back upon the Khan himself. But the courage and capacity to carry through so bold an enterprise were simply not in Sambhaji, and he never took up the challenge. Akbar's own calculation was straightforward: one sound defeat inflicted on the Badshah would clear the road north, and the throne of Delhi would not then be long delayed. He proposed that the two of them sit down together and think the whole matter through calmly — but Sambhaji paid this no heed whatsoever. A young man of about twenty-five, raised amid the comforts of Delhi as his father's favoured 'darling', Akbar found himself utterly wretched living in a thatched hut in the jungle. What could that wretched stretch of Konkan possibly offer him even in the way of food and drink? He was, in effect, a solitary exile cast into the wilderness — his wife and children kept forcibly out of reach by his own father. His only company was a handful of servants clad in the barest of loincloths. Neither his language, nor his dress, nor his faith was to be found around him; and of music, or festivity, or any of the comforts he had known, there was not even a mention. It is no wonder that he grew utterly sick of so miserable an existence. Such small comfort as he found came chiefly from Kavi Kalash, since both men had lived in the north and could converse freely with each other; Kalusha, in his own way, was as much an exile in a foreign land as Akbar himself. Sambhaji Raje, meanwhile, kept a watchful and suspicious eye on Kalusha's every move. In this state of affairs, Akbar and Kalusha nursed the hope that if Akbar ever did become Badshah, he would reward Kalusha handsomely. Sambhaji, for his part, reasoned that there was little sense in abandoning the secure, hill-girded safety of Maharashtra to risk a confrontation with the Badshah out in open, distant country — for should he be defeated there, he stood to lose not only Maharashtra but his very life as well.

1) अकबराचे भग्न मनोरथ (सन 1683-88) :-

A portion of Akbar's correspondence, published by Sir Jadunath Sarkar in the Modern Review, is well worth reading, for it gives a clear sense of the Shahzada's predicament. Writing to Kavi Kalash, Akbar says: 'I reached Jaitapur on 13 March 1682. As soon as you receive this letter, come and meet me. The enemy draws near. There is no telling what may happen, or when.' A later letter to Kavi Kalash reads: 'Your letter has reached me and I understand its contents. I hear you have come to Pachad. I have no objection to a treaty being made with the Mughals, but I myself have no wish for one. I need to meet you — much political business remains to be settled, and it must all be settled during this very monsoon. Do not sit idle thinking a treaty is as good as concluded. Once the rains are over, the work on Bhimgad should be taken in hand. Think it through carefully and act accordingly.' — dated 18 August 1682. The next letter says: 'I hear that your health is not good. Whether or not a treaty is made rests entirely with Sambhaji and yourself; but it would not do to sit idle simply trusting the talk of a treaty. Let me know what has come of the Bijapur business.' — 11 September 1682. The following letter, addressed to Sambhaji Raje himself, reads: 'Kavi Kalash is your most excellent and trustworthy servant. See to it that your other ministers bear him no ill will on that account. Whatever happens, you must protect him. From what you write, I understand you have now gone to the fort of Khelna. If you wish it, I too shall come and join you there.' To Kavi Kalash again: 'Both your letters have reached me. I note that you intend to come to meet me on 2 January 1683. But by our reckoning these are the days of Ashura, unsuited to a meeting. Fix upon some other day and write to me, so that I may leave Sakharpa and come to Malkapur on that day. Send your reply at once.' And yet another: 'Your letter is received. I understand that you go to Kolhapur on 1 January for the bathing at the eclipse, and that you wish me to meet you at Malkapur on the 16th or 17th. I too shall leave Sakharpa and come there around that time. Do not fail to come and meet me there; you may then proceed on to Kolhapur.' Such was the manner in which the dealings between Akbar and Sambhaji went forward. It cannot fairly be said that Sambhaji deliberately led Akbar on and then abandoned him; Akbar's reasoning genuinely appealed to him, and rumours repeatedly went abroad, for two or three years running, that Akbar and Sambhaji were about to march on Surat — rumours that visibly alarmed the English there. Yet, for one reason or another, Sambhaji never actually undertook any great expedition of the kind. Akbar had come to the Deccan hoping to find in Shivaji's son something of Shivaji's own extraordinary genius; in this he was gravely disappointed.

1) अकबराचे भग्न मनोरथ (सन 1683-88) :-

After a year and a half of great hardship, Akbar grew utterly weary of waiting, for Sambhaji made no move on his behalf whatsoever. Resolving at last to quit Maharashtra, he set out in December 1682 with whatever Rathod companions remained to him. His first thought was to go to the King of Golconda, but on learning that a force had been sent to intercept him, he turned south instead into Sawantwadi territory, to the village of Banda. From there he sent his trusted agent Rahimkhan, bearing gifts, to the Portuguese Governor at Goa, with a request that he be conveyed by Portuguese ship from Mangalore to Arabia. The Portuguese official granted him a pass for five thousand and made arrangements for him to proceed to Mangalore (3 February 1683). But the Badshah's envoy Sheikh Muhammad, then in Goa, at once informed the Siddi's naval commander at Janjira that the Shahzada was attempting to flee and must be seized and brought back. Accordingly Siddi Yakut arrived at Rajapur in March–April with his fleet and kept watch for the Shahzada. Judging it too dangerous now to slip away even from his own private harbour, Akbar again appealed to the Goa government, asking to be carried on one of their merchant vessels disguised as a pilgrim bound for Mecca. This too the Portuguese authorities naturally refused, since sheltering a fugitive of the Badshah would have brought down severe punishment upon them. Left with no alternative, Akbar went to Bicholi and met with the Dutch official there (September 1683), but nothing came of this either. Bicholi and Dicholi are one and the same place, and it lay within Sambhaji Raje's own territory. Another whole year thus passed fruitlessly, and Akbar became convinced that no outside help would ever come to him. He therefore bought a ship himself, registering it in another man's name, and obtained a pass from Surat allowing it to sail abroad. The ship duly reached Rajapur, and the Shahzada went there too — only to find it was a mere small craft, plainly unfit for a two-thousand-mile voyage across open sea. He abandoned the plan and returned once more to Bicholi, where he now built himself a house; Sambhaji Raje too kept a residence there. After some time spent there together, Sambhaji Raje gave him his solemn word: 'We shall together raise a great army and march upon the Badshah.' On the strength of this promise Akbar even handed over some of his own jewels to Sambhaji Raje. But at that very moment Sambhaji was locked in war with the Portuguese and could not get away, so that it became plain to the Shahzada that the Raja had simply deceived him with empty promises. Thoroughly disgusted, around 8 November he bought a ship at Vengurla and set out to leave entirely on his own. But just as the ship was about to weigh anchor, Kavi Kalash and Durgadas came aboard to see him and pressed him urgently: 'Do not go off thus without any protector. Sambhaji Maharaj has truly resolved that he will now march at once against the Badshah — it is he himself who has sent us to you. Once we win our victory in this war, you may go wherever you wish. But do not go off alone like this now.' Persuaded by their earnestness, the Shahzada disembarked and remained at Vengurla.

1) अकबराचे भग्न मनोरथ (सन 1683-88) :-

It was during this same period that Siddi Yakut seized and imprisoned some of Akbar's servants who were carrying goods in a boat. Meanwhile the Portuguese Governor had laid siege to Sambhaji Raje's fort of Phonda, but was forced to lift the siege under Sambhaji's counter-attack (1 November). Pressing his advantage, Sambhaji Raje then seized some Portuguese territory — until word arrived that the Badshah's eldest son, Shah Alam, was marching against him with a large army. At once Sambhaji hastily concluded a peace with the Portuguese through Kavi Kalash, with Akbar acting as mediator (20 January 1684). Akbar and Kavi Kalash then travelled from Jaitapur, reaching Malkapur on 20 February. For the whole of the following year the Shahzada remained in the vicinity of Malkapur and Sakharpa, and Kavi Kalash came to visit him there often; indeed, a body of Kavi Kalash's own cavalry was stationed at Malkapur. Kalusha travelled back and forth as far as Vishalgad and Sangameshwar, and he and the Shahzada conferred together frequently — but whatever bold ventures Kalusha proposed to Sambhaji Raje, it does not appear that Sambhaji ever consented to them readily. It seems, in fact, that beyond certain limited matters Sambhaji Raje paid little heed to Kavi Kalash's advice at all; and the harder Kalusha pressed him, the more suspicious Sambhaji grew. The Shahzada received no meaningful assistance from Sambhaji, and for the most part had to meet his own expenses out of his own pocket. While Akbar remained in this position, Aurangzeb sent envoy after envoy to win him over and bring him back, repeatedly and almost pleadingly assuring him: 'All your offences are forgiven; I shall show you the same favour as before.' But the son placed no trust whatever in his father, remembering only too well that he himself had once issued a public proclamation deposing his father and had written him any number of bitter, scathing letters — wounds that could never be erased from the father's heart. On 12 April 1685, Akbar sent, through a trusted servant, two fine horses as a gift to his father; but the Badshah would not even grant the messenger an audience. At the end of 1684, a rumour spread among the English merchants that Akbar and Sambhaji were marching on Surat with twenty-five thousand horsemen — but this proved to be only a rumour. An Afghan general of the Badshah's named Tarin, stationed at Ahmadnagar, had been secretly recruiting men there and sending them on to Akbar; when this came to the Badshah's notice he had Tarin put to death (January 1685). One Abdush Shakur, a commander the Badshah had earlier dismissed, gathered two hundred Uzbek soldiers and joined Akbar. Such incidents continued to occur. When word reached Aurangzeb that Akbar was preparing to make his way to Agra by way of Gujarat, he issued an order on 20 July 1685 to Kartalabkhan, the subedar of Ahmadabad: 'Should Akbar be found in that quarter, seize him at once. There must be no negligence whatever.'

1) अकबराचे भग्न मनोरथ (सन 1683-88) :-

Akbar's efforts to reach Rajputana through Gujarat, by way of Surat and Bharuch, were pursued with real persistence — which is precisely why the Badshah was so thoroughly alarmed by them. In early 1685, seeing Aurangzeb's forces all committed to the assault on Bijapur, Akbar and Sambhaji Raje together ventured a move toward Bharuch. Akbar's plan was that, if he could gain entry into northern Hindustan, well and good; if not, he would at least reach Surat and, under the protection of English ships, make his way to Mecca or Iran. Advance men were sent ahead to prepare the ground. First, an uprising broke out in the city of Bharuch itself, and the rebels, having seized the city, proclaimed Akbar's name there. Then, in October 1685, Sambhaji Raje marched on Bharuch with a large force, collected revenue there and across the province in Akbar's name, and carried off a great quantity of plunder to Raigad. On the way back, however, the Badshah's forces shadowed his movements closely. As Sambhaji Raje approached the vicinity of Nasik, one detachment of his own men, under the pretext of going off to bathe in the Ganga, intended to defect to the Mughals; Sambhaji Raje learned of this in time and sent a second detachment, also on the pretext of the Ganga bath, after the first. This second party feigned friendship with the would-be defectors and then suddenly fell upon them, cutting them to pieces. Once Sambhaji Raje had returned safely, Akbar tried to slip past his father's forces and make his own way into Gujarat. But detailed intelligence of his every move reached Aurangzeb, who at once dispatched Marhamatkhan, then stationed at Ahmadnagar, against him. The two forces met near Chakan; Akbar was defeated and forced to fall back to Vishalgad. Thus every one of his attempts to reach the north came to nothing. Ishwardas Nagar, a Rajput sardar in Aurangzeb's service who corresponded with Durgadas, has left in his own history an account of Akbar's movements at this time. He writes: 'The thanedar of Shirwal informed the Badshah that Akbar was preparing to go to northern Hindustan. On hearing this the Badshah sent Azam Shah with thirty thousand troops toward Ahmadnagar, and he pursued Akbar closely. Akbar barely escaped with his life and reached Saler. Azam Shah followed him there too, whereupon Akbar fled into the Konkan, to Mahuli. From Mahuli, fleeing continuously, he came near Panhala, where once again he had to fight the Badshah's army. By this his hope of reaching the protection of the Rajputs in northern Hindustan was utterly extinguished, and he was left with no safe refuge anywhere outside the valleys of the Sahyadri.'

1) अकबराचे भग्न मनोरथ (सन 1683-88) :-

The Badshah next charged his daughter Zinat-un-Nisa Begum with the task of winning her brother over and bringing him back to court. She sent a letter to Akbar through one Sayyid Muhammad, seeking his answer. Akbar replied: 'I beg forgiveness, and if I am given your assurance, I shall come to meet you.' On receiving this reply the Badshah issued a farman formally pardoning all his son's offences and wrote urging him to come at once — but this, too, had no real effect. A month later word reached the Badshah that Akbar, finding no safe refuge anywhere, had gone to Mahuli; that he had again gathered a force there and, moving to Shahapur, had made his way through Jawhar territory toward Surat; that the zamindar of Jawhar had given him considerable help; and that he had then reached Daman. From there he intended to press on into Gujarat, but Azam Shah lay blocking his path and he could go no further. Soon afterward, Durgadas arranged for Akbar to be put aboard a ship and sent to Iran, while he himself returned to Jodhpur. News of this reached the Badshah later through an intercepted secret letter. Ziauddin Muhammad, a man who had served Shahzada Shuja, together with forty-five other companions of Akbar's, boarded an English vessel at Rajapur in February 1687; travelling first to Muscat and then onward, Akbar reached Isfahan on 24 January 1688 and presented himself before the Shah of Iran, who granted him protection and settled him in Khurasan. There he remained until his death in November 1704. Thus both Akbar and his ally Sambhaji ended in failure. What became of Akbar afterward has no further bearing on Maratha history, but a letter he once wrote to his father from Iran deserves close attention, for in it he lays bare, with real force, the failures of Aurangzeb's Deccan campaign. Aurangzeb lived in constant dread that his son, with Iranian assistance, might one day turn and invade Hindustan, and he sent many messengers and letters urging his son to return, pleading with him and professing deep affection. To one such letter Akbar sent the following reply.

1) अकबराचे भग्न मनोरथ (सन 1683-88) :-

'Father, it is your own example that I have always kept before my eyes — where else could one find so admirable a model? What wrong did I do in taking under my protection the very Rajputs who served Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan so faithfully and with such devotion? Had Jaswant Singh not been taken in by your flattering promises, you yourself would not be Emperor of Hindustan today. These Rajputs were the very pillars of your kingdom. There was a time when, for every single vacancy for a Rajput soldier in the army, a hundred men would come forward eager to serve. Today, though you have proclaimed it for three years running, you cannot muster even five or ten. What does this tell you? You have officers enough today, but is there even one among them truly devoted to you? Your soldiers are all reduced to poverty; not one of them possesses proper arms. In your entire reign not a single poet or writer of note has arisen. Merchants and men of wealth are plundered in broad daylight and murdered outright. As for the common people, they have been ground into the dust. The lands of Bijapur and Golconda, which you yourself once thought so rich and prosperous as to be almost paradise on earth, now lie desolate, ruined, and destitute. Bijapur, Aurangabad, and other cities that were once so wealthy, so vast, so splendid — what is left of them now but dust, tell me yourself? And the cause of all this is your own hatred of other faiths. You imposed the jizya upon the Hindus, and because of it the whole people rose up against you, burning and looting — and it is this alone that has reduced the country to dust.' 'Is there a single thing in your entire reign that I could praise? The great old families of ancient lineage have all vanished without trace. A marketplace of scoundrels has sprung up everywhere. The whole administration of the realm lies in the hands of base and worthless men. A rosary in the hand, a Quran under the arm, and a great turban upon the head — that is all it takes to win your complete trust. Such are the men who are now the pillars of your kingdom!' 'I could not bear to watch the ruin of your entire empire, and so, with the greatest anguish, I left my homeland and came away to this place. I am now at peace. May God grant you a long life. As for your saying that I should come back and rule — rather, you should quit your throne and go off to Mecca, and I shall come and show you how a kingdom ought to be governed. Whatever feats you were capable of, you have already performed them all. Now, in your old age, it is the pursuit of religious devotion alone that becomes you. I will write no more, lest I trouble you further, and so I close this letter.'

2) दुर्गाादासाचे उत्तर चरित्र :-

It stands greatly to Durgadas's credit that he never once betrayed or abandoned Akbar. Having safely conveyed the Shahzada far from danger, Durgadas returned at once to Marwar and there took up an even fiercer struggle against the Badshah than before. With Durjansal, the valiant sardar of Bundi, now joining him, the Rajputs' strength grew considerably, and they gave the Badshah's commanders no end of trouble. Since most of the Badshah's forces were committed in the Deccan, the Rajputs found their opportunity there and made the most of it. Shujaitkhan, an able subedar then in charge of Gujarat's administration, also held responsibility for Marwar's affairs, and by a mixture of conciliation and firmness he managed to keep the Marwar problem from turning into a direct confrontation with the Badshah. But there was another matter, too, that gave the Badshah particular anxiety over Marwar's affairs. In 1681, when Shahzada Akbar had fled south to the Deccan together with Durgadas, he had left behind, in the keeping of the Rathod sardars, two young children of his — a son, Buland Akhtar, and a daughter, Sakinatunnisa. Durgadas appointed his own trusted servant, one Giridhar Joshi, to look after these children, and he took care not merely to keep them safe and well but to ensure they received proper instruction in the Islamic faith and other suitable education, raising them with real diligence. But it now galled Aurangzeb deeply that his own grandchildren, now grown, should remain in the hands of his enemies, deprived of what he considered their rightful religious upbringing. He kept pressing Shujaitkhan urgently: 'By whatever means possible, secure these two children and send them to us.' Ishwardas Nagar, an able man attached to Aurangzeb's court who was on good terms with Durgadas, travelled into Rajputana and mediated, bringing about a reconciliation of sorts between the Badshah and Durgadas — and it is this same Ishwardas who has left behind a written account of the events of the period.

2) दुर्गाादासाचे उत्तर चरित्र :-

Durgadas obtained, through Shujaitkhan, the Badshah's written assurance that all past offences would be pardoned and the kingdom of Jodhpur restored as before. He then brought Akbar's daughter to meet Shujaitkhan, and the Khan sent her south in Ishwardas's company. In 1696, while the Badshah was encamped at Brahmapuri near Sholapur, his granddaughter came before him. The moment they met, Aurangzeb asked her: 'Having lived until now among people of another faith, you can hardly have received any proper instruction in Islam — you must first apply yourself to the study of its sacred texts.' The granddaughter replied: 'Durgadas did not merely see to my health and comfort — he engaged a learned Muslim woman teacher from Ajmer, and through her I received a complete religious education. I have the entire Quran by heart.' Hearing this, the Badshah was full of admiration for Durgadas's care and good sense, and he asked his granddaughter what reward should be given to Durgadas for it. She answered, 'Ask Ishwardas — he knows everything about it.' The Badshah at once summoned Ishwardas and, following his advice, granted Durgadas the jagir of Medta along with a sum of ready money, and rewarded Ishwardas himself generously as well. That Durgadas, even amid the enormous pressures of continual warfare, took such pains to ensure that the Badshah's granddaughter received proper instruction in her own faith says a great deal about his character. Contrast this with what the Badshah himself did. When the real Ajitsinh was born, Aurangzeb set up a false child and proclaimed him to be the true Ajitsinh, initiating him into Islam and naming him 'Muhammadi Raj' — his intention being to bring the kingdom of Jodhpur, by this trick, under Islamic rule. But the scheme failed: the real Ajitsinh was raised safely in Marwar and grew to manhood there.

2) दुर्गाादासाचे उत्तर चरित्र :-

Aurangzeb grieved bitterly that while his granddaughter had come back to him, his grandson had not, and he lost no time in sending Ishwardas back again with orders to bring Durgadas and Buland Akhtar to him. Durgadas's reply was plain: 'First restore the kingdom of Jodhpur to Ajitsinh; only then shall I send Buland Akhtar to the Badshah.' With the Badshah's own grandson actually in his hands, Durgadas held the power to do as he pleased in that prince's name, and he was far too shrewd to let go of so valuable an advantage lightly. The negotiations over this matter dragged on for another year or two. Ajitsinh, meanwhile, had grown to manhood and had himself grown weary of ceaseless warfare, and so, after some measure of compromise was reached, Durgadas brought the Badshah's grandson with him by way of Ahmadabad and Surat to Brahmapuri to meet the Badshah. The meeting with the grandson took place; but as Durgadas himself approached the gate, he was told, 'Leave your sword outside and enter with your hands bound.' On hearing this Durgadas flew into a rage and at once drew his sword from its scabbard — whereupon the Badshah relented and permitted him to enter armed as he was. Once the meeting was over, the Badshah granted Durgadas a mansab of three thousand, a jewel-studded dagger, and a reward of one lakh rupees, and gave him leave to depart. But the matter did not end there. The Badshah still did not return the kingdom of Jodhpur to Ajitsinh, so Ajitsinh, together with Durgadas once again, took up arms against the Badshah and won back the kingdom of Jodhpur by his own valour — just about the time Aurangzeb died in the Deccan. The fort of Jodhpur, which had remained for many years in Muslim hands, Ajitsinh had purified by bringing in water from the Ganga, and thereafter took up residence there himself. Ajitsinh's later career, too, continued to cause the Mughal empire much trouble, but that is a separate story to be told elsewhere. The twenty-five-year struggle that the Rajputs of Marwar waged against so mighty a Badshah as Aurangzeb deserves to be remembered in history quite as much as the parallel struggle of the Marathas — and in that struggle, the life and career of Durgadas shines with particular brilliance. To this day a saying is current among the Rajputs on everyone's lips: 'Ae mata poot esa jin, jesa Durgadas' — 'O mother, may you never bear a son such as Durgadas' — meaning that a son so devoted, so selfless, so hard for any mother to bear parting with in service of another, is beyond compare.

3) बाह्य प्रदेशात संभाजीराजांचे आक्रमण (सन 1684-85) :-

The account of the Mughals' first offensive has already been given earlier. As soon as the monsoon of 1684 ended, the Badshah resumed his campaign against Sambhaji Raje. On 21 September 1684 he dispatched Shahabuddin Khan to conquer Raigad. In the following January the Khan descended through the Bor Ghat into the Konkan and came up close to Raigad, burning Pachad and carrying off much plunder along with captives. For this apparent victory the Badshah conferred upon him the title 'Firuzjang' (26 March 1685). The Jedhe Shakavali gives a rather different account of this campaign, noting: 'On the fifteenth of the bright half of Jyeshtha (18 May 1684) Kabji arrived at Raigad. On the eleventh of the bright half of Kartik (7 November 1684) the Mughals took Kothala fort. Shahabuddin Khan marched from Pune via Daund, descended the Bor Ghat, and reached Gangoli. Kavi Kalash went and gave him battle, and drove him back up the ghat.' Of all the Badshah's commanders, this Shahabuddin Firuzjang was especially able and resourceful. He kept himself secretly informed of Maratha affairs and of the disorder prevailing under Sambhaji Raje, and he put this intelligence to excellent use in the Badshah's service, turning a good many of Sambhaji's own sardars to his side. The names of several such defectors are recorded, though it is not always possible to identify their full families from the bare names alone. A considerable number of men deserted Sambhaji Raje and joined the Mughals in the early part of 1685. Kondana, or Sinhagad, which had remained in Maratha hands ever since Tanaji Malusare took it, was captured by the Mughal commander Abdul Kadar in December 1684.

3) बाह्य प्रदेशात संभाजीराजांचे आक्रमण (सन 1684-85) :-

Yet Sambhaji Raje's own forces were far from idle during this period; they kept up a constant harassment of Mughal territory. Raiding into Khandesh, they plundered the town of Dharangaon on 5 February 1685 and burned much of it to the ground. The Maratha force involved was not large, but since Aurangzeb's armies were all committed to the siege of Bijapur at the time, this whole region lay open and undefended, and the Marathas ravaged it very much as they pleased. It was also around this time that rumours spread across the country that Sambhaji Raje had been overthrown by rebellion or even killed — rumours that find their way into English correspondence of the period. The drift of these English accounts was that Sambhaji Raje had fallen into dissolute habits and was behaving recklessly; that he had taken no personal part in the fighting against either the Portuguese or Shah Alam, leaving all the actual soldiering to his subordinates. This does not appear to be fully credible. Sambhaji Raje was in fact keeping watch on every front and striking hard at the Badshah's forces — and it was precisely for this reason that Aurangzeb abandoned direct efforts against him for the time being and turned first to the campaign against Bijapur and Golconda, so as to cut off whatever assistance Sambhaji might otherwise draw from those two kingdoms. Early in 1685, a picked force of ten thousand Marathas set out from Raigad northward with such speed that before word of their movement had even spread, they had fallen upon Burhanpur itself and laid waste and plundered the Satmata region — that is, the country of Saptashrunga. Aurangzeb sent Khan Jahan from Ahmadnagar with six thousand troops in pursuit, but the gap between the pursuing Mughal force and the Marathas never fell below six days' march. In the end, the Badshah sent his fourth son, Kambakhsh, with twelve thousand men, simply to secure Burhanpur itself. As Manucci puts it: 'Far from being conquered, Sambhaji Raje instead thoroughly humbled the Badshah. His men plundered the grain and supplies moving toward the Mughal army, carried off camels, horses, and mules, cut down anyone who stood in their way, kept what was of use to them and destroyed the rest. Whenever some substantial sardar fell into their hands, they extorted a hefty ransom before releasing him. In time they accumulated so much plunder that it became difficult even to carry it all away, so that they took to holding great markets at various places to sell it off — markets at which the very people whose goods had been looted would come and buy back their own property.' In this fashion the Marathas plundered, by this reckoning, no fewer than seventeen prosperous and wealthy towns during this period. After three years of relentless effort had thus gone entirely to waste, much of the Badshah's earlier confidence drained away, and he became convinced that Shivaji's vigour had not died with him — his son, too, was a man of real mettle, not to be brought to heel by force of arms alone. He therefore turned his attention instead toward Bijapur. To keep the Mughal forces under continued pressure meanwhile, Sambhaji Raje took up residence in the country between Panhala and Vishalgad. It was at this time that he had a particular structure, known as Bardwari, built for himself at the fort — a spot still pointed out today as bearing his mark.

4) विजापूर-गोवळकोंड्यााचा पाडाव (सन 1685-87) :-

Ever since Aurangzeb's arrival in the Deccan, his forces had already been active within Bijapur's territories. Aurangzeb was as hostile to other faiths as he was to the Shia sect within his own religion. Many of the great officers and generals serving under him were themselves Shia, yet he harboured a deep contempt for the sect in his heart; he had even had certain daggers named 'Slayer of Shias', and whenever the Shias came up in his correspondence he could scarcely refrain from cursing them. His Shia officials, for their part, managed as best they could to deceive him and get through their duties without incident. Since the rulers of both Bijapur and Golconda were themselves Shia, Aurangzeb had come to regard the destruction of these two kingdoms as, in part, a religious duty. Sheikh-ul-Islam, a learned and eminent man attached to his court, pleaded earnestly with him not to conquer these kingdoms, but Aurangzeb would not listen; the Sheikh thereupon left the Badshah's service, and even when the Badshah later called upon him repeatedly and pleadingly to return, he would not so much as show his face again. The ambition to conquer these two kingdoms, which Aurangzeb had nursed for thirty or forty years, he now at last brought to fulfilment; the detailed history of the campaign is given elsewhere. On 27 March 1685, Shahzada Azam and Khan Jahan Bahadur laid siege to Bijapur. On 23 May the Badshah himself went first to Sholapur and then to Bijapur to press the siege in person. At that time, Sikandar Adilshah and his sardars — Siddi Masud, Agha Khusrau, Nawab Abdurrauf, Sarjakhan, and Maloji Ghorpade — all fought with great spirit in defence of the kingdom. When the situation became hopeless, Maloji even suggested to Sikandar Shah, 'Let me convey you to Chandragiri, where you may establish your rule afresh' — but the Shah would not agree to this course. 'In the month of Ashadh,' the records note, 'Sambhaji Raje sent Kabji to help in the defence of Bijapur; he went and remained at Panhala, and from there sent forces forward under Hambirrao's command.' From the other side, Qutubshah's forces, under Ambaji Pant, also came to assist in Bijapur's defence. But against the sheer weight of Aurangzeb's massive forces, every such effort ultimately proved futile, and on 12 September 1686 Sikandarshah surrendered — bringing the kingdom of Bijapur to its end. The Badshah kept Sikandarshah with him as a prisoner thereafter; this last, ill-fated ruler of Bijapur died in Aurangzeb's own camp on 3 April 1700.

4) विजापूर-गोवळकोंड्यााचा पाडाव (सन 1685-87) :-

Even while this campaign against Bijapur was under way, the Badshah had already, on 28 June 1685, sent his son Shah Alam against Golconda. By October, Shah Alam had captured Hyderabad and seized enormous plunder there. Qutubshah shut himself up in the fortress of Golconda; his own Muslim sardars had already gone over to the Mughals, though Madanna Pant rallied all the Hindus in the kingdom and did everything possible to resist. At this point Aurangzeb set out terms for Qutubshah's survival: the heads of his Brahmin officers were to be cut off and sent to him, along with jewels, elephants, ready cash, and war material, and the Shah was to give his word that he would send no further aid to Bijapur. The Shah accepted these terms. Madanna Pant's severed head was duly sent to the Badshah, and Brahmins were flung from the ramparts of several forts — yet even after all this, the kingdom was not saved. In truth, Shah Alam himself had no real wish to see Golconda destroyed, and had privately assured Qutubshah, 'I shall protect you by whatever means I can.' This came to Aurangzeb's notice, and suspecting that his son intended some betrayal, he himself broke camp from Bijapur — on the pretext of visiting the shrine of a Muslim saint at Gulbarga — and arrived before Golconda on 28 January 1687. He at once ordered Shah Alam to storm the fortress, but Shah Alam would not comply. The Badshah therefore resorted to a trick: he summoned Shah Alam and his son Azizuddin separately into his presence for what appeared to be an audience, and had each of them arrested and placed under confinement (2 March 1687). On this occasion the twenty-year-old Azizuddin actually sought his father's permission to kill his grandfather outright, but Shah Alam would not sanction so dreadful an act, choosing instead to accept his imprisonment with quiet composure. From that time on, Shah Alam's relationship with his father was never truly repaired. After spending many years in confinement, he was eventually appointed to Afghanistan, and it was while he held that post that Aurangzeb died in the Deccan. Golconda itself did not hold out much longer. While the Badshah was pressing the siege with full force, a treacherous officer opened the fortress gates at midnight on 21 September 1687 and let the Mughals in. Aurangzeb sent his son Azam Shah inside, and Abul Hasan Qutubshah was seized and brought before him (1 October 1687), then taken off and confined in the fortress of Daulatabad. Roughly ten crores' worth of wealth fell into the Badshah's hands from Golconda. Whatever beautiful paintings and sculpture existed in both Bijapur and Golconda he had systematically destroyed.

4) विजापूर-गोवळकोंड्यााचा पाडाव (सन 1685-87) :-

With both Bijapur and Golconda now in his hands, Aurangzeb set about organising the administration of these newly won provinces, appointing officers at every important post and sending dependable troops to occupy forts and outposts and collect revenue. Since the territory of these two kingdoms extended right down into the Karnataka country, he first dispatched his officers Firuzjang and Qasimkhan in that direction. Firuzjang took Yadgiri, also called Ibrahimgad, and Qasimkhan took Torgal. In the country squeezed between the Krishna and the Bhima rivers lay the small state of Surapur, today held by the Nizam — a state belonging to the Berad people, whose chief, Pemnaik, lived at Sagar. This Pemnaik had sent aid to both Adilshah and Qutubshah, and Aurangzeb accordingly dispatched Khanjadakhan, son of Ruhullakhan, against him. On 27 December 1687 Pemnaik came and submitted to the Badshah, but even so the Badshah confiscated the whole of his territory — with the result that the Berads rose in perpetual unrest thereafter, and no amount of military expedition ever fully subdued them. Firuzjang, meanwhile, had moved into Karnataka and captured Karnul and Adoni in 1688; Adoni had been the jagir of Bijapur's own vizier, Siddi Masud, and for taking it the Badshah rewarded Firuzjang with a mansab of seven thousand. With Bijapur and Golconda thus disposed of, the Badshah once again turned his attention to Sambhaji Raje, sending Azimshah against him. Azimshah captured the outpost of Belgaum and then returned to Bijapur. The Badshah himself left Hyderabad on 25 January 1688, travelled by way of Gulbarga and other places, and reached Bijapur on 15 March, where he remained encamped for the rest of that year. During this stay, the poor state of the water supply there troubled him considerably, and he had a canal dug from the Krishna river to bring good water to Bijapur. In November 1688 an outbreak of plague struck the city, and great devastation was wrought in the Badshah's own camp — his own begum, a number of important sardars, and thousands of ordinary people all perished in the epidemic. On 14 December 1688 the Badshah left Bijapur and moved to Akluj, a post on the Bhima river some eighty-five miles to the north. It was while encamped there that, in February 1689, news reached him that Sambhaji Raje had been captured. It is worth keeping this sequence of the Badshah's camps in mind, since it becomes relevant to the events that follow.

5) हंबीररावाचा मृत्यु, हीनावस्था (डिसेंबर, 1687) :-

In the kingdom of Bijapur there had been a well-known sardar named Sarjakhan, whose name has already appeared earlier in this account. Once Bijapur fell, he entered Aurangzeb's service, and the Badshah at once sent him to subdue Sambhaji Raje's territory. A number of Maratha mansabdars who had by then gone over to Aurangzeb were placed under his command. When the Khan advanced toward the Wai region, he encountered Hambirrao, and a fierce battle followed. Sarjakhan was defeated and the Marathas won a rich haul of plunder — but in the thick of the fighting Hambirrao was struck by a bullet and killed. This was a heavy blow to Sambhaji Raje. Hambirrao's loyalty and devotion to his master had been of an exceptional order, and he had always brought back the proceeds of any plunder scrupulously to lay before his master. As long as Hambirrao lived, Sambhaji Raje's military affairs suffered no particular want; after his death, Sambhaji fell entirely under the sway of Kalusha. What Sambhaji Raje's movements actually were after the Bharuch–Burhanpur campaign of 1685–86 is not clearly known; it seems probable that he grew increasingly given over to vice during this period. Orme states that a temporary truce with Aurangzeb was arranged after the battle near Wai, though the particulars of it are not available. Even while the Badshah remained encamped at Bijapur, his struggle with Sambhaji Raje continued unabated. One cannot help feeling, surveying the whole course of events, that had Sambhaji Raje possessed the cleverness to turn circumstances to his advantage, the Badshah would never have achieved any success at all against him. Yet, despite having men and an army at his disposal, Sambhaji's condition only worsened with each passing year — proving true the old saying that a kingdom belongs to whoever is actually fit to rule it. A simple count of his forces alone shows how considerable they were: in the Raigad region, between Nagothane and Chaul in the northern Konkan, there stood a force of fifteen thousand men; further on, near Dandarajpuri, ten thousand men were kept to check the Siddi; and in the same general area, between Satara and Phonda in the interior, twenty thousand cavalry were kept constantly on the move — besides which there were numerous smaller roving bands and a substantial garrison force scattered across the various forts. His navy numbered one hundred and fifty fighting vessels, of which at least one hundred and twenty were large ships in good condition. But owing to Sambhaji's own erratic temperament, all these considerable resources went to waste, and disorder spread everywhere.

5) हंबीररावाचा मृत्यु, हीनावस्था (डिसेंबर, 1687) :-

Sambhaji never placed real trust in the old, experienced men of his father's time. After Moropant Pingle's death, Kalusha became the sole confidant with real authority, and as a result no one else felt any inclination to serve their master with wholehearted devotion. Sambhaji Raje had never, by temperament, possessed much capacity for patiently attending to the business of government himself; and now, following Kalusha's lead in everything, he alienated both his officials and his subjects, so that his administration came to look particularly poor by comparison with the strict discipline Shivaji Raje had maintained. To this was added the corrosive effect of Aurangzeb's policy of sowing division and offering bribes. Several striking instances of this are recorded in the histories of the time. Avaji Pandit, who had served as Sambhaji's envoy to the English at Bombay, was dismissed from his post; he then entered Portuguese service and began going back and forth to the Badshah's court on the Portuguese's behalf (June 1682). Qazi Haidar, who had been Shivaji Raje's own munshi, took leave of Sambhaji Raje on 26 July 1683 and went and presented himself before the Badshah, who granted him a mansab of two thousand; his rank rose steadily thereafter, until in 1706 he was given the post of chief Qazi at Delhi. Khem Sawant of Wadi abandoned Sambhaji's cause for the Portuguese, and was soon followed by Ram Dalvi of Shringarpur. Akbar and Durgadas, who spent six years in Maharashtra, had ample opportunity to observe Sambhaji's administration closely, and they could see no real prospect that continued reliance on him would succeed — which is precisely why they were compelled to seek other means to preserve themselves. What weighed on Sambhaji Raje most heavily was the acute shortage of capable men: the generation of men trained up under Shivaji Raje had by now been largely used up, and no new capable men were being raised in their place, owing entirely to Sambhaji's own erratic and unpredictable nature. Since he himself lacked the inner steadiness to fix upon a firm course of action, he would, whenever any matter arose, simply point toward Kalusha — until, toward the very end, access to him was cut off from everyone except through Kalusha's mediation. Kalusha, being a man of foreign origin, from a priestly rather than an administrative background, possessed neither real experience of statecraft nor genuine concern for the welfare of the state, and under his influence the discipline and regulations that Shivaji Raje had built up broke down completely. Military discipline collapsed: soldiers began hiding away the plunder they took, brought women along into camp, and even seized and carried off women during raids. Shivaji Raje's once-full treasury was emptied out; no fresh income came in to replenish it while expenses only mounted. The coastal trade that had once flourished with the countries of the west broke down amid this general disorder, and its profits were lost. Naturally, the army's pay fell into arrears, and it became necessary to give soldiers permission to plunder the countryside so that each man might make up his own pay as best he could. Kalusha himself faced growing shortages of money, but, fearing his master's displeasure, never reported the true state of affairs to him. Revenue from Karnataka stopped coming in. Kalusha responded by raising the land tax; suspecting many officials of corruption, he dismissed them from their posts and instituted the practice of farming out whole provinces on contract to whichever revenue-collector offered the highest bid — with the result that the common ryots, unable to bear the burden, began abandoning their lands and fleeing altogether. In this fashion, Sambhaji Raje, personally a brave man, was nonetheless drawn steadily into deeper difficulty. Whenever complaints of this disorder reached him, he would not hear them himself but would refer the complainants to Kabji, and Kabji, for his part, did nothing beyond somehow getting through each day as it came. When the kingdom of Bijapur fell, a number of Maratha jagirdar families who had served there — the Daphles, Ghatges, Manes, Nimbalkars, and others — were dismissed by Aurangzeb and came over readily to join Sambhaji Raje, who granted them free rein to plunder Mughal territory as they pleased. This, too, became yet another cause of the breakdown of discipline within Sambhaji's own forces.

5) हंबीररावाचा मृत्यु, हीनावस्था (डिसेंबर, 1687) :-

Aurangzeb pursued a relentless policy of splitting the Maratha sardars away from Sambhaji, and one particularly striking example of this is the case of Baji Sarjarao Jedhe-Deshmukh. This Jedhe family of Deshmukhs had been loyal supporters of the Bhosale house since the time of Shahaji himself. In 1685, when the Mughals advanced toward Shirwal, Shankaraji Narayan wrote to Krishnaji Deshpande urging that intelligence be gathered on the enemy's movements so that all might join together to crush him, adding that 'the Maharaj places his trust in you.' A letter of about the same time to Baji Sarjerao himself makes clear that Baji had at some point been seized and mistreated by the Mughals, and that he was now being encouraged and reassured. But then, in a letter dated 5 October 1685, Sambhaji administered him a sharp rebuke, which reads in part: 'If, even after this, you choose to remain with the enemy, then remain there and be content. What reckoning do you imagine you have? At this very moment, should the Swami give the order, you would be cut down along with the enemy — understand this well. And another thing: even were it the case that you had no choice but to stay there, if you truly meant to serve the Swami with single-minded loyalty, why do you send your business and your intentions to the forts and garrisons through other channels rather than directly? This the Swami does not approve. Whatever service you have to render, render it to the Swami directly, and report matters in person. The Swami will consider whatever you have to say and issue such orders as he sees fit. There was no cause whatsoever for you to act as you have. Except through the Swami's own household, you are to render service to no one else. Conduct yourself hereafter exactly as instructed in this order.' Later still, a letter dated 1 February 1687 records that Baji's own deshpande-gupte kinsmen sought to reconcile him, writing to him in these terms: 'You have gone over to the enemy and served them — into what folly did you fall? What is done is done; it cannot be undone now. But we understand that serving the Muslims has brought you hardship, and that you now wish to come to the Swami's service, expecting that your past hardship will be recognised and rewarded with honour. You are, after all, an old and trusted family; the Swami's trust rests in you, and your family has eaten the Swami's salt for many years. Even should you now take an oath and return, it would be greatly to your credit. Should you hesitate over having once gone to the enemy, put that thought aside entirely — come without any doubt or delay; your interests will be looked after. From the province your honour and prosperity will be maintained without interruption. Rest assured and come. Your claims are accepted. This order stands confirmed and sealed.' Even so, Jedhe does not appear to have actually returned during Sambhaji Raje's own lifetime. A letter dated 22 March 1690 shows Rajaram writing to persuade him afresh to return and rejoin the service of Swarajya, warning him bluntly that 'should you fail to return to Swarajya, your inam villages will not be restored to you.' Baji Sarjarao Jedhe-Deshmukh died not long after Rajaram's own death. This is, after all, only the story of one relatively minor sardar; hundreds of documents from the period of Shivaji, preserved from the deshmukh and deshpande families of the Maval region and elsewhere, contain many similar accounts belonging to the times of Sambhaji and Rajaram alike.

6) मातब्बरखान, कल्याण व उत्तर कोकण (स.1688-1704) :-

As has already been explained, the entire base of Shivaji Raje's enterprise had rested upon the stretch of country running from Nasik down to Goa along both flanks of the Sahyadri range; it was for this reason that Raigad had been established as the capital, and Shivaji had staked so much upon the coastal tract running from Kalyan to Rajapur. This region of the northern Konkan was, in due course, wrested from Sambhaji Raje's hands, on the Badshah's orders, by Matabbarkhan. Matabbarkhan, a Sayyid, belonged to an Arab family that had long been settled at Kalyan. He had earlier served as thanedar in the Nasik district, and having mixed from childhood with the local Mavale, Koli, and Bhil populations, he possessed an unusually thorough knowledge of that mountainous country. He took into his service, with the help of money, one Harji Jakhre, a shrewd Maratha, and through him engineered the capture of the formidable fort of Pattha, also known as Vishramgad, by a stealthy night attack on 17 January 1688. In this undertaking Matabbarkhan spent forty-five thousand rupees of his own money; for his pains the Badshah rewarded him with a mere two thousand rupees and a word of praise. Before long, the Khan had also brought under his control the smaller forts near Igatpuri — Kulang, Ratangad, Harshagad, Tringalwadi, and Madangad — and, most formidably of all, the fort of Trimbak, whose keepers, Telangrao and Shyamraj, he induced to surrender it to him on 8 January 1689 in exchange for a payment of eighty thousand rupees. A reading of the accounts of this period makes it quite plain that, in these last year or two, Sambhaji Raje's hold over his own territory had become exceedingly slack. As soon as news arrived that Sambhaji had been captured, Matabbarkhan was seized with fresh energy. Marching from Nasik upon Mahuli, within two or three months, through a series of clever stratagems, he brought Mahuli, Bhiwandi, Dugad, Malanggad, and finally Kalyan itself, one after another, under his control. Then, in October 1689, Raigad too fell into Mughal hands, and with the important posts of Chaul and Rajapur also lost to the Marathas, the whole of the Konkan coastline passed under Mughal control, and the great labour of Shivaji Raje's many years was, in effect, washed clean away. The Badshah subsequently appointed Matabbarkhan governor at Kalyan, where he built gardens, mansions, and mosques that lent the town considerable splendour — traces of which can still be seen there today. In the great war that Aurangzeb waged after Sambhaji Raje's execution, Matabbarkhan rendered the Badshah valuable service in many engagements with unfailing diligence. He died in March 1704. Having governed Kalyan for so many years, it would not be too much to say that the town itself stands today as a kind of monument to him.

7) हरजी राजाचा कर्नााटकातील उद्योोग (सन 1681-89) :-

The events of the last two or three years of Sambhaji Raje's reign are not recorded with any great clarity. One might have expected that, while Aurangzeb's attention was fixed on Bijapur, Sambhaji Raje would have used the opportunity to wreak havoc across Mughal-held Maharashtra. In these final years, Sambhaji and Kalusha appear mostly to have remained in the vicinity of Panhala and Vishalgad, casting an eye toward Sangameshwar and Raigad only as circumstances required. Once Hambirrao Mohite had fallen, no second commander of his vigour and energy came forward to take his place under Sambhaji Raje. Yet Sambhaji's attention to the Karnataka territories that Shivaji Raje had conquered had remained strong from the very outset, and once the Muslim kingdoms of Bijapur and Golconda fell, Aurangzeb turned at once and vigorously to seizing their Karnataka possessions as well — an effort in which the Marathas proved a considerable obstacle to him. Aurangzeb was eager to demonstrate that the whole of Hindustan lay under a single unified Mughal authority, and it was toward that end that his forces pressed into Karnataka. To understand what followed, it is first necessary to review the state of Maratha administration in that region after Shivaji Raje's death. In 1681, as has already been told, Sambhaji Raje appointed Harji Raje Mahadik and Shyamji Punde to take charge of Karnataka's administration, sending along with them Jaitaji Katkar and Dadaji Kakde as well. This party set out from the Deccan in April 1681, but no sooner had they reached Jinji than Sambhaji Raje had Shyamji Naik placed under arrest. Harji Raje alone was left in charge of affairs there thereafter, returning periodically to render an account of his work to Sambhaji Raje. Harji established his own authority firmly across Karnataka. In the month of Chaitra 1682, a dispute broke out between the rulers of Shrirangapattan and Trichinapalli, and Harji lent his support to the Trichinapalli side; in the fighting that followed, he captured Shrirangapattan's commander Kumar along with two thousand horses, which considerably enhanced his standing throughout the province. Later, at the beginning of 1685, after Ekoji Raje of Tanjore died, his widow Dipabai and son Shahji managed Tanjore's administration with skill, and by maintaining friendly relations with them Harji secured a position of real prominence in the Jinji region as well. While Aurangzeb was conquering Bijapur and Golconda, Harji took under his own control as much of these kingdoms' Karnataka territory as he could manage — so much so that it would not be wrong to say he had, in effect, built an independent principality of his own. He fortified Jinji formidably and kept himself constantly on guard, day and night. Sambhaji Raje grew suspicious of this increasingly independent conduct, and when he demanded money from Harji, Harji failed to send the revenue due. Taking this as open defiance, Sambhaji Raje resolved to bring the Karnataka administration firmly back under his own authority, and for this purpose sent out his own trusted and capable sardar, Keso Trimal — brother of Moropant Pingle — with Santaji Ghorpade assigned to assist him. Keso Pant's own nephew, Nilo Moreshwar Pingle, who held the office of Peshwa, was on bad terms with his uncle, and sent Sambhaji Raje numerous complaints against him — none of which Sambhaji heeded. Keso Trimal set out and reached Jinji on 11 February 1687. Sambhaji Raje's central charge to him was to halt Aurangzeb's steady extension of control in the region and to defend Maratha territory there as effectively as possible. Keso Pant duly threw himself into exactly this task — which so aggrieved Harji, who had lost his former authority, that instead of assisting Keso Pant he actively opposed him, giving rise to a tangle of complications that need not be recounted here in full.

7) हरजी राजाचा कर्नााटकातील उद्योोग (सन 1681-89) :-

Aurangzeb kept a close and watchful eye on these Maratha movements. To ensure that the territory of Bijapur and Golconda, now his own by conquest, was not simply absorbed by the Marathas, he sent the able commander Qasimkhan with an army to subdue Karnataka. The Khan first attacked the kingdom of Mysore, taking the well-fortified post of Bangalore from Chikkadeva Wodeyar (9 June 1687). In response Chikkadeva called upon Harji for help and, with his assistance, drove Qasimkhan out of Bangalore again (10 July 1687). This made it clear to Qasimkhan that the conquest of Mysore was not a project to be pursued just yet: Chikkadeva's restraining influence on the Marathas of Tanjore and Jinji was, in fact, useful to the Mughals, and were it removed the Marathas would only grow more formidable. Qasimkhan reported this reasoning to the Badshah, secured his approval, and withdrew from Mysore's borders, marching instead on Penukonda, where he won over the fort's keeledar and took the post. Around this time, with Aurangzeb's forces freed up after the fall of Golconda, he sent them to reinforce Qasimkhan — dispatching such notable commanders as Ismailkhan Mecca, Yachappa Nayak, Rustamkhan, and Muhammad Sadiq into Karnataka. Seeing this looming threat as he arrived at Jinji, Keso Pant wisely made peace with Harji Raja first, recognising that if the two of them continued to fight each other, both stood to lose everything to their common enemy. Harji, too, saw the necessity of the moment and generously handed over the whole of his forces and equipment to Keso Pant. With these forces, Keso Pant made a tour through the Mysore province, taking careful stock of the situation there, before arriving near Jinji at Trinomali on 10 November 1687. Even earlier, Aurangzeb's forces had seized Kondapalli and other important posts in the Telangana country (July 1687) and then advanced against the Marathas. Meanwhile Harji Raje and Santaji Bhosale killed the keeledar of Arcot and captured that formidable fortress, and then marched on Kanchi, laying it waste over three days beginning on 10 January 1688. At the same time Keso Pant captured Chingleput and Kaveripak. But on 25 February, Ismailkhan and other Mughal commanders advanced on Kanchi, drove the Marathas out, and took possession of it themselves. Thereafter a fierce pitched battle was fought between the Mughals and the Marathas at Wandiwash, in which both sides suffered heavy losses (8 March 1688). One consequence of this battle was that the two forces, now roughly equal in strength, settled into a wary standoff, each keeping watch upon the other without further large-scale fighting. Before long, matters in Maharashtra were decided once and for all with the fall of Sambhaji Raje. On hearing this news, Harji Mahadik had Keso Pant arrested at Trinomali — and it was not long after this that Rajaram arrived at Jinji and the whole course of Karnataka politics was transformed.