Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj

Introduction

The first time I think encountered Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was when I moved to Mumbai for college. I liked history in school, so I would have remembered if I was taught about him in school. Either we didn’t have a lesson on him at all, or his chapter was skipped.

So when I came to Mumbai, it was difficult for me to understand the city, and Maharashtra and the Marathi people’s reverence for him. The main station of the city is Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, the airport is called Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, Shivaji Park in Dadar, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in Fort… you get my point.

But after reading through his life, I began to understand why he is held in such a high regard and reverence by not just the people of Maharashtra, but Bharatiyas who know their history as well.

He was one of the major sparks of hope in an era of darkness. When few dreamt of challenging the well established Mughal Empire and Deccan sultanates, he established an empire of his own, which would one day conquer Delhi itself. The navy started by him in a time when Indian ships had to buy permits to sail from their own coasts, would go on to reverse the tide and rightly have foreign ships rightly buy Indian permits to sail in Indian waters.

He has been the subject of powadas, epics, poems, movies, series, plays, even religious songs during his life and for centuries after his death up to the present. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj continues to be an inspiration for millions of us Bharatiyas. 

Sources

For this episode, I have mainly relied on “Shivaji: His Life and Times” by Gajanan Bhaskar Mehendale and “Shivaji: India’s Great Warrior King” by Vaibhav Purandare while also borrowing some anecdotes from “Challenging Destiny” by Medha Deshmukh Bhaskaran.

Just want to give you a small disclaimer on pronunciation. I’ve tried to look up and correctly pronounce all the Marathi names, but I’m a Malayali who grew up in Jharkhand, so if I mispronounce a few words during the flow of the podcast, especially words with ‘ ‘, which is notoriously difficult to pronounce for non-Marathis, I hope you will overlook my mistakes.

With that said, let’s dive into the life of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.

Background of Bharat During Shivaji’s Time

Let me start by giving a brief background of what Bharat looked like, politically, at the time of Shivaji’s birth in 1630.

The Mughal Empire, which by now was a bit more than 100-years-old, controlled most of northern India, with Shah Jahan as its Emperor. South of the Mughal Empire were the five Deccan Sultanates, which if you remember from the Krishnadevaraya episode, were breakaway sultanates from the Bahamani Sultanate, which itself was a breakaway sultanate of the Delhi Sultanate. By the time of Shivaji’s birth, there were only 3 left - the Ahmednagar or Nizam Shahi Sultanate based mostly in Maharashtra, the Golconda or Qutub Shahi Sultanate based in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and the Bijapur or Adil Shahi Sultanate based mostly in northern Karnataka.

So even though all the land was owned by the Emperor or Sultan, as the case may be, they weren’t directly administered by him, nor did central officers directly collect tax from these lands. Almost 80% of the total land was assigned as administrative units called jagirs. The person in charge of a jagir was called a jagirdar. The jagirdar was actually responsible for most of the day-to-day administration of the land, including raising troops (since most kingdoms in those days did not have a standing army) as well as collecting taxes on the crops grown by the jagir. He had to send a part of the tax to the central treasury, sort of like a central tax.

Jagirs were not hereditary on paper, although many times the jagir would pass from father to son when the father died.

Okay, another point, let’s say I am a jagirdar who has a jagir in the Nizam Shahi territory, but then the Mughal Empire comes and conquers that territory. Since the land or jagir that I am in charge of, now falls under Mughal territory, I would have two choices. Option one would be to switch my allegiance from the Nizam Shah to the Mughals in which case I would be mostly allowed to retain my jagir. But now, I would have to send troops and taxes to the Mughals instead of the Nizam Shah.

Second option, if I want to remain loyal to the Nizam Shah, I would have to give up my jagir and hope the Nizam Shah would give me a new jagir in an area still controlled by him. The first one is obviously the more practical thing to do and it was how things mostly played out.

Shivaji’s Childhood

Shivaji’s father was Shahaji Bhonsale. He was a military general and instead of being paid in cash, he was assigned a jagir from which he could collect revenue as his compensation. At the time of Shivaji’s birth on 19th February 1630 at Shivneri Fort, he held the jagir of the Pune region. Pune region was originally part of the Nizam Shahi sultanate, but an alliance of the Mughals and the Adil Shahi sultanate had started to capture it.

By the time Shivaji was six years old, the alliance had fully captured the Nizam Shahi sultanate and had split the territories between themselves. So, now practically there were just two Deccan sultanates - the Adil Shahi or Bijapur Sultanate and the Qutub Shahi or Golconda Sultanate.

Shahaji’s jagir now fell under the Adil Shahi sultanate and since he was an excellent general and had helped the Mughal-Adil Shah alliance win the war, he was given the additional jagir of Bengaluru which was under the Adil Shahi sultanate.

Shivaji was mostly raised by his mother, Jijabai, who was from the Jadhav family. And they spent most of their time in Pune, while Shahaji spent most of his time in Bengaluru, because he was often leading campaigns as an Adil Shahi general in southern India.

When Shivaji turned 12, his father officially let him take charge of his Pune jagir, with Dadoji Konddeo (दादोजी कोंडदेव), as his mentor. Shivaji grew up learning writing, horse riding, elephant riding, archery, and other arts and skills.

He was adventurous as a child and would often explore the valleys and hills within his father’s jagir while getting to know and making friends with the people as well. Some of these early friends became his trusted commanders in later life.

When Shivaji was born, Pune was mostly a ghost village. There were constant wars and a devastating famine had forced most of the farmers from the area to flee to other areas. As soon as he took charge, at the age of 12, he started to clear the region of wild animals, incentivised farmers to resettle by renting out land at nominal rates, and built wells and canals.

First Steps Towards Swarajya

Shivaji had decided pretty early on what the main goal of his life would be. He wanted Bharatiyas to be ruled by one of their own, and not foreigners. His father, Shahaji, had also attempted that once or twice, but always went back to working for one of the sultanates or the Mughals. And in fact, by the time Shivaji tried taking concrete action towards achieving this goal, he tried to desist him from doing so.

But he had a much bigger goal in mind than simply carving out a kingdom for himself. He wanted to establish a kingdom built on justice, security, equality, with Bharat’s indigenous culture as its foundation which was being subdued by the sultanates and the Mughals.

There doesn’t seem to be any one event which prompted him to make Swarajya his main goal. The fact their overlords were foreigners who were hostile towards the religion of the majority of their subjects. Their exploitative economic policies. The constant climate of war between the Mughals and the Deccan sultanates which meant no stability or certainty about the future. And no doubt, his mother Jijabai, who must have told him stories from the Mahabharat and Ramayan and instilled in him a longing for the glorious past.

He started making moves in that direction from the age of 16. At that time, Persian was an aspirational language, and the court language. Even his father’s and mother’s seals were in Persian. But as administrator of his father’s jagir, he issued orders with his seal in Sanskrit.

After resettling farmers and other traders in his jagir, now that he had a steady flow of income, he started to renovate the old fort of Murumbdev (मुरुंबदेव), which was in his father’s jagir but was unoccupied and dilapidated. The fort was about 55 km to the south-west of Pune. After renovation, he renamed this fort, Rajgad, which would serve as his capital for the next 28 years.

Next, he renovated and garrisoned the fort of Torna (तोरणा), which had also been unoccupied, and then renamed it Prachandgad (प्रचंडगड).

These two forts were already part of his father’s jagir and had to be only repaired, but the first fort that he actually had to capture by force was Sinhagad, earlier called Kondhana, some 25 km south west of Pune. This fort was also technically part of Shahaji’s jagir but the the Adil Shahi Sultanate, under whom his father was a jagirdar, had taken the fort from him and appointed a Miyan Rahim Muhammad as the in-charge. 

So this is how Shivaji would expand his kingdom and Swarajya. Hill forts would serve as the physical markers of the extent of his empire. Rather than capturing territory in open plains which would be harder to capture in conventional battle and harder to defend as well once captured, hill forts made a lot of sense for someone who had really limited resources and wanted to be as efficient as possible.

Shahaji’s Arrest and Relinquishment of Sinhagad

Shivaji managed to get away with renovating and arming Rajgad and Prachandgad, because his father, placated the Adil Shah by telling them by saying that those forts had been long neglected, and Shivaji was renovating and building them up for the Adil Shah, and not for himself. But when he took over Sinhagad, Shahaji knew there would be retaliation since he had forcibly captured the fort from an Adil Shahi commander.

And retaliation came in two ways - one, the Adil Shah arrested him, and second, he sent an army take back control of Sinhagad.

A little side note - Shahaji’s arrest was not solely because of his son’s rebellion. There were a couple of other reasons as well. Mustafa Khan, the commander under whom Shahaji was on a campaign in the Tamil region, and him were starting to fall out. Mustafa Khan knew he was friendly with the Hindu rulers of the Tamil and Karnataka region and thought he was even helping them resist the Bijapur sultanate. Plus, he had personal enmity with him because he had been a close friend of Mustafa’s main enemy in the Adil Shah court.

So in July 1648, he had Shahaji arrested and Afzal Khan take him to Bijapur, the Adil Shahi sultanate’s capital. While he was in prison there, the Adil Shah sent a force under Fath Khan to defeat Shivaji, and a second force to Bengaluru to capture Shivaji’s elder brother, Sambhaji, who was looking after their father’s Bengaluru jagir.

Shivaji almost always dictated where a battle would take place and how, which of course would be optimised to be advantageous for him. He tried to make sure his enemies were always playing a game where the rules and conditions were set by him.

So when he heard of the Adil Shah’s plan to take Sinhagad from him, he did not want them to come so close to Pune, so instead he came down to the fort of Purandar, which was under the control of a family friend, Nilo Nilkanth Sarnaik or sometimes referred to as Nilkanth Rao. He temporarily took charge of the fort himself to fight Fath Khan.

Now Fath Khan was forced to fight Shivaji at Purandar. On the way to Purandar, there was a fort called Shirwal (शिरवळ), which had been occupied by the Marathas, but they left it and went to Purandar. Fath Khan occupied the undefended Shirwal fort and left a force there under Haibatrao Ballal or Balaji Haibatrao while he went on ahead and set up camp at a village called Belsar. Fath Khan now had a force to the south of Purandar at Shirwal and to the east at Belsar, planning to attack Purandar from two sides. Probably Shivaji had ordered Shirwal to be emptied purposely because now the Adil Shahis were split into two smaller armies.

He dispatched a force under Kavji, who recaptured Shirwal and killed Balaji and routed the Bijapur forces there. But before they could rejoin the main army under Fath Khan, Shivaji, sent a group of Maratha horsemen to attack Fath Khan and his army to force him to attack Purandar with his main force, before the Shirwal forces could join him. And Fath Khan did exactly that, and was defeated by the 18-year-old Shivaji and the Marathas.

His elder brother, Sambhaji, meanwhile, also managed to defeat the force that Bijapur had sent against him in Bengaluru. Even after suffering two defeats by Shahaji’s sons, the Adil Shah did not want to kill Shahaji for a couple of reasons. Shahaji and his faction of nobles would keep a check on Mustafa Khan and his faction of nobles so that neither could mount a coup or rebellion against the Adil Shah. Second, Shahaji was a great general and he wanted to keep him on his side. And third, if he killed Shahaji, Shivaji might want to take revenge and start working with the Mughals, who he knew, after capturing the Nizam Shahi sultanate, now wanted to capture the Qutub Shahi and his own sultanate.

Shivaji knew that the Mughals had their eyes on the Adil Shahi sultanate, and knew he could use their men and resources to defeat the Adil Shah and then take on the Mughals himself later. So he started writing letters and corresponding with the Mughals, and managed to get on good terms with Murad Baksh, Shah Jahan’s youngest son and the subhedar or governor of the Deccan region.

He also tried to get them to exert pressure on Bijapur to release his father but before the Mughals could do that, the Adil Shah proposed a deal according to which Shahaji would be released and restored as a jagirdar with all his former jagirs, but Shivaji and Sambhaji would have to hand over Sinhagad and Bengaluru forts to the Adil Shah.

Shivaji agreed because he knew his relations with the Mughals wasn’t that great yet, that he could ask them for resources and men to fight the Adil Shah on their behalf. Neither could he wait for them to pressure the Adil Shah, because who knew long that might take.

I mean, it was a setback for Shivaji. Sinhagad was probably the most formidable fort he controlled at the time, and he had already defeated one attempt by the Adil Shah to take it by force, but he had to give it to simply give it away anyway because of his father.

A Brief Sabbatical

But, this also made him realise that he was really not well equipped right now to take on the Adil Shahi sultanate with his current resources. So, he went on sort of a sabbatical for the next decade almost, undertaking no major expansion campaigns, but building up his resources.

Instead of following the then prevalent feudal system where deshmukhs were expected to maintain forces of their own and answer their master’s call with their troops whenever there was a war, he built his own centralised infantry and cavalry which were directly answerable to him rather than indirectly through his deshmukhs.

During this time, Shivaji lost his elder brother, Samabhaji. He was living with his father in Bengaluru when he was asked to participate in a campaign against the Chief of Kanakagiri, along with Afzal Khan, in 1654. He was killed by a canon ball and some sources say that Afzal Khan had taken a bribe from the Chief of Kanakagiri to help him and that’s why he had to get Sambhaji out of the way.

Three years later, on 14th May 1657, a son was born to Shivaji, and he named him Sambhaji after his late elder brother.

He wasn’t totally laying low during this time, he did capture a few forts during this period. For example, he captured Rohida (रोहिडा) fort which was under the Bandals (बांदल). When he won the fort, many of the commanders joined his army, the most important of who was Baji Prabhu Deshpande who would play a very important role later. He also took over the fort of Purandar which after the death of Nilkanth Rao, was being fought over by his sons.

Offensive Against the Adil Shahi Sultanate

Early in 1656, the 26-year-old Shivaji decided that the timing was right to capture territory from the Adil Shahi sultanate. Because one, the sultanate itself was in a state of flux because the sultan, Muhammad Adil Shah was mostly incapacitated due to an illness. Second, the Mughal Empire under its new Deccan viceroy, and son of Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb, had started its campaign against the Qutub Shahi sultanate. Adil Shah was helping them with men and resources because they knew if Golconda fell, the Mughals would turn on them next.

So seeing that the sultan himself was incapacitated and much of his forces were distracted by the Mughals, Shivaji set out to capture Jawali (जावळी), the region near the hill station of Mahabaleshwar (महाबळेश्वर). Jawali was technically supposed to be a part of the Bijapur sultanate, but was in practice mostly independent because the region was in a very inaccessible and cut-off part of the sultanate, surrounded by deep valleys and forests. Shivaji wanted to capture the region to gain access to the Konkan coast, that is coastal Maharashtra, and Karnataka. Also because of its isolated and obstacle-filled location, it would be naturally- well-protected. Also, by capturing Jawali, Shivaji could also cut-off the Bijapur’s access to its own western lowland territories.

First, he tried to negotiate with the Chandrarao, which was what the ruler of Jawali was known as, but he didn’t budge so he set out to capture Jawali by force. He started out from Purandar with 10,000 men. He divided his army into two and approached Jawali from two points, whereas the Chandrarao concentrated all his forces into one big force and attacked one part of Shivaji’s army, while the other part of the Maratha army entered Jawali without any resistance. Chandrarao realised there was no way he could win against Shivaji, so he escaped to his hill fort of Rairi. But Shivaji pursued him and he surrendered. He was imprisoned along with his sons, but when they were caught trying to escape by sending messages to Bijapur asking for help, they were executed.

Rairi, where the Chandrarao had hidden, was captured and renamed Raigad, which would become Shivaji’s capital after his coronation. Soon after he also built the fort of Pratapgad (प्रतापगड).

Just a decade earlier, he had signed a sort of peace treaty with the Adil Shah against attacking them, but now he had captured Jawali which was part of the Adil Shahi sultanate. He knew that they were already too occupied with their leader being ill and possibly dying and resulting in a succession tussle, and with the Mughals, so to assure them further that he wasn’t really fighting against them, he told them that Jawali had practically started to behave independently, so by capturing them, he was bringing them fully under Bijapur, since even now he was technically the son of an Adilshahi jagirdar.

Shivaji pushed his luck further and captured few more places such as Dabhol on the Konkan Coast, but Bijapur was slow to respond to this as well because finally, in late 1656, the sultan died from his protracted illness. His wife, and chief consort, the “Badi Sahiba” appointed Muhammad’s 18-year old son, Ali, as the sultan. There were a lot of doubts about his legitimacy. While officially Ali claimed to be the son of Muhammad and a woman from his harem, some believed he was either the son of an elephant mahout and Badi Sahiba, yeah real scandalous, or the son of a mahout that the sultan had adopted. Anyway, the questions about his legitimacy caused many of the Bijapuri chiefs to refuse to accept him as the legitimate Bijapuri sultan and they started rebelling.

Raids in Mughal Territory

Shah Jahan also wanted to take advantage of the Adil Shahi sultanate’s condition so he ordered Aurangzeb to either annihilate the entire Adil Shahi sultanate or to at least capture the territories of the erstwhile Nizam Shahi sultanate which had gone to Adil Shah as per the Mughal-Adil Shah treaty of 1636.

So in early 1657, Aurangzeb set out on a campaign against to capture both the Adil Shahi and much weaker, Qutub Shahi sultanates. He started with Qutub Shah since they were much weaker.

Shivaji knew that the most likely outcome would be that the Mughals would win and the Adil Shah might try to sign some treaty and give away their Nizam Shahi territory to avoid total annihilation. If they did give their Nizam Shahi territory to the Mughals, his father’s jagir which was part of that, would also go to the Mughals. And while Bijapur had been lax in imposing their authority on him and he enjoyed a considerable degree of freedom, the Mughals would not be so laid back and might try to properly integrate his jagir and make him a mansabdar, which basically meant an officer of the Mughals.

That meant that a war with the Mughals too was coming in due time if he wanted to retain his independence. For that he needed to build up his resources further, and what better way to build up resources than to fight against the Mughals than by using their own resources. Since almost all of the Mughal forces in the Deccan region were concentrated on the Qutub Shahi/Adil Shahi campaign, it was very weakly protected. So he launched raids in Ahmednagar and Junnar (जुन्नर) and brought home tons of resources.

And in August 1657, just like he had predicted, the Mughals and Adil Shah signed a peace treaty. Adil Shah agreed to cede his Nizam Shahi territories and pay huge monetary tributes to the Mughals in exchange for the Mughals, well, not annihilating them.

In the very the next month, Shah Jahan suddenly fell seriously ill. Thinking that he would die soon, and his eldest son, Dara Shikhoh, would become the Emperor, Aurangzeb left the Deccan for Delhi to capture the Peacock Throne.

North Konkan Campaign

With the Mughal Empire embroiled in a war of succession, the Adil Shah did not follow through on the treaty because they knew that the Mughals were too distracted to force them to. So for now, Shivaji knew that his jagirs and quasi-independence was safe. His raids on Junnar and Ahmednagar were noticed by Aurangzeb, but Shivaji wrote letters to him placating him knowing that he would not take action for the time being because obviously he was busy with the trying to grab the Mughal throne.

So for now Shivaji fully concentrated on the Adil Shahi sultanate because even with the succession war going on, the Mughals were very formidable, while the Adil Shahi sultanate was much weaker and smaller in comparison.

He left Rajgad in October 1657, and descended into northern Konkan Coast with his army. Very soon, he captured Chaul, Mahuli, Bhiwandi (भिवंडी) and Kalyan (कल्याण), gaining access to the Arabian Sea.

Most Indian empires with few exceptions such as the Cholas, had ignored exploring and controlling the high seas. During Shivaji’s time, the Mughals, and the Adilshahis had also almost entirely focussed on winning and annexing land territories. Neither of them considered controlling the Arabian Sea for commercial or security purposes. As a result almost all the naval power on the west coast of Bharat was concentrated in the hands of foreigners such as the English, Dutch, French, Portuguese, and the Siddis who were descendants of African merchants, slaves, and mercenaries who had settled in India.

If goods and horses had to be imported and exported by sea, it could only happen through ports controlled by them, by owning passports issued by them and paying them custom duties.

But Shivaji wanted a share in the naval activities as well, so started building up a navy and building warships.

After that he moved further south and captured most of the territories of the Siddis except their capital of Danda-Rajpuri (दंडा-राजापुरी) and the formidable sea fort of Janjira. He might have succeeded in capturing those as well but they were being secretly assisted by the Portuguese who had superior artillery.

During his north Konkan campaign, he managed to capture some twenty to twenty-five forts. And so now he controlled a total of 40 forts. Owning them was not enough of course, he started to repair them, as well as equip them with firearms and garrison them with soldiers.

Most of the places that Shivaji had captured fell within the Nizam Shahi territory which the Adil Shah had signed over to the Mughals, so before the Mughals could see him as attacking their regions, Shivaji wrote to Aurangzeb, who he was pretty sure would end up on the Mughal throne in the end, telling him that since the Adil Shah was dilly dallying on actually handing them over to the Mughals, he was capturing them on the Mughals’ behalf.

He obviously didn’t mean it and it was just a tactic to calm Aurangzeb, because he didn’t want to fight the Mughals simultaneously. Right now, he wanted to capture as much Adilshahi territory as he could before the Mughals were freed up from the succession war.

For Shivaji’s father, Shahaji, it was obviously a difficult situation to be in. He was still working for the Adil Shahi sultanate, while his son, supported and encouraged by his wife, was capturing territory from his patrons. He had written to Shivaji multiple times asking to stop his rebellious activities, but he paid no attention. The Adil Shah also knew that Shahaji truly did not approve of his son’s action and that Shivaji no longer answered to his father so that’s why they didn’t punish Shahaji for his sons rebellious activities.

But things were soon about to change. Aurangzeb and his brother, Murad Baksh defeated the heir apparent, Dara Shikoh, at Samugarh. After that he imprisoned his father who had survived his illness, imprisoned his brother Murad Bakhsh who had supported him, and enthroned himself as the Mughal Emperor in Delhi on 21st July 1658.

Afzal Khan’s Defeat and the Capture of Panhala

Shivaji wanted to take revenge on Afzal Khan, the Adilshahi general who had arrested his father and taken him to prison in Bijapur, and who he and many others believed was responsible for the death of his elder brother, Sambhaji. He finally got the opportunity when Afzal Khan himself volunteered to fight Shivaji and reclaim the forts and territories that he had captured from the Adil Shah.

Afzal Khan set out from Bijapur and camped in Wai because he knew the area well as he had previously been governor of that region. Shivaji meanwhile also arrived in Wai at Pratapgad Fort in July 1659. To lure him into open battle, Afzal Khan sent troops to raid and plunder his territories such as Shirwal, Saswad (सासवड), Pune and Konkan territories.

Shivaji knew that it would be difficult to win against the Adilshahi army in open battle because they far outnumbered his own. Afzal Khan also explicitly asked him to meet him in open battle on the plains, but Shivaji countered by asking him to meet in the valleys.

In his messages to Khan, he flattered him and told him that he was willing to negotiate peace and surrender the forts that he had conquered. But he wasn’t going to go to him to negotiate because he was scared that Khan may kill him, so instead he should come to him and that would make him feel safe.

In the end Shivaji got his way, and despite his advisors’ counsel, Afzal Khan assured them that even if Shivaji’s men ambushed his army from the valleys and forests, he far outnumbered them. So he brought his army and camped at the village of Par, some 1.5 km south of Pratapgad fort.

Shivaji was actually open to negotiating an equitable treaty, but he knew Afzal Khan had a history of committing treachery. He had murdered Kasturi Ranga Nayaka, a chief who had broken away from the Vijayangar Empire, when the two were meeting for peace negotiations.

So before going to meet him, Shivaji instructed his men to hide themselves in the forest on either side of the village and attack the Adilshahi army when the signal would be given. He himself wore a thick armour within his clothes and a wagh nakh or a claw-like dagger.

They met in a tent at the foot of Pratapgad fort. And we all know what happened next, Afzal Khan stretched out his arms for a welcome embrace and hugged Shivaji. But he didn’t let go and brought out a dagger he had hidden and literally back stabbed Shivaji. But he was wearing a thick armour so nothing happened to him, while he himself brought out his wagh nakh and stabbed Afzal Khan. He shouted out, and his bodyguards came in and so did Shivaji’s, and his overpowered Khan’s. Some sources say that Shivaji chopped off his head in the tent itself, while others say that he tried to escape but Shivaji’s men caught up with him and killed him.

Anyways, as soon as there was commotion in the tent, horns started blaring from Pratapgad fort and Shivaji’s men who had hidden themselves in the forest attacked the unwary Adilshahi army. The main commanders such as Afzal Khan’s son and others escaped, but most of the soldiers were either killed or surrendered while the Marathas seized their horses, camels, elephants, jewellery and cash.

Shivaji went on to Wai and routed the remaining Adil Shahi army there. Now that the sultanate was on the backfoot, he did not stop the momentum. He went southwards intending to capture Panhala (पन्हाळा) fort.

The Adil Shah heard about his plans to capture Panhala and dispatched an army under Rustum-i Zaman to reinforce Panhala, but they were too late. Shivaji had already captured the fort. He left a garrison there and raced to intercept Rustum-i Zaman.

The two armies met near Kolhapur on 28th December 1659, and Shivaji’s army managed to rout the Adilshahi forces. During this time, the Marathas also captured Khelna (खेळणा) fort which was renamed, Vishalgad (विशाळगड). After that, he returned to Panhala but sent out a raiding army under Netaji Palkar (नेताजी पालकर) to plunder Adil Shahi territory. The raiding army managed to plunder areas within 20 km of Bijapur.

Building on the momentum, while the Adil Shah was still planning his next move, Shivaji soon set out with the bulk of his army and captured territories east of the Sahyadri, or the Western Ghats, while another detachment went west of the Sahyadri and captured territories on the Konkan Coast.

So basically he had split his army into three. One, under Netaji Palkar went south and east raiding and plundering, one led by Shivaji himself went down south along the east of the Sahyadri and one down south, west of the Sahyadri along the Konkan Coast.

The Siege of Panhala

Shivaji had now defeated two armies sent by Adil Shah. But now they didn’t want to risk further defeat and humiliation, so they sent a much bigger and better equipped army under the command of an Ethiopian (then Abyssinia) general, Siddi Jauhar. His army also included other noblemen such as his own son-in-law, Siddi Masud, Rustum-i Zaman, whom Shivaji had defeated previously, and Afzal Khan’s eldest son, Fazl Khan.

At the time, Shivaji was engaged in the siege of Miraj Fort near Sangli (सांगली), when he heard about the Adil Shahi army heading towards his territories. So, he broke off the siege and went to Panhala fort which was at the frontier of his territories.

He knew that this time it will be difficult to beat back an Adilshahi army of this size and resources, so he tried a tactic. He sent a raiding party to the very gates of the city of Bijapur, in the hope that the army would be diverted and would stay back to protect the capital. But Siddi Jauhar, didn’t take the bait completely, although he did leave a few thousand men back in the city to protect it.

The Adil Shahi army reached Panhala and besieged the fort on 2nd March 1660. Shivaji and his men were outnumbered somewhere between 1 to 2, or 1 to 3, by the Adilshahi army. A part of his army under the command of Netaji Palkar was still at Rajgad, and they came to Panhala to attack the Adilshahi army from outside and help lift the siege, but were beaten back.

There are two main ways in which a fort or a walled or fortified city could be captured. One, was to lay siege to it, or besiege it, where the attacking army would surround the fort and ensure that no supplies such as food, fresh water, or ammunition or even soldiers went inside the fort. Eventually, the supplies and rations inside the fort would run out, and the fort would have to surrender if they didn’t want to die of starvation or thirst.

The second way, was to assault the fort, where the walls of the fort would be bombarded by artillery, or canons would be fired inside the city, or the walls would be blown up by mines or soldiers would try to scale the walls with the help of ladders and open the gates from the inside. Once enough of the walls were blown off or soldiers managed to enter the fort, they could try to defeat the soldiers inside the fort and take the fort.

There were pros and cons to both methods. A siege could take months or even years to be successful depending on how well supplied the fort was, or reinforcements of the defending party could come from outside and attack the besiegers and defeat them. But it was obviously not as expensive in terms of ammunition and men and if the attacking army was planning to keep the fort for themselves after winning it, there would be no damage for them to repair later.

An assault could be much much quicker, but would be expensive in terms of both firepower and men. And the damages would have to be repaired by them later.

Now stuck in Panhala with his men, Shivaji started planning on how they could get out of this situation.

Meanwhile, Aurangzeb, now firmly on the Mughal throne and having eliminated all internal opposition, appointed Shaista Khan, his uncle, ie, Mumtaz Mahal’s brother, as the viceroy of the Deccan and tasked him with defeating Shivaji.

The Mughal Occupation of Pune

Shaista Khan set out from Ahmednagar towards Pune, capturing or destorying land and Maratha forts of Baramati, Supe and others on the way.

A detachment of the Maratha army was always hovering around the Mughal forces, but they were far outnumbered both in terms of men and resources to risk a direct battle. Instead they attacked and harassed foraging parties sent out to procure firewood and food and slowed down the Mughals’ march.

They also wanted to delay him until the monsoons because in this part of Bharat, armies almost never battled during the devastating monsoons when rivers would be flooding, land would be muddy making it difficult for heavy artillery to move around, and firearms would often become wet. 

The Mughals captured Pune in May 1660, then camped there for 40 days. Shivaji had anticipated this, and had asked the farmers around Pune to flee elsewhere after they rendering the land around Pune barren by burning and salting the land so that the Mughals would find it difficult to find or grow food. Once the monsoon was in full swing, the Mughal army couldn’t march to capture new territory, so they decided to spend the monsoon besieging and trying to capture the small fort of Chakan (चाकण), some 30km north of Pune, because then he would have easier access to Mughal territories to source food and maintain communication.

Escape from Panhala

Now, with the Mughals besieging Chakan, near Pune, let’s go back to Panhala where the Adilshahis had laid siege to the fort. The monsoons were underway now but it did not seem like the Adilshahis were going to lift the siege. It was now July, and the siege had been going on for 4 months. Food and supplies within Panhala were running low and Shivaji knew that he and his forces had to escape Panhala somehow.

He employed his previous tactic of lulling the enemy into a false sense of security and progress by sending down envoys to Siddi Jauhar telling him that he was interested in surrendering and handing over his forts. Believing that Shivaji would not try to escape now that negotiations were underway, the Adilshahis relaxed security around the fort. Then on 13th July, under the cover of a stormy night, Shivaji escaped from one of the exits of the fort with 600 men, and headed towards the fort of Vishalgad which was some 64 km to the west.

They had a head-start but some of the Adil Shahi scouts saw them, and raised the alarm. Siddi Jauhar stayed back but sent a force of 1,000 to 2,000 men to purse Shivaji. The Adil Shahi forces almost caught up with Shivaji and his men at a narrow pass, some 15-17km from Vishalgad. He wanted to stay put and fight, but his men persuaded him to go on to Vishalgad, while some 300 Bandals under Baji Prabhu Deshpande blocked the pass to stall and delay the Adilshahi forces so that Shivaji could reach Vishalgad. The Bandals were heavily outnumbered and almost all of them were killed, but they managed to hold off the Adilshahis long enough for Shivaji and a few other men to safely reach Vishalgad. To honour their sacrifice, Shivaji rechristened the pass, Pawankhind, or “Sacred Pass”.

Shivaji decided that the threat posed by the Mughals was more than that posed by the Adilshahis because he knew that the Adilshahis did not want to totally destroy him and his fledgling state. He was the buffer between them and the Mughals who could keep the Mughals in check or at least, distracted. If it weren’t for him, the Mughals would focus on the Adil Shah Sultanate and annihilate them in their bid to take control of entire southern India.

So he decided to pause the war with the Adil Shahi sultanate for the time being so that he could focus on the Mughals. He instructed the commander of Panhala, Trimbak Bhaskar, who had stayed back, to hand over the fort to Adil Shah and sign a peace treaty.

The Southern Konkan Campaign

Back over at Pune, it took 56 days for the Mughals to capture the small Chakan fort. Shaista Khan left a garrison at the fort and went back to Pune.

While occupying Pune, Shaista Khan sent a force under Kartalab Khan in January 1661 to North Konkan to capture places such as Panvel, Kalyan and Bhiwandi.

Shivaji’s spies had reported this to him, and that they would need to cross the Sahyadri at the narrow pass of Umbarkhind. So he and his men hid themselves in the forest surrounding the pass.

Then once Karatlab Khan and his men had entered the pass, the Maratha ambushed the Mughals, ensuring to close the ends of the pass as well. It would’ve ended in a carnage, but Kartalab surrendered and begged Shivaji to let him and his remaining men go.

They were about a few thousand men, and Shivaji decided to let them go so that Shaista Khan wouldn’t take any rash decisions and capture his territories with increased aggressiveness. Neither did he want to keep them hostage and use them to negotiate a peace treaty with Shaista Khan because that many men wouldn’t have increased his bargaining power much.

He had already lost Panhala and territories near Pune to his enemies, so he decided to make up for it by capturing new territories southwards along the Konkan Coast. The Marathas easily took the ports of Dhabol, which meant that they would now get a share of the revenue of goods imported by sea. They then went southwards and captured Kudal (कुडाळ) and Sangameshwar (संगमेश्वर).

After capturing Sangameshwar, he put Tanaji Malusare (तानाजी मालुसरे) in-charge there while he went northwards to Rajapur. Surya Rao Surve, the local rule of nearby Shringarpur, attacked Sangameshwar but fled when he heard that Shivaji coming to help Tanaji.

Rajapur, which was held by the Siddis, would be difficult to capture and retained, so instead they captured several Arab and Persian merchants and then released them on ransom. The Marathas also took hostage 8 Englishmen from the English factory there whom they knew had aided the Adilshahis with ammunition during the siege of Panhala.

After the raid of Rajapur, Shivaji decided to punish Surya Rao Surve, who had fought on the side of the Adil Shah during the siege of Panhala, and had also attacked Tanaji at Sangameshwar. Surve had his forces ready, but Shivaji planted the rumour that he and his men were marching northwards, away from him. Surve dismissed the feudal armies that he had raised, and then Shivaji with his army marched towards Shringarpur and captured it while Surve fled. Seeing their leader flee, hundreds of his men joined the Marathas.

After appointing the former commander of Panhala, Trimbak Bhaskar, as the officer-in-charge of the Prabhavali region, Shivaji went back to Rajgad, completing his South Konkan expedition.

Shivaji Defeats Shaista Khan

Shaista Khan had taken up residence in Lal Mahal in Pune where Shivaji had grown up. Chakan Fort had been captured by Khan, but the amount of effort it took to capture a small fort desisted him from trying to capture any more of Shivaji’s forts, so he simply sent detachments to raid, plunder and destroy Shivaji’s territories.

After his south Konkan campaign, in April 1663, Shivaji decided to deal with the Mughals and Shaista Khan. Open battle was not an option since the Mughals had much more resources and men at their disposal, neither could Shaista Khan be lured into a trap. So Shivaji decided that the best course of action would be to go to him.

Shivaji knew Lal Mahal really well since he had grown up there when in Pune, and the changes that Shaista Khan had made to it after he occupied it were communicated to him by his spies. The security around Pune had been tightened and people weren’t allowed to enter Pune without an official pass. Shaista Khan had even stopped admitting new Maratha soldiers into his army.

In April Shivaji, along with 400 men, left Rajgad and reached Pune, leaving detachments along the way to cover their return after they had dealt with the Mughal subedar. By the time they arrived in Pune, there were 100 men left with him.

Obviously, they couldn’t just walk into Pune. One source says that they dressed up as Mughal soldiers and when asked by the guards they said that they had been out on sentry duty and were now returning to the camp. Another source says that the group split into two and entered separately. One group under the guise of a wedding party, complete with a young boy dressed up as a bridegroom. While the other group claimed they were bringing in Maratha prisoners that they had captured during one of their raids.

Once near Lal Mahal, they shed their disguises and armed themselves and a small party, 10, according to some sources, along with Shivaji, entered Lal Mahal. It was late at night and the month of Ramzan, so the cooks had gotten up to prepare the pre-dawn meal. They were silently eliminated by Shivaji’s men. The door from the kitchen to the main building had been closed up and the Marathas started breaking it with pickaxes. Some of Shaista Khan’s servants heard this noise and reported it to him, but he scolded them saying that it was just the cooks who had gotten up to cook the pre-dawn meal.

Once the wall had been broken they entered the rooms and started hunting for Shaista Khan. Some of the women from his harem saw the Marathas and raised the alarm and chaos ensued. Shaista Khan panicked and fled from the window of the single storied building. While he was jumping out of the window, Shivaji cut off a few of his fingers.

At the end of the whole thing, Shaista Khan’s eldest son, Abul Fath, his son-in-law and some 40-50 Mughal soldiers were killed while Shivaji lost just 6 men.

With his mission of removing Khan from Pune accomplished, he left Pune with his men and went to Sinhagad. Pune was left under the charge of Jaswant Singh and Khan fled to Aurangabad.

Shaista Khan blamed Jaswant Singh for not coming to help him during that night even though his men were camping on the outskirts of Pune and even alleged that he had helped Shivaji infiltrate the city.

In November-December of that year, to make up for his perceived blames, he laid siege to Sinhagad fort. A few months later, with the Marathas showing no signs of surrendering, he started an assault but was beaten back by and forced to retreat.

The Surat Expedition

Shivaji knew that in order to take on the Mughals and achieve his vision of Swaraj, he needed more resources. He decided to make the Mughals pay for his war against them and zeroed in on the city of Surat.

Surat, on the banks of the Tapti river, was the financial capital of the Mughals. The port of Suvali next to it was how majority of foreign goods from the West entered northern India. It also had many English and Dutch factories and many rich Arab, Jewish, Parsi, and Chinese merchants lived there.

The city itself, however, was weakly fortified and the Mughal in-charge of the city, Inayat Khan, used to embezzle money received for the city’s protection.

On 6th December 1663, Shivaji with his army, set out for Surat. To prevent the Mughals from preparing for him, he spread the rumour that a Mughal nobleman was coming to the city. Shivaji and his army reached Surat a month later and camped some 8 km from the city. He wanted to avoid bloodshed so he sent two messengers to the Mughal in-charge telling him to send to him the three richest merchants of the city - Zahid Beg, Viraji Vora, and Haji Qasim - to him, so that they could negotiate a ransom, otherwise he would sack the city.

But the Mughals did not send any reply. And so, Maratha horsemen entered the city and started to plunder the city. Shivaji assured the English and Dutch he didn’t have any enmity with them personally, and they wouldn’t be harmed if they didn’t resist. He was just there to sack the Mughals’ financial centre. Aurangzeb had caused heavy losses to the Marathas and he was there for reparations.

The Marathas broke into the houses of Zahid Beg, and Viraji Vora, the merchants who had been invited to negotiate a ransom, but refused and seized their gold, jewellery and other goods.

After three days of plundering, Shivaji and his men left on 9th January.

From the raid on Surat, Shivaji gained a huge amount of gold, coins, and merchandise. The Mughals just didn’t lose all that, but they were compelled to waive off or reduce customs duty from the merchants operating in Surat for a few years so that they could rebuild after the raid by the Marathas.

Shortly after Shivaji returned to Rajgad, his father, Shahaji Raja Bhonsale, passed away in Karnataka and the Adil Shah gave his Benglauru, Mysuru and Thanjavur jagirs to his younger son, and Shivaji’s half-brother, Ekoji, also known as Vyankoji.

Earlier Shivaji didn’t have the funds to invest more into his vision of building a navy, but now with the money from Surat, he started looking for a base for his navy. He had earlier captured ports and other places in the north Konkan coast such as Kalyan, Bhiwandi and Prabalgad, but they had been recaptured from him. So now, he scouted the southern Konkan coast and decided upon Malvan near the northern border of Goa.

He noticed a small island some 1.5 km off the coast, found it ideal for the construction of a sea fort, and built the Sindhudurg fort. Some distance up north, there was an existing but neglected fort called “Gheria” which was on a small peninsula. He ordered the fort to be renovated and named it Vijaydurg.

Beating Back the Adil Shahi Sultanate

He also started building warships which made the Dutch and the Mughals apprehensive. The Dutch thought that Shivaji would use these warships to attack their ships returning from Basra and Persia, while the Mughals thought that he would sail up the Sabarmati with his troops and attack Ahmedabad.

So Aurangzeb asked the Adil Shah to attack Shivaji and he would waive off the 30,000 hons annual tribute that he had to pay the Mughals and if they refused to attack, the Mughals would march on Bijapur.

The Adilshahi army wasn’t one unified army, but separated into three parts, led by three generals. There was one part led by Khawas Khan, an Adilshahi, Ethiopian general. Ekoji, Shivaji’s half-brother, since he was an Adilshahi jagirdar also had to fight as part of this army. Then there was another part led by Lakham Sawant and the third one led by a Maratha general, Baji Ghorpade (घोरपडे).

The part led by Khawas Khan had already managed to capture the coastal town of Kudal.

Instead of dealing with him since Kudal was already lost, and he wanted to prevent the three parts from joining together, Shivaji first went for Ghorpade. He and his army defeated him and his men in Mudhol (मुधोल) and killed him. His men fled when they saw that their leader was dead. The Marathas raided his base and brought him lots of spoils of war.

Next, he marched on Lakham Sawant and beat him back and he took refuge in Portuguese Goa. With two parts of his army gone, Khawas Khan fled back to Bijapur.

But the Marathas’ defence turned into offence and they pushed on south to Vengurla (वेंगुर्ला) and captured many ships coming in from Persia and Muscat.

Now from the coast, they rapidly moved inland and raided Hubli, which was to the south of both Kolhapur and Belgaum in the Kannada-speaking parts of the Deccan.

Goa was just within his reach, and with his navy growing stronger and larger, the Portuguese had started to fortify Goa and call in reinforcements. But he simply decided to skip and instead with men laid anchor at Basrur, some 45 km north of Udupi with 85 frigates and 3 great-ships, and captured nearby areas.

By the end of 1664, Shivaji not only controlled all of southern or ‘Tal’ Konkan but had raided Adilshahi territory in the uplands as well.

The Treaty of Purandar

Shivaji had managed to thwart the Mughals’ attempt at defeating him twice now. Once when they sent Shaista Khan and then when they asked the Adil Shah. Now Aurangzeb decided to throw the entire might of the Mughal Empire behind this mission of defeating him.

He assigned Jai Singh, the great grandson of Man Singh, the mansabdar who fought against Maharana Pratap on behalf of Aurangzeb’s great-grandfather, Akbar in the Battle of Haldighati.

Shaista Khan, once he captured Pune, had gotten complacent, but Shivaji knew that Jai Singh wasn’t like that. With an army of 14,000 he set out from Delhi for the Deccan. En route he was joined by other mansabdars and generals so that by the time he reached the Deccan, his army had 70,000 men.

Shivaji knew that he was greatly overpowered in terms of men and resources, and that for the present time, it was important to survive even if it meant giving up some forts, so he sent his envoys twice to negotiate but Jai Singh just sent them back without any answer.

Jai Singh did not want to take any chances so with the abundant resources of the Mughals at his disposal he set up posts near Junnar, Lohgad, Nardurg, Shirwal and Pune itself. He threatened the deshmukhs of the regions surrounding Shivaji’s dominions that if they joined him they have to pay terribly.

He knew that the Adil Shah might try to help Shivaji, because once the Mughals defeated Shivaji, they knew they would be next. In fact, the Adil Shah had sent some troops under Muhammad Ikhlas Khan to occupy the Konkan coast territories of Shivaji, so that more of his men could focus on the Mughals.

So Jai Singh sent letters to local rulers in Karnataka and instigated them against the Adil Shah so that the Adil Shah would be forced to deploy troops there and could not afford to send men to help Shivaji.

Fazl Khan, Afzal Khan’s son, switched sides and joined the Mughals. Jai Singh had tried to entice Shivaji’s relatives, Almaji and Kahar Koli to join him but they had refused.

There were also some Portuguese serving in Shivaji’s army, so he wrote to the Portuguese Viceroy in Goa to call them back. But the Viceroy claimed that they were criminals or soldiers who had deserted Goa and were not answerable to him. But he assured that he would write to the Portuguese posts up north, not to support Shivaji.

And the Viceroy did write to his subordinates in the north not to support Shivaji… but overtly. Like the Adil Shah, they had also come to rely on Shivaji as a check on the Mughals and without him, the Mughals would be the only giant in the area and they even might try to take over the Portuguese’s areas.

From Pune, the Mughals marched on Purandar and besieged the fort.

Towards the east of the hill on which Purandar stood, there was a small depression, and then another small hillock on which was a fort called Rudramal or Vajragad. One part of the Mughal army besieged Purandar, while the other part led an assault on Rudramal. The Mughals wanted to capture Rudramal first because it was easier and thought that if it fell, it might demoralise the Marathas and they would surrender. After incessant bombardment, Rudramal fell on 12th April 1665.

Now with the Mughal army besieging Purandar, Jai Singh sent about 7,000 men to destroy Shivaji’s territories. The Mughals launched simultaneous attacks on areas near Rajgad, Sinhagad (Kondhana), Rohida (रोहिडा), Visapur (विसापूर), Tung (तुंग) and Tikona (तिकोना). They burnt villages, destroyed crops and farms, took many people as prisoners and carried off their animals.

Shivaji who was in Lohgad, was gathering his forces there to go to the aid of Purandar.

Meanwhile at Purandar, bands of Marathas would leave the fort at night and attack the Mughal entrenchments to try to wear them out and cause confusion, but the Mughals manage to power through. Ultimately, he realised that at this point, the Marathas were far out-resourced and outnumbered and it would be just a matter of time before Purandar fell, so he started sending his envoys again to Jai Singh to negotiate peace.

First, he offered to help them attack and capture Bijapur. When that failed, he offered to pay tribute and give up some of his forts. While Jai Singh refused to negotiate at first, there was the danger that Shivaji might openly team up with the Adilshahis and launch a combined attack on the Mughals, so he agreed to negotiate a peace treaty.

Shivaji met the Mughals on 11th June 1665. He knew that Purandar was as good as gone and he needed to save as many of his men as he could, so he surrendered the fort and his men were allowed to leave the fort.

After two days of negotiations, he signed a treaty with the Mughals. As I mentioned before, the former Nizamshahi territories which belonged to the Adil Shah had to be ceded to the Mughals as per the Mughal-Adil Shah treaty of 1657. But then the war of succession broke out and the Mughals could not enforce it. Meanwhile Shivaji had captured much of the forts in the former Nizamshahi territory from the Adilshahs.

As per the terms of Purandar, he agreed to hand over 23 of his 35 forts located in the former Nizamshahi territory, while he retained 12 forts. However, he still retained other forts such as Pratapgad, Wasota, Vijaydurg and others, which were not part of former Nizamshi territory.

Also, the Mughals were now planning to totally annex the Adil Shah. Shivaji obviously had to help them and he would be allowed to retain control of forts in lower Konkan and capture new forts in upper Konkan provided he gave a tribute of 40 lakh hons to the Mughals.

The Mughals wanted to make him a mansabdar in the Mughal empire but he managed to negotiate to make his son, Sambhaji, a mansabdar instead.

The Maratha-Mughal War Against the Adil Shahi Sultanate

Remember, that the Adilshahis had taken control of some forts belonging to Shivaji in the Konkan, so that the Marathas could focus on the Mughals and so that the Adilshahis themselves could convince the Mughals that they were on their side and had captured those forts from the Marathas? Now that Shivaji had agreed to help the Mughals against the Adil Shah, their secret alliance was broken so Shivaji went about recapturing those forts from the Adil Shah.

After recapturing those forts, Shivaji left for Bijapur to help the Mughals finish off the Adil Shahi sultanate. He and the Marathas soon captured four places across the Nira river in less than a fortnight. First, they took Phaltan, then Tathavdagad, Khatav (खटाव) and Mangalwedha (मंगळवेढा) in the south-eastern parts of Maharashtra.

Pushing further south, a Mughal contingent led by him and Diler Khan took on a Bijapuri force of 12,000 which was led mostly by Maratha generals, one of whom was Vyankoji Bhonsale, Shivaji’s half-brother. This time the going wasn’t as smooth and the Bijapuris hit back strongly, but they somehow pushed them back.

Finally, Jai Singh chose to make the final thrust into Bijapur. But it turned out to be a disaster for the Mughals. They came in within 16 km of Bijapur but were forced to retreat because the city had much better defences in terms of men and weapons than what their spies had told them. The Adilshahis had also laid waste territory up to about 10 kilometres, making the supply of basics and even water difficult for the Mughals.

Seeing that the Mughals were finding it difficult to capture Bijapur, Shivaji went to Panhala and started an assault on the fort there so that the Adilshahis would have to divert a large force to defend the fort. However, there the Adilshahis had anticipated the assault and raised the garrison. Shivaji could have still managed to capture the fort, but his right-hand man, Netaji Palkar, failed to reach Panhala with reinforcements and Shivaji was forced to retreat to his own fort of Vishalgad.

To chastise him for the defeat, he dismissed Netaji Palkar as the commander-in-chief of his army, but Palkar took it personally and was so offended that he left the Marathas and defected to the Adilshahis.

The Escape from Agra

Shivaji had specifically negotiated that he would become a Mughal mansabdar, and neither would he have to attend the Mughal Court. But the Mughals reneged on the latter, and asked him to meet Aurangzeb in Agra. They wanted him to officially end his claim at being an independent ruler by trying to persuade him to become a mansabdar in person. 

But Jai Singh told Shivaji that Aurangzeb was considering making him the viceroy of the Deccan region. And Shivaji decided that if he became the viceroy, he could try to dismantle Mughal control in the Deccan from the inside, using their own resources than from the outside. Even if the promise of a viceroyalty was a ploy, meeting Aurangzeb could be an opportunity. He could try to convince him to let him lead a campaign against the Adilshahi and Qutubshahi sultanates using Mughal men and resources, and then he could eventually revolt and keep the territories for himself.

Before departing for Agra, knowing that the Mughals could trap him, he instructed his commanders how to keep his fledgling dominion alive if he did not return. His mother, Jijabai, would be the regent while his prime minister, or Peshwa, Moropant Pingle (मोरोपंत त्र्यंबक पिंगळे) would take care of actual affairs.

Shivaji arrived in Agra with his son, Sambhaji, and his retinue and went to the Agra Fort on 12th May 1666. It was Aurangzeb’s 50th birthday according to the lunar calendar, and there was a ceremony held wherein mansabdars and other important people were to present gifts to him.

Aurangzeb made a series of insults to provoke Shivaji to do something rash so that he could kill or harm him and not be blamed for treachery. For example, Aurangzeb intentionally ignored Shivaji and his son as they presented their gifts to him right in front of him. Then, he was asked to stand behind some lower ranking mansabdars, and was treated as virtually invisible. Shivaji stormed out of the birthday ceremony and headed back to the mansion where he was staying

It wasn’t enough for Aurangzeb to do anything, but his sister and other nobles convinced him to punish Shivaji because his storming out of the Agra Fort in the middle of his birthday ceremonies could be seen as disrespect by the other officials and might embolden them to do the same. Eventually, he put Shivaji and his son under house arrest in Ram Singh, that is Jai Singh’s son’s, house in Agra.

The resourceful person that he was, Shivaji, started to plan his escape. First, he secured the release of most of his men that had come with him. The Mughals were obviously too happy to let them go back home since Shivaji would then have almost no one in Agra to help him. Then, he pretended to have fallen seriously ill and started giving out donations in huge baskets from his room to Hindu and Muslim holy men. The Mughal guards would initially check every basket carefully, but after some time, the security became lax.

Finally, on 17 August 1666, Hiroji Farzand, Shivaji’s half-brother who sort of looked similar to Shivaji, took his place on the bed, covered himself with a sheet with only his hand with Shivaji’s bracelet sticking out. Then Shivaji and Sambhaji squeezed themselves in two baskets and were carried out of Agra by his men.

Once outside Agra, they came out of the baskets, travelled to a nearby village, where one of his trusted officials, Niraji Raoji, was waiting for them with horses. Then they disguised themselves as sadhus and headed towards Mathura. Shivaji left his son in Mathura with some Brahmins and went to Rajgad through a route in the opposite direction than what normally anyone would have taken.

The Mughals only realised that he and Sambhaji had escaped the next morning. They organised a massive manhunt, but since Shivaji had more than a 12 hours head start they couldn’t catch him before he reached Rajgad almost a month later, in September. He then sent for Sambhaji after spreading disinformation that he had died on the way so that the Mughals wouldn’t search for him.

Temporary Cessation of Hostilities with the Mughals

Soon after Shivaji’s return to Rajgad, the Mughals were occupied with two threats at their north-western territories. First, the Shah of Persia seemed to be considering an invasion but then he died and his son abandoned the plans. Then soon later, some Afghan tribes revolted and started harassing merchants passing between Lahore and Kabul.

So Shivaji wrote to the Mughals and tried to establish peace for the time being. He told them that he had to escape because he thought they were going to kill him, and not out of disrespect to Aurangzeb. The Mughals were also okay with peace for the time being because they had the Persian and Afghan threats to worry about. They even released associates of Shivaji who had been arrested after his escape to further cement the peace.

While the peace negotiations were going on with the Mughals, Shivaji and the Marathas reclaimed territories in South Konkan from the Adil Shah, while simultaneously raiding Adil Shahi uplands such as Gulbarga.

Later that year in November, a few desais who were holed up in Goa started to send out raiding parties into Shivaji’s territories, in some cases with the overt help of the Portuguese. So he raided Bardesh, which was part of Portuguese Goa, and forced them to the negotiating table.

The Marathas agreed to release all hostages without any ransom that they had captured in Bardesh, while the Portuguese agreed to order the desais living under their refuge not to raid Shivaji’s territories or leave the bounds of the city of Goa, and if they violated the order, they would be expelled from Goa.

Despite this, the desais incited their former subjects to cause disturbance. The Marathas informed this to the Portuguese and they expelled the desais from their territories. Then they begged pardon from Shivaji and he forgave them and they didn’t cause any disturbance after that for good.

Reclamation of Forts Ceded to the Mughals and Further Expansion

Once things in the north-western regions calmed down, the Mughals started behaving hostile towards the Marathas again. First, Aurangzeb tried to arrest two of Shivaji’s associates - Pratprao and Niraji Raoji - but Aurangzeb’s son, Muazzam, who was friendly with Shivaji, informed them beforehand so that they could escape. Next, he ordered the confiscation of some of the jagirs that been granted to Sambhaji to recover the one lakh hons that had been spent on Shivaji’s journey to Agra which he himself had wanted. And finally, according to the peace treaty with the Mughals, Shivaji could capture territories belonging to the Adil Shah on behalf of the Mughal Empire. But when he laid siege to the sea fort of Janjira, and was really close to capturing it, Aurangzeb demanded he stop the siege, possibly because he was scared Janjira would give the Marathas too much naval power.

Shivaji had had enough and decided that it was time to discard the false peace with the Mughals and reclaim the forts and territories that he had ceded to them as per the Treaty of Purandar. The first fort the Marathas recaptured was Kondhana, also known as Sinhagad, in February 1670. If you’ve seen the Bollywood film Tanaji, or the Marathi film Subhedar, you’ll know how it went.

But basically, the fortress was manned by some 1200 soldiers under the command of Udaybhan Rathod. On the night of 4th/5th February 1670, 500 Mavale infantry under command of Tanaji Malusare, infiltrated the fort by scaling the fort walls with the help of rock climbers. After sometime, the fort sentries raised the alarm and fighting broke out. The Marathas had the element of surprise on their side and eventually took the fort but Tanaji and Udaybhan died at each other’s hands.

Buoyed by their triumph at Sinhagad, the Marathas went on to recapture their other lost forts and within four months, they managed to capture almost all of their 23 forts. Yeah, it sounds unbelievable but no sources provide clear information on how exactly it happened although we can guess how. Most of them must have been captured through surprise night attacks and stealth infiltration rather than open, pitched battle.

At Purandar, they took the fort commander Raziuddin captive. In Nanded (नांदेड), the faujdar, or the military unit chief, Fateh Jung Khan fled from battle from the Marathas. Ludi Khan, the governor of Konkan, was routed twice and forced to leave the coastal areas, and the Mughal commander of Kalyan and Bhiwandi, Uzbek Khan, was attacked and killed by Shivaji.

The fort commander of Mahuli near Thane, Manohardas Gaud was being pounded by the Marathas so he sent in his resignation to Muazzam at Aurangabad because he knew he could not defend it any longer. The commander who replaced him, Allahvardi Khan, was killed by the Marathas and the fort taken was taken.

Aurangzeb then sent an army under Daud Khan, the governor of Khandesh, and Diler Khan, but the Marathas beat them back as well.

While the Mughals, just like most armies in India at the time, stayed low during the monsoon, Shivaji and the Marathas did not stop. They captured Lohgad and Kohoj.

On 3rd October 1670, the Marathas raided Surat for the second time. The Mughals clearly did not learn from last time and the city was as good as undefended because the local commander had just 300 soldiers for its defense. Even they fled the city once the Marathas came. The British at the city, however, had learned their lesson even though they didn’t suffer that much last time. They had moved most of their goods to the nearby port of Suvali. The French and the Dutch factories were spared on payment of ransom.

After he was done with Surat, he sent a letter to the officers and chief merchants saying that if they did not pay him a yearly tribute of 12 lakh rupees, he would come back the next year and burn down the remaining part of Surat.

On the way back, however, they were attacked by a Mughal force under Ikhlas Khan. Khan was supposed to wait for reinforcements but the Marathas managed to lure him into battle before his reinforcements could join him. The Marathas managed to beat him back, but then he was joined by Daud Khan with fresh men and weapons, at Vani Dindori, near Nashik. The battle continued late and the Marathas managed to defeat the Mughal Army in an open, pitched battle.

The Marathas were not just fighting on land, they got embroiled in a naval fight as well. Although they had sort of a treaty with the Portuguese, the Maratha fleet got into a fight with the Portuguese navy near Daman, although we’re not sure why it happened. They managed to capture one of their ships and bring it back to Dabhol. The Portuguese in retaliation captured few small Maratha vessels near Vasai.

In 1670, the land army crossed the Sahyadris and invaded Baglan and while Moropant Pingle captured the forts of Ahivant (अहिवंत), Markanda (मार्कंडा), Ravlya (रवळ्या) and Javlya (जावळ्या), Shivaji went eastward and raided the regions of Khandesh (खान्देश) and Varhad (वऱ्हाड).

The fort of Salher had been beseiged by the Mughals, but the Marathas relieved the fort by splitting their army into two and attacking the Mughals. An infantry force led by Moropant Pingle attacked from the front, while a cavalry force under Prataprao Gujar (प्रतापराव गुजर) attacked their flank and rear. Taken completely by surprise, the Mughals were routed. Rao Amar Singh Chandrawat was killed and Ikhlas Khan, who had attacked the Marathas after their second Surat raid, was taken prisoner with several other officers. The Marathas seized 11 elephants and 1,700 horses and the prisoners were released on payment of ransom. After Salher (साल्हेर), they captured Mulhar (मुल्हेर).

In the middle of 1672, Shivaji captured Jawhar (जव्हार) and Ramnagar, which opened up the route to Surat for the Marathas. By capturing Ramnagar and ousting the king, Som Shah, the Portuguese now had to pay him chauthai or the one-fourth of revenue tax instead of Som Shah.

During this time, Chhatrasal Bundela (छत्रसाल बुंदेला), the son of a local chieftain in the Bundelkhand region, who was serving in the Mughal Army, came to meet Shivaji after he heard of his exploits and wanted to join him. So he escaped from the Mughal camp and met Shivaji. He, however, told him to go back to Bundelkhand and fight the Mughals from there. So, at the age of 21, with 25 soldiers he went back and Hindus angered by Aurangzeb’s temple destruction spree rushed to his banner. Eventually, he carved out an independent principality in Bundelkhand and died at the ripe age of 81 in 1731.

Reclaimation of Panhala Fort

Ali Adil Shah II died in November 1672 and was succeeded by his four year old son, Sikandar, with Khawas Khan as the regent. Khawas Khan refused to share power with other leading noblemen, so there was a lot of infighting going on. Grabbing this opportunity, Shivaji started to capture territories from the Adil Shah while remaining defensive on the Mughal front.

The first fort Shivaji reclaimed from the Adilshahis was the fort of Panhala. He dispatched a force under Anajipant in January next year and then three days later, sent fresh reinforcements under Kondaji Farzand (कोंडाजी फर्जंद).

The Marathas scaled the walls at night using specialised equipment, and once the alarm was raised, started fighting the Bijapuri defenders. The commander of the fort was killed and eventually the others. After that, the Marathas captured Parali (परळी) fort.

Hearing that Panhala had been captured by the Marathas, the Adilshahis dispatched an army of 12,000 under Abdul Karim Bahlul Khan. The Marathas, under their commander-in-chief, Prataprao Gujar met the Adilshahi army at Umarani (उमाराणी). The Marathas won the battle and Bahlul Khan begged not be killed and promised that he would never attack them again. Prataprao believed him and let him go. When Shivaji heard of this, he reprimanded him because he was sure that Bahlul Khan would return.

And he was right. He was back in February 1674 to capture Panhala. Prataprao caught up with the Adilshahi army at Nesri, near Panhala. He was outnumbered more than 10 to one, so he and a few Marathas entered the Bijapuri camp to try to kill Bahlol Khan, hoping that killing their leader would make them turn away. They managed to kill a lot of Bijapuri soldiers but in the end all of them were also killed.

From there, the Marathas continued their offensive and captured the forts of Satara (सातारा) and Pandavgad (पांडवगड).

Shivaji’s Coronation as Chhatrapati

Up until now, Shivaji was technically the son of a former Adil Shahi jagirdar who had turned rogue. Even though his soldiers and the people living in his territories and even foreigners such as the English and Portuguese addressed him as “Raja”, it was just to acknowledge that he was a ruler, and not officially a king. His “kingdom” was also technically just territories captured from the Adil Shahi Sultanate and the Mughals.

So, in 1674, he decided to officially get crowned as king and constitute his own kingdom. Hence on the dawn of 6th June 1674, at the culmination of a weeklong set of rajyabhishek rites and rituals, Shivaji was coronated as Raja Shivchhatrapati (शिवछत्रपती).

Now having seen Shivaji formally institutionalise Swarajya in the form of his Maratha kingdom with her son as its Chhatrapati, Jijabai passed away at the age of 76. However, this and a few other incidents were interpreted by Shivaji’s advisors as the result of an improperly-conducted coronation ceremony so, Shivaji underwent a second coronation on 24th September 1674 to calm their apprehensions.

War Against the Adil Shahi Sultanate

The Marathas had tried to capture Janjira fort from the Siddis several times. One time they had as good as won the fort, but Aurangzeb had stopped them. So Shivaji decided to build his own sea fort to rival Janjira. 3 km north of Janjira, he built a new sea fort called Padmadurg.

In December 1674, the Marathas started plundering deep into Khandesh region which comprises of today’s Dhule, Jalgaon, Nandurbar (नंदुरबार) and some parts of Nashik district.

Then, so that he could focus entirely on the Adilshahis without having to simulataneously worry about the Mughals, he started peace negotiations with them.

While peace was being negotiated, the Marathas invaded Phonda, some 100 km south-west of Kolhapur on the western side of the Sahyadris. On the way, they pased through Kolhapur and Songaon, which had to pay tributes to avoid being plundered. The siege of Phonda started in April. The Portuguese tried to help Phonda by sending resources, but they were captured by Shivaji’s men and when the Portuguese Viceroy was told about it, he denied that they were his men.

In less than a month, the fort was captured by the Marathas. Shivaji spared the fort commander, Mahmud Khan’s life, after he agreed to surrender four or five more forts under his command. And then soon the other forts of Ankola, Shiveshvar, Kadra and Karwar were captured as well.

Thus in this short campaign of less than four months Shivaji pushed the southern boundary of his kingdom as far as the Gangavali river.

The peace negotiations did not go through, and instead, as before, the Mughals urged the Adil Shah to defeat Shivaji, and if they succeeded, the Mughals would waive off the annual tribute. But the Adilshahis could not work towards it because the Bijapur court was falling apart because the various ethnic groups - the Dakhanis or Indians, the Pathans or Afghans and the Abyssinians or Ethiopians factions - were fighting each other for power since the sultan himself was still a child.

So, the Marathas also raided Mughal lands and reached very close to Aurangabad where they were forced to retreat after a strong pushback by Bahadur Khan.

Netaji Palkar, who had defected to the Adilshahi and then to the Mughals returned to Shivaji who forgave him.

The alliance between the Mughals and the Adilshahis fell apart when the regent, Khawas Khan, who the Mughals had an understanding with, was murdered by Bahlul Khan, the leader of the Pathan faction. The Dakhani faction leaders fled to Qutub Shahi territory and pleaded the Mughals to help them take control of the Bijapur court. So Aurangzeb asked Bahadur Khan to conquer Bijapur. Seizing this opportunity, Shivaji once again resumed peace negotiations with the Mughals and in the end they decided to work together to dismantle the Adilshahis. Shivaji sent 4,000 horsemen to Bahadur Khan’s to help him with his Bijapur campaign.

So, with the Mughals heading straight for Bijapur, Shivaji decided to conquer the Adil Shah’s eastern territories, on the eastern ghats and along the Coromandel Coast. He knew that after annexing those territories, the western half of his kingdom would not be connected to the eastern part, but he would work on joining them later.

With most of the Adilshahi forces focussed on addressing the Mughal threat to their capital, their eastern parts were weakly defended. So he set out from Raigad on Dussehra and marched to Bhaganagar or Hyderabad, which was the capital of the Qutub Shahi sultanate. There, he managed to convince the Qutub Shah to help him with men and money, mostly with money, in exchange for some of the Adilshahi territory he would capture.

Shivaji left Bhaganagar and by way of Srisailam (Shrisailam) reached Gingee fort (written Gingee, but I’ll go with the original Tamizh pronunciation of Senji) which is some 70km north-west of Pondicherry or Puducherry. The captain of the fort, Nasir Muhammad Khan, surrendered the fort without fighting realising that he would be getting any help from Bijapur as they were fighting for their own survival. So, instead he took some money and an employment opportunity at the Qutub Shahi court in exchange for handing over the fort.

Then in the first week of June, the fort of Vellore was besieged. Vellore Fort was much harder to capture. The Marathas constructed towers, dug ditches and after 14 months since the siege started, the fort was captured.

Sher Khan Lodi who governed the remaining parts of eastern Adilshahi territories also eventually surrendered all his territories to Shivaji by July 1667. In the new territories that he captured, he granted the Dutch all privileges they enjoyed during Sher Khan’s rule save for trading in slaves.

From there, he moved his camp at Tirumalawadi, now called, Thirumazhapadi, 16 kilometres to the north of Thanjavur. During his stay here, he sent a letter to his half-brother Ekoji, also known as Vyankoji, asking him for his half share of their father’s jagirs. Ekoji himself came to meet Shivaji at his camp, but refused to part with any territory, and ran away from the camp in the middle of the night. So Shivaji annexed some of Ekoji’s districts such as Jagadevgad, Chidambaram and Viruddhachalam (pron. Virud-achalam), and besieged the fort of Kolar.

Eventually, they reached a truce and Shivaji retained control of the Mysore uplands and Jinji, while Ekoji got back his lands south of the Kollidam river.

Meanwhile, there was a new wazir or prime minister of the Adil Shahi sultanate, Siddi Masud, son-in-law of Siddi Jauhar who had led the siege of Panhala. He negotiated peace with the Mughals. The Mughals were okay with it since they too weren’t getting too far in the war against the Adilshahis. So, now the Mughals and Adilshahis jointly invaded Golconda, the capital of the Qutub Shahi Sultnate, in September 1677, but were beaten back.

Once Vellore fort was captured by the Marathas in July 1678, Shivaji ended his south-eastern campaign.

Sambhaji’s Estrangement and Reconciliation

Earlier that year, Shivaji had imprisoned his 21-year-old firstborn son, Sambhaji, at Panhala because of his misbehaviour. Later in December, once he returned from his southern campaign, Sambhaji fled with his wife and defected to the Mughals under Diler Khan who was the subhedar of the Deccan. The Mughals were of course only too keen to welcome him, and made him a mansabdar by giving him one of the highest possible ranks a mansab could hope to get.

As devastating and concerning this might have been for Shivaji, he did not dwell on it or let it affect him too much to stop his mission. Early next year, he set out on his mission to join the western and eastern parts of his kingdom by annexing the intervening territories.

In March, the Marathas fought and defeated Qasim Khan, the commandant of the Koppal fort, which lies some 30 km west of Hampi. After the Marathas took him and two of his nephews captive, he handed over the fort to Shivaji. The Marathas then went on to capture the forts of Bahadurbinda and Doddaballapur, in the same month.

Now together with Sambhaji, Diler Khan marched on and captured the newly constructed fort of Bhupalgad from the Marathas. But he had no intention of retaining it, and when a large Marathi cavalry came to free the fort, he destroyed and looted the fort and left.

Then he started his march on Bijapur, and Siddi Masud, entreated Shivaji to help him out. By this time of course, the alliances had shifted and he was again fighting the Mughals. He sent some 7-10 thousand men and food supplies to Bijapur’s aid. He himself led his men and camped to the west of Bijapur. Diler Khan meanwhile, surprised to see the reinforcements, camped at Bommanahalli - not the Bengaluru one though, this one is a place some 80 km north-east of Bijapur.

He was also waiting for final instructions from Aurangzeb to attack Bijapur because Aurangzeb’s son, Prince Muazzam, believed the Bijapur campaign would amount to nothing and was trying to convince him to order Diler Khan to quit. Diler Khan, on the other hand, believed that it was possible to annihilate Bijapur once and for all and was trying to convince Aurangzeb to give him the go-ahead.

Using this opportunity, the Marathas started raiding and plundering Mughal territories. They raided Jalnapur, Pattagad, Dharangaon and Chopda. After this, Shivaji returned to Raigad.

The Mughals did not retaliate, directly, but decided to raid Maratha territory to divert them from raiding Mughal territories. Aurangzeb ordered Diler Khan to abandon his Bijapur plans and along with Sambhaji march towards Miraj and Panhala. He did so and plundered and destroyed the Marathas territories on the way.

Sambhaji had a change of heart seeing Diler Khan’s ruthlessness and cruelty, and Shivaji himself had his own men in Diler Khan’s camp who persuaded him to reconcile with his father. They succeeded and he escaped the Mughal camp and went back and reconciled with his father on 13th January 1680.

Final Days

Hearing that Sambhaji had left him, Diler Khan, abandoned his raids into Maratha territories and marched back towards Bijapur. Finally, he laid a proper siege on the city.

Bijapur itself had few men to guard it, but they were within a fort with strong fortifications and had enough supplies to withstand a long, drawn out siege. Meanwhile, at the Mughal camp, their supplies were running low. So, Diler Khan planned an assault and reinforcements under Ranmast Khan were called to help him out.

Shivaji and the Marathas attacked and destroyed Mughal supply lines as well as routed reinforcements under Ranmast Khan before they could join Diler Khan. Aurangzeb seeing that the siege was going nowhere and was just leading to a drain of resources both because of the siege and because there were fewer men to protect Mughal territories from Maratha raids, sternly ordered Diler Khan to quit his Bijapur campaign and admonished him for “wasteful expenditure and devastation of the country”.

Days after his youngest son, Rajaram’s wedding, in the middle of March, Shivaji took to his bed at Raigad with high fever. And at noon, on 3rd April 1680, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj passed away.