Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirin 33.3.7

33.3.7

and on the return of the fair weather, he marched out with an intention to chastise Baladji-rao for his late invasion. With that view he assembled his troops at Ahmed-nagor, from whence he continued his route directly to Poona. Baladji-rao, without suffering him to come so far, met him half-way with an army of fifty thousand horse, but was defeated; at which time the French with their quick musketry and their expeditious artillery drew smoke from the Marhatta breasts. Selabet-djung, after that victory, ruined and devastated the whole country as far as Poona, where a greater engagement took place on the beginning of the year 1765. It was in Moharrem, in which whole month the moon had remained eclipsed; and the Marhattas, together with their General, having been endlessly busy in performing the religious duties enjoined on such a particular phenomenon, they were set upon in the night with so much success, that they lost a vast number of men, which the French consumed in shoals at the fire-altars of their artillery. Baladji-rao, who was actually busy at his devotions, and naked, had hardly time to throw himself upon an unsaddled mare, on which he saved his life, by flying with all his might. The implements of his worship, which were all of gold, fell in the hands of both the Mussulmen and the Nazareans.