History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c38.20.3

v2.c38.20.3

At this time a petition from Kutb-ul-Mulk reached my son, Shah Jahan, to the effect that as the boundary of its territory has approached that of the King (*i. e.*, the Mughal Emperor), and owed service to this Court, he hoped an order would be issued to Mukarram Khān not to stretch out his hand, and to acquire possession of his country."³ The Qutb-shāhī conquest of southern Orissa was very slow. Though the *Gajapati Rājā* of Ganjam was ousted in 1571, Chikakol did not become a seat of a *Faujdār* till about 1641, when the first holder of that office built a Masjid at that place in 1641.⁴ It was only after the final submission of Golkonda in 1636 that the Mughals received any revenue from the *Sarkār* of Rājamahendrī. Early in Aurangzib's reign Mālūd became the southernmost outpost of Mughal Orissa. At this time according to the *Muraqāt-i-Hassan*, the Golkonda tribute, "appertaining to the province of Orissa", was sent from the Quṭb-shāhī district of Chikakol to the Mughal *Ṣūbāhdār* of Orissa. It amounted to about Rs. 20,000.¹ The first recorded invasion of Quṭb-shāhī territory through Orissa was undertaken by Bāqir Khān in the winter of 1629-30. Bāqir marched to Chhatraduar, a very narrow pass on the frontier between the Mughal province of Orissa and the Quṭb-shāhī district of Chikakol, about twenty-four miles north of Rājamahendrī. The approach of the rainy season did not permit him to do anything else except to plunder and lay the country waste.