The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c19.117

v4.c19.117

Shivājī and his mother were practically discarded by Shāhjī, with the result that Shivājī became his own master at the age of twenty when his guardian Dādājī Kond-dev died (1647). He gained many forts from their hereditary owners or the local officers of Bījāpur, sometimes by force but more often by treachery and sowing dissension; and he was able to do so the more easily because the Poona district, having originally belonged to the fallen Nizām-Shāhī dynasty, was a recent and imperfectly subdued acquisition of Bījāpur and that monarchy at this time entered on a rapid course of decline owing to the prolonged illness of Muhammad ‘Ādil Shāh (1646–56), the succession of minor princes and the rule of selfish regents.