The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c19.188

v4.c19.188

Shivājī soon passed beyond the stage of concealment. The plunder of a convoy of government treasure destined to Bījāpur, the capture of ten more forts, and above all the arrest of the Muslim governor of Kalyān, the seizure of that place and of all forts in its neighbourhood, and the appointment of a Brāhman governor showed him in his true colours and involved his father in suffering and disgrace. Shāhjī, now governor of the Bījāpur Carnatic, was suspected of complicity in his son’s rebellion. He was arrested by an artifice and conveyed to Bījāpur, where he was confined in a dungeon by Muhammad ‘Ādil Shāh, who refused to believe his protestations of innocence and threatened him with a lingering death. His peril suggested to Shivājī a device which he afterwards employed with great dexterity—the pitting of the northern against the southern Muslim—and he appealed to Shāh Jahān on behalf of his father. It was largely owing to the emperor’s influence that Shāhjī was released from his dungeon, but he was detained at Bījāpur for four years as a prisoner at large.