The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c19.224

v4.c19.224

Shivājī had taken advantage of the embroilment of Bījāpur with the empire to recover the country between Panhālā and Tattora, and to connect those two strongholds with a chain of forts. In the latter part of 1676 he was detained at Sātārā by sickness, but during this period he was revolving a great scheme for the extension of his power, wealth and resources, and for the formation of an effective confederacy against the empire. This scheme was the invasion of the Carnatic with the sanction of the king of Golconda, whom Shivājī now took in preference to the king of Bījāpur as his ally against imperial aggression. The function of the Carnatic was to supply the sinews of war: the preference for Golconda was due to its being at the time less immediately exposed to imperial aggression and to its being ruled, in fact, by two Brāhmans.