The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c20.31

v4.c20.31

After the fall of Shambhūjī, Aurangzīb mostly encamped in Bījāpur and at different places south of that city (especially Galgalā) for many years, and finally settled at Brahmapurī (on the Bhīmā river) to which he gave the name of *Islāmpurī*. After four years and a half (June, 1695–October, 1699) passed here, he set out on the campaign against Marāthā forts from which he returned a broken down old man to Ahmadnagar (31 January, 1706), only to die there (3 March, 1707). The flight of the new Marāthā king Rājā Rām to Gingee (end of 1689) made that fort a centre of Marāthā enterprise on the east coast, while his ministers left at home organised resistance in the west and thus doubled the task of the Mughuls. The difficulties of Aurangzīb were multiplied by this disappearance of a common head and a central government among the Marāthās, because every petty Marāthā captain now fought and plundered in a different quarter on his own account. The Marāthās were no longer a tribe of banditti or local rebels, but the one dominating factor of Deccan politics, and an enemy all-pervasive throughout the Indian peninsula, elusive as the wind, the ally and rallying point of all the enemies of the Delhi empire and all disturbers of public peace and regular administration throughout the Deccan and even in Mālwa, Gondwāna and Bundelkhand. The imperialists could not be present everywhere in full strength; hence, they suffered reverses in places.