The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c20.33

v4.c20.33

We shall deal with the eastern front first. The eastern Carnatic extended from Chicacole to the mouth of the Cauvery on the sea-board and over all the inland country including the Mysore plateau and the modern Madras districts north of it. As the result of Muslim conquests effected about the middle of the seventeenth century, this vast country was divided into two parts, the Hyderābādī and the Bījāpurī, by an imaginary line from Vellore to Sadras, and each of these parts was further subdivided into uplands and lowlands. But the new rulers had not consolidated their conquests; much of the country was still in the hands of unsubdued *poligars* (local chiefs), or held by nobles who were independent of Bījāpur and Hyderābād in all but name. The situation was further complicated by Shivājī’s invasion of 1677 and establishment of a new Marāthā government at Gingee. After his death, his son-in-law Harjī Mahādik became the local viceroy, but practically assumed independence of his distant master Shambhūjī. After the fall of Bījāpur and Golconda, Mughul sovereignty was proclaimed over all the Carnatic once belonging to them, but without any adequate force to make it effective.