The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c20.68

v4.c20.68

After 1705 the Marāthās became masters of the situation all over the Deccan and even in parts of central India. The Mughul officers were helplessly reduced to the defensive. A change came over the Marāthā tactics with this growth of power; they were no longer, as in Shivājī’s and Shambhūjī’s times, light horsemen who plundered and fled or merely looted defenceless traders and villagers, dispersing at the first report of the Mughul army’s approach. On the contrary, as Manucci noticed in 1704,