The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c7.s6.89

c7.s6.89

The course of the Portuguese conquests will be given in detail in Section IV. but it seems better to give in this section the remainder of what is known about the Musalmán rule down to the time of Shiváji. The whole of the coast belonging to the kingdom of Gujarát fell to the Portuguese before the middle of the sixteenth century, and thus Kalyán was the only part of the district of any value to which the Moghals succeeded on the fall of the Gujarát sovereignty. The Nizám Sháhi kings of Ahmadnagar were always favourable to the Portuguese, the only exceptions being a misunderstanding in 1557 regarding the rock of Korlai opposite Chaul, their joining the alliance against the Portuguese in 1570, and the hostilities which ended in the capture of Korlai in 1594. Thus the cities of Upper and Lower Chaul, respectively Musalmán and Christian, flourished as long as the Ahmadnagar kingdom lasted, and for some time afterwards. But the Bijápur kings were always more or less at war with the Portuguese, and their coast was subjected to perpetual ravages, yet it remained entirely in the hands of the Musalmáns until the Maráthás took it. In the decline of the Nizám Sháhi kingdom Malik Ambar, the Abyssinian minister of Ahmadnagar, managed the revenues in the most enlightened spirit, and extended to the Konkan all the advantages of a good government. He abolished revenue farming and committed the management of the districts to Bráhman agents under Muhammadan superintendence.¹ He also carried out a survey on very excellent principles, and this in the Konkan extended from the Vaitarna to the Sávitri, except in the Habshi’s territories.² His jurisdiction is said by Ferishta to have extended to within eight kos of Chaul,³ and from this it may perhaps be assumed that that city and creek were under a separate governor. But in 1636, only ten years after Malik Ambar’s death, the whole of the Konkan dominions of the Ahmadnagar kingdom, were ceded to Bijápur. The cession is said by Kháfi Khán to have been made by the Emperor of Delhi in exchange for districts belonging to Bijápur in the neighbourhood of Aurangabad, and the part of the Konkan given up is described as “jungles and hills full of trees.”⁴ Sháhji Bhonsla had before this begun to overrun the Northern Konkan, and had taken a number of forts. An account of one of the expeditions made against him by a Musalmán force reads very like the history of the pursuit of Tátia Topi by our troops in 1858.[*] The Imperial general Khán Zamán was ordered to co-operate with the Bijápur general Randaula against Sháhji. After investing Junnar the armies went towards Poona and Sháhji fled into the Konkan by the pass of Kumbha. Finding no support there he returned by the same pass. The Imperial force then went down the Kumbha pass into the Konkan, while the Bijápur general was closing Sháhji in on the other side.