New History of the Marathas v1.c15.42

v1.c15.42

During all these months Shivaji had employed various means through secret agents to wean away Sambhājī from his sinister association. Their joint failure before Bijapur was reported to the Emperor who censured Dilir Khan and ordered him to put Sambhājī under arrest at once, and bring him a prisoner to Delhi; and he also replaced Dilir Khan by Bahadur Khan in the Government of the Deccan. All this was going on secretly without Sambhājī’s knowledge : but he did not fail to get scent of it and became afraid about his own safety. Mahādaji Nimbālkar to whom Sambhājī’s sister was married, was then a noble in the service of the Emperor under Dilir Khan, and he roused Sambhājī to a sense of the dangerous situation in which he was placed. This remonstrance at once opened Sambhājī’s eyes, and in the night of 20th November 1679 he with Yesu Bai in male disguise escaped secretly from Dilir Khan’s camp at Athni with only ten followers and sought shelter with Mas’ud Khan of Bijapur. Dilir Khan on learning that Sambhājī had run away and was at Bijapur, sent his agents to Mas’ud Khan, and offered to pay him a heavy bribe for placing Sambhājī in his own custody. Mortally afraid of these sudden developments, Sambhājī left Bijapur secretly on the night of 30th November, joined a band of troopers whom Shivaji had specially stationed to watch his movements, and by long and strenuous marches rode into Panhālā on 4th December, after having been away for nearly one year. With his mother’s death Shivaji’s private life had become clouded with anxiety and unhappiness. His first wife Sai Bai, a gentle affectionate woman had been long dead and the gap was not properly filled up. Her son Sambhājī was growing up into a passionate reckless youth impatient of his father’s control. The next queen-consort Soyra Bai possessed a character far from amiable. She planned, it is said, to supplant Sambhājī with her own son Rājārām, and gave Shivaji little rest by her ceaseless importunities and intrigues, particularly during the period when Sambhājī was away with Dilir Khan. Soyra Bai’s obsession with this purpose disturbed the whole palace and embittered the relations between Shivaji and Sambhājī all the more. The lion-hearted king for once lacked the nerve to handle the delicate domestic situation.