History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v4.c58.s1.3

v4.c58.s1.3

But with the commencement of the Seventeenth century a new combatant had entered the southern arena. Forty years of vigorous and successful rule by one undisputed sovereign having settled and strengthened the realm of Northern India from Bengal to Gujrat and Kashmir to Sind, the Mughal Emperor was now free to conquer the Deccan, and this fact dominated the whole history of Southern India throughout the 17th century. Adil Shah found a rival he had not reckoned with. Long and desolating wars waged against him by Shah Jahan both during his father's lifetime and in his own reign, at last convinced the ruler of Bijapur that he must give up the dream of winning the hegemony of the Deccan, as the heir of the Bahmanis and the Nizam-Shahis, and that he must find an outlet for his ambition eastwards and southwards only, so as not to cross the path of the dreaded Mughals of the north. The last of these wars for deciding the claim to supremacy in the Deccan had been fought in 1636, as we have seen in Chapter 3. By the partition-treaty of 1636, the southern boundary of Mughal Deccan had been clearly marked out, and during the following twenty years Bijapur had risen to the pinnacle of her greatness by stretching her sway from sea to sea across the Indian peninsula, while the capital city had become the mother of arts and letters, of theology and science. But the warrior-kings of an earlier poorer and ruder generation were now followed by successors who preferred the harem and the darbar to the tented field and the saddle. The great conquests of the middle Seventeenth century were all achieved by servants of the State and not by its supreme lord and master. The climax of the Adil-Shahi power was also the beginning of its rapid decline and dismemberment.