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History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c84.s3.t3: § 17. Chhatra Sal's early war with Mughal Government.

History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c84.s3.t3

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§ 17. Chhatra Sal's early war with Mughal Government.

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Then crossing the Narmada, Chhatra Sal re-entered Bundelkhand (1671) to fight the greatest monarch of the age. He was a youth of 21, with only five horsemen and 25 foot-soldiers at his back. His own brother, Ratan Shah (of Bijauri*) though entreated for 18 days to join him, shrank from a contest with Aurangzib as a hopeless task.

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After leaving Bijauri, Chhatra Sal was joined by Baldev with his men at Bichhuré, and then they began the war. "The news of Chhatra Sal's advance was grateful to Bundela ears." He was joined by Baqi Khan, who is called a Bundela in the Hindi poem, but whom I take to be an Afghan brigand chief settled in the district and a natural enemy of the Mughal, and indeed of every orderly Government. The rebels elected Chhatra Sal as their leader and the king of all the Bundelas, with a right to 55 per cent of the booty, while Baldev was to get the remaining 45 per cent. The new monarch's army mustered 35 horse and 300 foot at this time.

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But he soon received large reinforcements. The hope of plunder drew vast numbers of recruits from this martial tribe. Champat, during his lifetime, had been the captain of a numerous band of brigands and soldiers of fortune, and these men had so long remained without work; they now hastened from all sides to the standard of his son. Hindus in general flocked to the enemy of Aurangzib. Many petty chiefs, living along the path of the advancing rebel, could offer no resistance and saved themselves by joining him. The few who opposed were easily routed and their lands plundered.

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∗ Bijaur, 20 m. south of Chhatrapur (Ind. Atlas, 70 N. E.)

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In the earlier part of his career, Chhatra Sal’s raiding activities were mostly directed against the Dhamuni district, which barred the path of his advance south-westwards and against the rich city of Sironj which lay 65 miles west of it. He looted the villages of these two regions year after year. Successive Mughal faujdars of Dhamuni resisted him with indifferent results; they were usually defeated by him and could boast of victory only on rare occasions.*

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∗ Among these local officers, Khaliq was captured in battle and held to ransom for Rs. 30,000; Kesho Rai Bundela, the collector of revenue in Bansa, was killed in single combat; Randaulah Kh. (probably a mistake of Lal Kavi for Ruhullah Kh., the faujdar of Dhamuni in 1673) with a loyal Bundela contingent (evidently the troops of Rajah Jaswant Singh of Urchha, who was ordered against the rebels in Sep. 1678), could effect nothing; nor could Mukhtar Khan (the subahdar of Malwa from 1697 to 1701) with his Turkish (Rumi) retainers gain better success. The names of the other vanquished opponents of Chhatra Sal are given in Chhatraprakash, cantos 13—23. Several of them were faujdars of Dhamuni, Mandesor, Dhar or Mandu in Aurangzib’s closing years, as we know from Persian sources. In July 1688, Dilawwar Khan, the faujdar of Dhamuni, was reported to have defeated “the sons of Champat” with heavy slaughter. (Akhbarat, 9 Aug.)

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In a short time Chhatra Sal's repeated successes decided the waverers. His brother Ratan Shah and many other petty chiefs joined him, and even Durjan Sal, the Hada usurper of Bundi, allied himself with the rebels of Bundelkhand. Chhatra Sal followed the Maratha system of sparing the places that paid him a blackmail of one-fourth of their standard revenue (*chauth*) and plundering those that refused or resisted.

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Years passed on, and he remained still unsubdued. Then, as Aurangzib became more and more deeply entangled in the Deccan, his local agents in Northern and Central India grew weaker and more helpless, and Chhatra Sal achieved more brilliant triumphs, including the capture of Kalinjar and Dhamuni and the loot of Bhilsa. The range of his raids was greatly extended and reached Narwar in the north-west and even beyond it, while southwards he joined forces with Nima Sindhia who periodically invaded Berar. The whole of Malwa from the Jamuna to the Rajput border and the Narmada was his happy hunting ground, and he became a nucleus round which all lawless men of this region assembled.

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§ 18. Chhatra Sal's later career and success.

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Leaving out of consideration the exaggerated and jumbled account of his career given in the epic of his Court-poet Lal Kavi, we can reconstruct Chhatra Sal's history during the last years of Aurangzib's reign on the safe basis of the information supplied by the Court news-letters, though with many gaps caused by the loss of records.

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In March 1699, Sher Afkan Khan, the faujdar of Ranod (70 m.n. of Sironj), marched against him, and attacked him near Suraj-Mau* where he was then living. After a severe battle, Chhatra Sal fled into the fort, which the Khan besieged, but the Bundela chief escaped from it. In this campaign the Khan lost 700 men besides exhausting his private means in keeping up a contingent of 6,000 troopers and 8,000 infantry. Soon afterwards, Chhatra Sal's follower Chhatra-Mukut Bundela went over to the Mughals. [Akh. 21 and 25 Apr., 28 June, 1699.] Sher Afkan next conquered the pargana of Gagron, which had been held for 20 years by Chhatra Sal's son Gharibdas, and was highly rewarded by the Emperor for these successes, being appointed faujdar of Dhamuni, Ranod, &c., and given the above pargana as well as a large cash reward. [Akh. 26 July.]

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But Chhatra Sal had his revenge next year. On 24th April 1700 Sher Afkan Khan attacked him near Jhuna and Barna, slew about 700 of his men, and dispersed the rest after wounding Chhatra Sal himself. But the Khan was mortally wounded by a musket-shot and carried off by Chhatra Sal. The latter very chivalrously wrote to Jafar Ali, the son of the Khan, "Your father has a little life left. Send your servants to take him away." The son sent a *palki*, but it arrived too late. [*Akh.* 12 and 21 May, 1700.]

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∗ There is a Mau, 36 m.e. of Jhansi, and another Mau, 26 m. s.e. of the former Mau, and 10 m. n.w. of Chhatrapur.

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Another son of the deceased, named Ali Quli had evacuated the fort of Shahabad (in his father's jurisdiction) and it was seized by Devi Singh, son of Shahman Dhamdhera. But in October the faujdar of Gwalior recovered it from the rebel. [*Akh.* 11 June, 23 Oct. 1700.]

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The campaign against Chhatra Sal after Sher Afkan's death had been entrusted to Khairandesh Khan, the faujdar of Ranod and Dhamuni. In April 1701 he laid siege to Kalinjar, where Chhatra Sal's family was then living. But the attack evidently failed.

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In 1705 Firuz Jang induced the Emperor to make terms with the irrepressible Bundela. Chhatra Sal was created a 4-*hazari* in the Mughal peerage and induced to visit the Emperor in the Deccan. Here he lived in peace for a year and a half, and then, on Aurangzib's death, returned home to renew his career of independence, as the fullest success was now assured by the decay of the imperial power under the unworthy successors of Aurangzib.∗

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∗ *Dil.* 157*b*; *M. U.* ii. 512. The full history of Chhatra Sal's later career, based upon original Persian and Marathi sources, is given in my edition of Irvine's *Later Mughals*, ii. 227—241.

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