Shivaji and His Times c5.s2.1

c5.s2.1

Shahji's name first occurs in recorded history in 1628, two years after the death of Malik Ambar, when he was sent forth by Fath Khan, the son and successor of that Nizam Shahi wazir, to raid East Khandesh in the rear of a Mughal invading force. Soon afterwards, the plots of the Nizam Shah and his new wazir against each other, the imprisonment of Fath Khan by his king (c. April 1630), the murder of Lakhji Jadav Rao at Court (c. 1630), the treacherous surrender of the Mughal portion of Ahmadnagar territory by the viceroy Khan-i-Jahan Lodi, (1627), a fresh Mughal invasion of the country (1628), and the Bijapuri efforts to seize as much of the wrecks of the Ahmadnagar kingdom as possible,—all combined to throw the Nizam Shahi Government into unspeakable weakness and confusion. This was a golden opportunity for an able enterprising and ambitious man like Shahji. After the murder of his father-in-law Jadav Rao, he left the Nizam Shah, got a band of men together, and tried to seize the country from Junnar to Ahmadnagar, creating a great disturbance at that ill-defined and ill-guarded meeting point of three kingdoms. Then he entered the Mughal service with his eldest son and younger brother (end of 1630), but deserted after a year and a half (June 1632) and went over to the service of Bijapur, where he completely fascinated Murari Jagadev, the right-hand man of the wazir Khawas Khan.