Shivaji and His Times c5.s6: §7. The Mavals occupied
Shivaji and His Times c5.s6
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§7. The Mavals occupied
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The western belt of the Puna district, running along the Western Ghats for a length of 90 miles and a breadth of 12 to 24 miles, is known as *Maval* or the Sunset Land. "It is extremely rugged, a series of table-lands cut on every side by deep winding valleys......From the valleys, hills of various heights and forms rise, terrace above terrace, with steep sides often strewn with black basalt boulders......Where the trees have been spared, they clothe the hill-sides with a dense growth mixed with almost impassable brushwood. Here and there are patches of ancient evergreen forests......The people in the northern valleys are Kolis and in the southern valleys Marathas. They have a strong strain of hill-blood and are dark, wiry and sallow......The climate is dry and invigorating, the air is lighter, and the heat less oppressive than in most parts of Western or Southern India." (Bom. Gaz. xviii. pt. I, pp. 2, 13, 15.)
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In popular speech, the valleys into which this western belt is divided are collectively known as the *twelve Mavals*, though their names end with the words *ner* and *khore* as well as *maval*, and their number exceeds twelve. A Marathi ballad speaks of 12 Mavals under Junnar and twelve others under Puna.
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The Maval country is a purely agricultural region with no city and little trade. Its common people differed from the Marathas and Kunbis of the plains only by being stronger built, hardier, simpler, and less enervated by luxury or vice. Their social organization was neither tribal nor patriarchal (as with the hillmen of Scotland and Rajputana), but that of the ancient village community of the Deccan, in which each village formed a miniature self-complete republic of various castes and professions. Every sub-division of the province was under a *deshmukh*, who might be called a landed baron or, more correctly, the king's local agent. He took from the peasants through the headmen (*patils*) of the different villages the royal revenue and his own share of it, besides enjoying the produce of certain *de mesne* villages (or fields) which he owned free of rent.
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These petty chieftains (*deshmukhs*) were mostly Marathas or members of the same caste as Shivaji. They entrusted the management of their affairs to Brahman stewards (*karbharis*) and the accounts and correspondence work to clerks of the Prabhu (Kayastha) caste, as elsewhere in Maharashtra. Each Maval *deshmukh* had to maintain an armed force, almost entirely recruited from his tenants, for the defence of his charge against the encroachments of his neighbours and the incursions of robber bands. In addition, he was often requested by his sovereign to raise troops for the royal service in times of need, and for this extra duty he was rewarded with cash bounties and grants of fresh villages.
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Thus, the rise of Shivaji opened a wide field of employment all over the Deccan to the Mavle landlords and their sturdy tenantry as instruments of his raids and conquests, and brought them wealth, power and honour far beyond what the plough could have yielded them at home. Their ambition became inseparably linked with his, and the tie was strengthened by Shivaji’s frequent tours through this tract and good comraderie with its people,—till the Mavles came to regard him almost as their Little Corporal, for whom they would do and dare to the point of death. The Maval country was the cradle of Shivaji’s power and the Mavles formed the backbone of his army.
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Dadaji established complete mastery over the Mavals. The local chiefs (deshpandes) were mostly won over by tactful handling and rewards. Those who defied his authority were attacked and forced to submit.* Thus peace and prosperity were established in that region and it became a source of wealth and strength to the owner of Puna, instead of being an unprofitable and even dangerous possession. (Sabh. 7.) From this region Shivaji drew his best soldiers, his earliest comrades, and his most devoted followers. Yesaji Kank and Baji Pasalkar were Mavle chieftains of his own age; they gathered round him very early and were enrolled as his first captains. So, also, were Tanaji Malusare and his brother Suryaji.
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∗ Raj. xv. 316 and 393 records the story of one of his reverses: "Dadaji Kond-dev came to Shivapur. Among the 12 Mavals, Krishnaji Nayak Bandal, the deshmukh of Hirdas Maval, had seized another man's lands and refused to give them up. Dadaji marched against him, but was defeated and forced to retreat to Shivapur. He then sent Kanhoji Nayak Jedhe to persuade Krishnaji and other Maval deshmukhs to come for an interview." The Jedhe Karina gives an inner view of the state of affairs in one part of this tract.
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§8. Shivaji's choice of a career.
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In their company young Shivaji wandered over the hills and forests of the Sahyadri range, and along the mazes of the river valleys, thus hardening himself to a life of privation and strenuous exertion, as well as getting an intimate knowledge of the country and its people. During his residence at Puna his plastic mind was profoundly influenced by the readings from the Hindu epics and sacred books given by his guardian and other Brahmans, and still more by the teaching of his mother. The deeply religious, almost ascetic, life that Jija Bai led amidst neglect and solitude imparted by its example, even more than by her precepts, a stoical earnestness mingled with religious fervour to the character of Shiva. He began to love independence and loathe a life of servile luxury in the pay of some Muslim king. It is, however, extremely doubtful if at this time he conceived any general design of freeing his brother Hindus from the insults and outrages to which they were often subjected by the dominant Muslim sect.¹ An independent sovereignty for himself he certainly coveted; but he never posed as the liberator of the Hindus in general, at all events not till long afterwards.
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¹ *Basatin-i-Salatin*, 350—355, frankly describes in detail how the Hindus were depressed as a deliberate policy of the State of Bijapur in the palmy days of Muhammad Adil Shah.
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The inconstancy, intrigue and bloodshed which stained the Court of Bijapur in those days foreboded for it a downfall like that of Ahmadnagar. Mughal service was a no better alternative to Shivaji. The imperialists had killed Kheloji Bhonslé, his grand-uncle, and their superior resources and organization made it unlikely for the Hindus of the Deccan to enjoy greater toleration or power under them than under the weaker and smaller sultanates close at hand. Moreover, to the Deccanis, both Hindu and Muhammadan, Delhi was a far off city, with an alien speech and an alien ruling race, who would pitilessly discard their southern instruments after service had been taken from them. A career of independence was no doubt risky to Shivaji, but it had undreamt of advantages to compensate for the risks, if only he could succeed.
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On the question of his future career he is held by one tradition to have come into conflict with his guardian. Dadaji Kond-dev was, no doubt, an able and honest land-steward, a man of methodical habits, leading a sober blameless and humdrum life, but quite incapable of lofty ideals, daring ambition or far off vision. Shivaji's love of adventure and independence appeared to his guardian as the sign of an untutored and wayward spirit, which would ruin his life's chances. He argued long with Shivaji, advised him to follow the footsteps of his ancestors and rise to wealth and position as an obedient vassal and captain of mercenaries under Adil Shah. The young lad's association with the hill brigands and his projects for robbery and the surprise of forts filled Dadaji with apprehensions about his future. He complained to Shahji, but without succeeding in effecting a reform. Worn out by anxiety and age, Dadaji died about the middle of 1647* and Shivaji became his own master at the age of twenty.
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∗ *Letters and Sanads*, 111, gives 1647 as the year of Dadaji's death. A mahzar issued by him on 31 May 1646 is extant (Raj. iv. 80 ; cf. xvi. 36.)
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§9. Shivaji's early conquest of forts.
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The death of Dadaji Kond-dev found Shiva ready for his task. He had already been trained in martial exercises and civil administration; he had familiarized himself with the troops of his father's western jagir and the people he would have to govern. Initiative and power of command had been freely developed in him without check or interference from his guardian. Administrative orders had in some cases been issued in his name, as his father's representative. Shivaji had also taken part, with his mother or his guardian, in some judicial investigations and public decisions of legal disputes (mahzar.)*
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The band of officers already gathered round him were men of tried ability and devotion to him. Shyamraj Nilkanth Ranjhekar (the correct form of the name is Rozekar, according to some modern Maratha scholars) was the Chancellor (peshwa); Balkrishna Dikshit was Accountant-General (majmuadar); Sonaji Pant was secretary (dabir) and Raghunath Ballal Korde was paymaster (sabnis.) These four officers had been sent by Shahji about 1639. To them Shivaji now added Tukoji Chor Maratha as Master of the Horse (sar-i-naubat) and Narayan Pant as divisional paymaster. (Sabh. 7 and 8; T. S. 10b.)
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The year 1646 marks a crisis in the history of Bijapur. The king fell seriously ill, and for some time his life was despaired of. Though he lingered on for ten years more, these years were by popular belief held to be a portion of the life of the saint Shah Hashim Uluvi, given away by that holy man to the king. (B. S. 312.) During this time no serious business was attended to by Muhammad Adil Shah. The expansion of territory in the Karnatak went on under some of the nobles, but at the capital the king was inert, and the administration fell into the hands of the queen Bari Sahiba. The official history of Bijapur is significantly silent about Muhammad Adil Shah's doings from 1646 to his death in 1656.
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∗ I have missed the reference, and cannot make the above statement with confidence. (Try Raj., xv-xviii.)
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This was Shivaji's opportunity. Even before the death of Dadaji, he had begun his annexations. About 1646 he had taken Torna fort from its Bijapuri commandant by some cunning device without fighting. Here he found Government treasure amounting to 2 lakhs of hun. The captured fort was newly named Prachandgarh, a name which it soon lost. Five miles east of it, on the crest of the same spur of hills, he built a new fort named Rajgarh, with three walled redoubts (machi) on the successive terraces of the hill-side. (T. S. 12b; Sabh. 9.)
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These acts of aggression were reported to Bijapur. But Shivaji secured friends at Court by bribing the ministers, and they sided with him against the local jagirdars whom he had dispossessed. (K. K. ii. 114.)
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After the death of Dadaji Kond-dev it was naturally the aim of Shivaji to bring all parts of Shahji's western jagir under his own control, so as to form a compact State ruled by one authority. But this was effected gradually and took years to complete, as it was not wise for him then to employ force on all sides.
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The fort of Chakan, guarding the road to Puna from the north, had been entrusted by Dadaji Kond-dev to Firangji Narsala. This officer was induced to profess obedience to Shivaji and was confirmed in his post.
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(T. S. 12b.) The petty officers of the *thanahs* of Baramati and Indapur on the eastern margin of the jagir, peacefully submitted to Shiva’s authority. The fort of Kondana, 11 miles south-west of Puna, was next secured by bribing its Adil-Shahi governor.[*]
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§10. Adil Shah imprisons Shahji, 1648.
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Shivaji’s first small beginnings of territorial expansion were suddenly checked about the middle of 1648 by alarming news from the Karnatak. There on 25th July his father was arrested and all his property and contingent attached by the Bijapuri commander-in-chief, Mustafa Khan, then investing Jinji in the South Arcot district. Later historians have misunderstood the cause of this act. The contemporary Persian historian of Bijapur asserts that Shahji was imprisoned for displaying a spirit of insubordination and obstruction to the commander-in-chief.
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Zahur, son of Zahuri, in his *Muhammad-namah* (pp. 371-372), written by order of Muhammad Adil Shah, gives the following earliest and most correct account of the incident:—"When the siege of Jinji was protracted and fighting continued long, the cunning Shahji sent an agent to Nawab Mustafa Khan begging leave to go to his own country and give repose to his troops. The Nawab replied that to retire then would be equivalent to disturbing [the work of the siege.] Then Shahji sent to say that grain was very dear in the camp, that his soldiers could not bear the privation and labour any longer, and that he would retire to his own country without waiting for permission [from the commander-in-chief.] The Nawab, being convinced that Shahji meant mischief and would show fight, had him arrested with such extreme cleverness and good arrangement that no part of his property was plundered, but the whole was confiscated to Government."
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∗ Sabh. 9. The dates of the acquisition of Chakan and Kondana are not known. The *Shivapur Deshpande Bahi* gives the year 1647 for the latter event, and names Bapuji Pant as the agent who effected the transfer to Shivaji; but the *Jedhe S.*, from which most part of it is copied, is silent on this point.
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A later but very reliable Persian history of Bijapur, viz., *Basatin-i-Salatin* (325-327), supplies some additional information:—"Shahji, withdrawing his head from obedience to the Nawab Mustafa Khan, began to oppose him, till at last the Nawab decided to arrest him. One day he made Baji Rao Ghorpade and Jaswant Rao Asad-Khani get their forces ready and sent them very early in the morning to Shahji's camp. Shahji, having passed the preceding night in mirth and revelry, was still sleeping in bed. As soon as the two Raos arrived and he learnt of their purpose, he in utter bewilderment took horse and galloped away from his house alone. Baji Ghorpade gave chase, caught him, and brought him before the Nawab, who threw him into confinement. His contingent of 3,000 cavalry was dispersed, and his camp was thoroughly looted...Adil Shah on hearing of it.....sent from his Court Afzal Khan to bring Shahji away and an eunuch to attach his property." Shahji was brought in chains to Bijapur and kept in prison along with his eldest son.
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Shivaji was free but in a terrible dilemma. He could only resort to diplomacy for rescuing his father, and diplomacy pointed to only one path as open to a man in his position. The Mughal Emperor was the hereditary enemy of Adil Shah, and every rebel against Bijapur was sure to gain the Emperor's patronage if he could hold forth the chance of strengthening the imperial cause in the Deccan by the adhesion of his followers. The Mughal Emperor alone was strong enough to intimidate Adil Shah.
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Shivaji first wrote to Prince Murad Bakhsh,* the Mughal viceroy of the Deccan, entreating him to secure the Emperor's pardon for Shahji's past conduct and protection for him and his sons in future, and offering to come and join the Mughal service if he was given a written assurance of safety (qaul.) To this Murad replied on 14th March 1649, telling him to send a trusty agent first to report his demands. This was evidently done, and Murad after reporting the case to the Emperor and getting his assent, wrote to Shiva on 14th August asking him to come to Court with his father and kinsmen, that he might be created a 5-hazari, while Shahji would get back the rank he had once held in the Mughal peerage. Still later, on 31st October, Murad wrote directly to Shahji to inform him that he had received Shivaji's appeal for his father's release and that as he was soon going back to the imperial Court, he would there report the prayers of Shahji to the Emperor and take his orders. He asked the Maratha chief to send his agent to Court to receive the Emperor's *farman* and assurance of safety, and on his own behalf presented him with a robe of honour. In this letter Shambhuji and other sons of Shahji are spoken of as sharing his captivity.
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Shivaji then sent Raghunath Pant Korde as his envoy to the Prince to ask for the *deshmukhi* of the Junnar and Ahmadnagar parganas. Murad, on 30th November, 1649, promised to try to secure these rights for him after reaching the Emperor's presence. Whether Shah Jahan really consented to put pressure on Adil Shah to release Shahji is very doubtful. No historian mentions it. Indeed, active Mughal intervention on behalf of Shahji seems to me very improbable. For one thing, Shah Jahan always treated Muhammad Adil Shah with marked courtesy and kindness, while Shahji was bitterly hated at the Mughal Court for the trouble he had given them in 1633-1636. Then, again, the Mughal Emperor had definitely promised in his treaties with Bijapur not to take into his service or extend his protection to any officer of Adil Shah. It is, therefore, historically true that the release of Shahji was due to the friendly mediation of Sharza Khan and the bail of Randaula Khan, two leading nobles of Bijapur. Shahji after his release is said to have lived for some time in the Tungabhadra region subduing the rebellious chieftains of his jagir in Northern Mysore. Here his eldest son Shambhuji fell in an attack on Kanakgiri, but he himself afterwards carried the fort by assault.[*] (T. S. 8b.)
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∗ Shivaji neither wrote nor sent any envoy to Shah Jahan. All his negotiations about his father were conducted with Murad, as the four original Persian letters of Murad in Parasnis's possession show. Rajwade, viii. 2-3, wrongly represents these letters as coming from Shah Jahan, but he is quite correct in ix, last section. The Emperor never interfered for the release of Shahji.
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∗ The *Jedhe Shakavali* gives 16th May 1649 as the date of this release, but it is inconsistent with Murad's letters cited above, except on the suppositions that Shivaji never replied to Murad's repeated letters [as Rajwade imagines, ix. c. 4-5] and that the Mughal viceroy of the Deccan did not hear of Shahji's release at Bijapur for six months after the event, though Shahji was then the foremost Hindu noble of Bijapur! Therefore, either these Persian letters (preserved at Satara) were forgeries, or Jedhe's early dates are unreliable. I am inclined to place the event at the very end of the year 1649. The *Jedhe S.* says that the price of Shahji's freedom was the restoration of Kondana (*Shiva-bharat* adds, Bangalore also) to Adil Shah.
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The wildest stories are told by later Marathi writers about the attack on Kanakgiri, especially to connect Afzal Khan with Shambhuji's death.
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§11. Shivaji's doings from 1650 to 1655.
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Shivaji seems to have kept comparatively quiet during the six years from his father's release to his conquest of Javli; at all events he did not make many or extensive annexations, nor give any strong provocation to the Bijapur Government. I am inclined to place the acquisition of Purandar in this period.
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The strong fortress of Purandar, 18 miles s. s. e. of Puna, was held under the nominal sway of Bijapur by a Brahman chief, Niloji surnamed Nilkanth Nayak, whose family had been in hereditary charge of it and its adjacent lands ever since the days of the Ahmadnagar dynasty. Niloji was a stern grasping man who denied his younger brothers, Pilaji and Shankaraji, any share of his power or of the income of the estate. They resented this exclusion from their birthright and appealed to Shivaji to arbitrate between them. He was admitted into the fort at the Feast of Lamps (November) as a guest. On the third day of his stay, the two younger brothers surprised and fettered Niloji and brought him before Shiva, who imprisoned all the three and took possession of the fort for himself! The Nayak's retainers were expelled and a Mavle garrison was placed there by Shivaji. After a few days the three captives were set free and granted the village of Chamli, in perpetuity for their maintenance. (Sabh. 9; T. S. 11b-12a.) From the traditions and papers of the present Nilkanth family of Chamli, V. L. Bhave has given the following account of their loss of Purandar :
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¹ Jedhe S. has an entry stating that a son was born to Shambhuji on 25th Nov. 1654.
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² The Shiva-bharat gives the following account:—During Shahji's captivity, the Bijapuri commander Mustafa Khan [then before Jinji and stricken by a mortal illness] sent an army under Farhad Khan to wrest Bangalore from Shahji's agent (and eldest son) Shambhuji, but it was defeated. Another army was sent from Bijapur against Shivaji under Fath Khan. It reached Belsar and encamped there. A detachment from it, led by Balaji the son of Haibat Rao, advanced and laid siege to Shirwal, but was driven away by Shivaji's troops under Kavji. Then Fath Khan marched against Purandar, where Shivaji was living, and delivered a rash assault on the fort, which ended in the rout of his army, with heavy loss. Chitnis and the Shedgaonkar Bakhar tell two different tales about this 'attempt against Shivaji, and the Jedhe Karina merely supplies an embellishment to the Shiva-bharat, on its favourite subject of the bravery of the Jedhes and their devotion to Shivaji, but is silent about the rest of the campaign. All these sources are unreliable.
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Shankaraji, the second of the three brothers, was able and clever, and used at first to manage the affairs of the fort, all the brothers living together. But Niloji, the eldest, urged by his designing and imperious wife, who had secretly corrupted the garrison, one day attacked and severely wounded Shankaraji and gained control of the fort. Shivaji, who had been coveting Purandar, came to its foot with his mother and army to spend the rainy season. On the occasion of the Dewali he was admitted as a guest. In the night of the third day he surprised and chained all the three brothers when fast asleep and seized the fort and all the property in it. After a time, at the entreaty of that holy man the Dev of Chinchvad (whose son had married Niloji's sister), he released the brothers, gave the village of Chamli to Shankaraji, restored the nayakship to Niloji, and employed their youngest brother Pilaji (alias Trimbakji) in his army. [Sahavichar.]
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§12. Conquest of Javli, 1656.
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At the extreme north-western corner of the Satara district lies the village of Javli, which was then the centre of a fairly large principality including nearly the whole of that district. The sub-division of Javli is "throughout hilly and thickly wooded with evergreen trees......The narrow rugged and steep crest of the Sahyadris, rising 4,000 feet or more above sea-level, forms its western wall; and in the valleys the tree growth is luxuriant, forming high forests." (Bom. Gaz. xix, 3.) Within a length of 60 miles as many as 8 passes cross the range, two of them being fit for carts and now transporting a large traffic from the Deccan plateau to Mahad in Kolaba and Chiplun in Ratnagiri. There are, besides, countless gorges and foot-tracks leading from Javli to Konkan.
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A Maratha family named Moré had received a grant of the State of Javli from the first Sultan of Bijapur early in the 16th century, and made the claim good by their sword. For eight generations they had conquered the petty chieftains around and amassed a vast treasure by raising forced contributions. They kept 12,000 infantry, mostly sturdy hillmen of the southern Mavals, and succeeded in getting possession of the entire district of Satara and parts of Konkan. The head of the family bore the hereditary title of Chandra Rao, conferred by a Bijapur king in recognition of the founder's personal strength and courage. The younger sons enjoyed appanages in the neighbouring villages.
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The State of Javli, by its situation, barred the path of Shivaji's ambition in the south and south-west. As he frankly said to Raghunath Ballal Korde, "Unless Chandra Rao is killed, the kingdom cannot be secured. None but you can do this deed. I send you to him as envoy." The Brahman entered into the conspiracy, and went to Javli, attended by an escort of 125 picked men, on the pretence of making important diplomatic proposals from Shiva to Chandra Rao. (Sabh. 10.)
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On the first day the envoy held the usual ceremonial conversations. Finding out the ins and outs of the place and learning that Chandra Rao usually lived in a careless unguarded manner, Raghunath formed his plan of action. The second interview with Chandra Rao was held in a private chamber. Raghunath talked for some time, and then drew his dagger all of a sudden and stabbed Chandra Rao and his brother Surya Rao. The assassins promptly rushed out of the gate, cut their way through the alarmed and confused guards, beat back the small and hurriedly gathered band of pursuers and gained a chosen place of hiding in the forest.
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Shivaji had kept himself ready to follow up his agent's crime. Immediately on hearing of the murder of the Mores, he arrived and assaulted Javli (15 Jan. 1656.) The leaderless garrison defended themselves for six hours and were then overcome. Chandra Rao's two sons and entire family were made prisoners. But his kinsman and manager, Hanumant Rao More, rallied the partisans of the house and held a neighbouring village in force, menacing Shivaji's new conquest. Shiva found that "unless he murdered Hanumant, the thorn would not be removed from Javli." (Sabh. 10.) So, he sent a Maratha officer of his household named Shambhuji Kavji with a pretended proposal of marriage to Hanumant Rao, who was then stabbed to death at a private interview. The whole kingdom of Javli now passed into Shivaji's possession and he was free to invade South Konkan with ease or extend his dominion southwards into the Kolhapur district.
Linked texts (1)
- Śivabhārata — Paramānanda, Sanskrit