Shivaji and His Times c5.s6.39

c5.s6.39

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.