Shivaji and His Times c8.s6.12

c8.s6.12

This attack took place on 5th April, 1663. The morning following it, all the imperial officers came to Shaista Khan to condole with him in his loss. Among them was Maharajah Jaswant Singh, who had not raised a finger to defend his chief or to oppose the retreat of his assailant, though he had 10,000 horse under him and lay encamped across the road taken by Shivaji. Shaista Khan, with the polished sneer of a high-bred Mughal courtier, turned to Jaswant and merely remarked, "When the enemy fell upon me, I imagined that you had already died fighting against them!" Indeed, the public, both in the Mughal camp and throughout the Deccan, ascribed Shivaji's exploit to the connivance of Jaswant. Shivaji, however, asserted that this astonishing feat was performed by him under the inspiration of his God and not of any human counsellor. Immediately after his return from it, he wrote to Raoji Rao, his agent at Rajapur, boasting how he had been the chief actor in this business and had himself wounded Shaista Khan.