Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s12: § 12. The Bhau's doings in Delhi
Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s12
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§ 12. The Bhau's doings in Delhi
v2.c27.s12.1
Delhi palace passed into Maratha hands on 3rd August 1760, but the coveted capital of India proved a Dead Sea apple to them. It had been emptied by the repeated spoliations of Nādir and Abdālī, and what little remained had been taken away by the wazir Imād-ul-mulk before his flight. Imād had even stripped off a portion of the silver ceiling of Shah Jahan’s ‘Paradise on earth’—the Dīwān-i-khās within the palace-fort. The new masters of the imperial city were actually starving. On 5th August they write from Delhi, “There is no money for paying even one week’s subsistence in a month; our men and horses are fasting. If we could discover the hiding-places in the fort, ten or twenty krores could be secured. But we cannot enter the female apartments of the palace. The Bhāu is trying persuasion [for discovering the secret.]" [*SPD.* xxvii. 257, 258.]
v2.c27.s12.2
On 6th August the Bhāu took out what remained of the ceiling of the Dīwān-i-khās and coined the silver into nine lakhs of Rupees. This sum maintained his army for a month and enabled him to meet the cost of feeding the imperial family and palace servants, which was an additional burden of one lakh a month. On the 10th, which was the Maratha festival of the lunar conjunction of the month of Shrāvan, the Bhāu ceremoniously bathed at the Nigambodh *ghat*, (near the old Calcutta Gate),—at which holy spot the sages of ancient India had sat in religious contemplation and attained to a true knowledge of the Vedas (*Nigama.*) He then distributed alms to the Brāhmans and also to the Muslim mendicants haunting the Jāmi Masjid. Jankoji Sindhia visited the fort, and sitting down in the Octagonal Tower called for the sons of the ex-Emperor Ahmad Shah and held a whispered conversation * with them, giving them robes of honour and jewelled crests. [*SPD.* xxvii. 257. *DC.*]
v2.c27.s12.3
Then, leaving Nāro Shankar as subahdār and qiladār of Delhi with a force † for the defence of the city, the Bhāu moved (12th August) to the Shālimār gardens near Bādli. This northward advance with artillery effectively blocked the Barāri-ghāt to the Ruhelas who were trying to cross the Jamunā there. The Bhāu lay encamped here for two months, from 12th August to 10th October. But by the end of September his position had become intolerable by reason of the failure of his food and fodder supply and the utter exhaustion of his funds and credit. He felt that he must remove elsewhere, or his entire army would perish through famine. The swollen Jamunā forbade any action in the Doab, where his enemies were concentrated, till the river should become fordable again at the end of October at the earliest. He had, therefore, as early as the first week of September, begun to think of advancing north and attacking Kunjpura.
v2.c27.s12.4
∗ Did he try to pump out of them the secret of the treasure hoards within the palace, by promising to restore their branch to the imperial throne in return ?
v2.c27.s12.5
† *DC.* merely says that the Bhāu ordered Naro Shankar to enlist infantry for the garrison. Raj. i. 237 states that he
Linked texts (1)
- Selections from the Peshwa Daftar — Marathi