J 844.] Political Events in the Camatic, from 1564 to 1687. 447 



57. In this interval, they might have strengthened themselves had 

 Weakness of the their conduct been directed by the common maxims 



states of Beejapoor „ , , , . ~ , 



and Golconda. of policy or prudence ; but both these states of Gol- 



conda and Beejapoor were now fast verging to their decline. At Beeja- 

 poor, towards the end of Secunder Adil Shah's reign, and under the 

 weak minority that succeeded, the court was disturbed, and every 

 measure perplexed by the intrigues of eunuchs and of women, and by 

 the feuds of the nobles, who having acquired too great a preponderance 

 of power, by their factions and arrogance, became fully prepared to 

 receive the yoke of a conqueror ; while at Golconda, the sovereign sunk 

 in the extreme of sensual pleasure, or absorbed in the flights of fanatic 

 devotion, abandoned the helm of state to his ministers, who being Hin- 

 doos and Brahmins, are supposed to have secretly encouraged the plans 

 of Sheevajee, and instigated the vain resistance to the increasing de- 

 mands of the Emperor, that could only be* satisfied ultimately by the 

 entire reduction of Golconda to the state of a province. 



58. Aurungzebe having by superior policy or stratagem, overcame 

 Aurungzebe ascends his brothers, and confined his father, ascended the 



the throne. . . , 



A. D. 1657. imperial throne in the year following, and soon after 



sent his brother-in-law, Chaista Khan, the chief of the Omrahs,| as 

 subadar of the Deckan, in place of his son Mahomed Mauzim, who was 

 recalled. 



59. It is possible that this choice was influenced by the necessity of 

 Sends his generals sending some experienced officer to check the rising 



to check the disor- 



ders in Deckan. disorders in Deckan, where a new genius at once 

 starting up, seemed to throw obstacles in the way of the emperor's de- 

 sign of the universal reduction of the South, and threatened to wrest 

 that prey from his talons on which he had long prepared to pounce. 

 It is also said, he was provoked by personal motives of wounded pride 

 against this new rival of his power, the Marhatta Seevajee, who, in the 



* In the Dutch work of Havart, Vol. ii, Chap. 2d, a full detail is given of the state 

 of that court in 1686, immediately previous to the conquest, and of the character of the 

 King and his ministers. — This work appears to have been unknown to Onne when he 

 published his Historical Fragments of the Mogul Empire in 1782. It is barely quoted 

 in the notes of the late edition. 



f The recall of Mahomed Mauzim and the mission of Chaista Khan-Amccrul Om* 

 rah is mentioned by Vansittart under this year, p. 25. 



