132 



Description of the Valley of Sondar. 



in the armies of the emperors of Delhi, and in those of the five Maho- 

 medan kings who ruled the Deccan, viz. the monarchs of Bijapur, Gol- 

 conda, Ahmednugger. Bidcr, and Berar. 



Sivaji was born in 1627 A. D. and died in 1680 ; he rapidly acquired 

 influence enough in the army to gain a considerable portion of it over 

 to his own cause, and proceeding to the mountainous country near the 

 western ghauts established himself at Rairi or Raigurh, a strong fortress 

 in the province of Aurungabad, situate on a stupendous rock between 

 Poona and Fort Victoria. Here he erected the standard of indepen- 

 dence, to which numbers of discontented and ambitious soldiers of his 

 own caste flocked, and set at defiance the efforts of Aarungzebe and 

 the Mussulman princes of the Deccan to expel them, or check his and 

 their daring and extensive forays. He took Satarah, the subsequent 

 capital of the Mahratta empire, in 1651, from the king of Bijapur — 

 penetrated to the south as far as the fortress of Ginjee, in which he left 

 a garrison, and subdued the greater part of the Carnatic and Balaghat 

 territories. The Satarah princes of his line have the family name 

 ^honslah, and the titles Srimant Maharaja, and Chaterpati, 



Sumhaji his son succeeded in 16S0 A. D. and after a life of continual 

 warfare fell into the hands of his father's deadly foe, Aurungzebe, by 

 whom he was put to a painful and cruel death in 1689. 

 His half brother 7?«m Raj succeeded and died in 1700, 

 Sivaji son of Ram Raj succeeded but died in 1708. 

 A son of Sumhaji succeeded Ram Raj, named Saho or Shaoji, in 1708. 

 In 1719, this prince obtained the chouth or one-fourth of the total re- 

 venues of the six subahs into which Aurungzebe had nominally divided 

 the Deccan. This politic and cold blooded monarch died in 1707' 

 towards the stormy close of his reign, the Mahrattas had turned the 

 ihtestine broils of the kingdom to their own advantage, and liad great- 

 ly increased in power and extent of territory. Shaoji fixed his capital 

 at Satarah and had for his treasurer Balaji Wishwanath, the father of 

 Baji Row, the first of the Pe^Aifa^ of Poona. Holkar and Scindia in 

 1720 commanded parties of horse in <S^«o's armies. The former was 

 a shepherd and the latter rose from a very subordinate station in life. 



During the commencement of Shad's reign, the Mahratta empire was 

 ill the plenitude of its might, but even then the Mene Mene Tekel 

 Upharsin was written in indelible characters on the wall, and before 

 the decease of this monarch, which took place A. D. 1 740, his king- 

 dom was broken up, and its strength departed. The three great chiefs 

 just alluded to and other vassals of the empire virtually threw off" the 

 yoke of dependance, and divided their sovereign's dominions among 



