Page:Shivaji and His Times.djvu/279

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1676]
BIJAPUR SEEKS SHIVA'S AID.
259


Surat. But the monsoons being at hand, he left 4,000 men to garrison the district and retired with the rest of his army to Raigarh at the end of the month. (F. R. 89, Surat to Bomb., 27 May and 1 June 1676.)

On 31st May Bahadur Khan opened a vigorous and long campaign against Bijapur, where the Afghan faction had seized the Government. The consequence was to drive the new regent Bahlol Khan into the arms of Shiva, and in July we have the report of a peace between the two having been concluded through the mediation of the Golkonda minister Madanna. The terms of this treaty were that the Adil-Shahi Government would pay Shiva 3 lakhs of Rupees down as a gift and one lakh of hun annually as subsidy for protection against the Mughals, and confirm him in the possession of the country bounded on the east by the Krishna, including the Kolhapur district. But the union was short-lived, as no policy could be durable in a State ravaged by civil war and subject to almost daily changes of authority. Shivaji hardly minded the rupture of this subsidiary alliance; his eyes were fixed elsewhere; and at the end of this year (1676), he set out on the greatest expedition of his life, the invasion of the Karnatak. (B. S. 405-414; F. R. Surat 89, Rajapur to Surat, 24 July 1676.)