Battle of Bhuchar Mori

01The sultan’s refuge

Akbar annexed Gujarat in 1573, but its last sultan, Muzaffar Shah III, escaped and kept up a fugitive war for years. By 1591 he had found refuge with Jam Sataji of Nawanagar, the leading Jadeja Rajput ruler of Kathiawar, who was joined by the chiefs of Junagadh and Kundla. Mirza Aziz Koka, Akbar’s foster-brother and governor of Gujarat, marched into the peninsula. The armies met at Bhuchar Mori, a plain near Dhrol.

02Ajaji’s fall

The fighting was fierce and the Mughals were hard pressed for a time. Kathiawar memory holds that the Jam’s heir Ajaji rode to the field from his own wedding and died there with his companions; the place is marked by paliyas, the hero-stones of Saurashtra, and an annual fair. Defections among the allies turned the day. The Jam fled, Nawanagar was occupied, and Muzaffar Shah was hunted through Kutch until he was captured in 1592 and took his own life.