Battle of Pattankudi

01A quarrel between Maratha houses

In the confusion at Poona after the death of Madhavrao II in 1795, the Kolhapur branch of the Bhonsles saw a chance to settle old scores with the Patwardhans, whose jagirs at Tasgaon and Miraj lay next door. Kolhapur’s troops overran Patwardhan villages. Parashuram Bhau, who had led the Peshwa’s armies against Tipu at Dharwar and in 1791–92, gathered his men and marched south into the Chikkodi country.

02The fall of Parashuram Bhau

The armies met at Pattankudi in September 1799. The Kolhapur horse, led by the Chhatrapati himself, broke the Patwardhan force, and Parashuram Bhau was cut down as he tried to rally it. His death was a heavy blow to the Peshwa’s party. His son Ramchandrapant carried on the feud, and the Patwardhan lands were not secure until the British settlement of the southern jagirs in 1812.

Dynasty · 1674–1848 CE (Swarajya from the 1640s)Maratha Chhatrapatis (Bhonsle)Shivaji Bhonsle built a Hindu kingdom out of hill forts in the Sahyadri and was crowned Chhatrapati at Raigad in 1674. His sons and his daughter-in-law Tarabai held it through twenty-seven years of war with Aurangzeb, and the state they saved became the Maratha power that ruled much of India in the eighteenth century.Read →