Siege of Torna

01Shivaji’s first fort

Torna stands on a high ridge south-west of Pune, above the Velvandi valley. Shivaji took it from Bijapur around 1646 and renamed it Prachandagad; treasure found while repairing it helped him build Rajgad nearby. After taking Sinhagad and Rajgad in 1703–04, Aurangzeb turned to Torna. The approach was steep, and the Mughals worked their way up the ridge through the cold weather of early 1704, under fire from the walls above.

02Taken by escalade

In March 1704 a picked Mughal party climbed the rock at night with ropes and ladders and surprised the defenders, and the fort was taken; the Maasir-i-Alamgiri notes it as a rare capture by assault. Aurangzeb renamed it Futuh-ul-Ghaib, the victory of the unseen. He soon moved south to Wagingera, and the Marathas, whose armies were now raiding deep into Mughal country, took Torna back within a few years. It stands today as one of the best-loved trekking forts of the Sahyadri.

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 →