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Photo: Dr. Sadashiv Shivade · CC BY-SA 4.0
Ruler

Chhatrapati Rajaram

Third Chhatrapati, who held Swarajya from Jinji

1670—1700

1670–1700 CE; Chhatrapati 1689–1700

Shivaji’s younger son took charge in February 1689, days after Sambhaji was seized, and kept the Maratha state alive for eleven years while Aurangzeb’s whole army sat in the Deccan. He did it from the far south, from the fort of Jinji.

01Out of Raigad

Rajaram was born at Raigad on 24 February 1670, the son of Shivaji and Soyarabai. He was nineteen when Mughal troops took Sambhaji at Sangameshwar. The ministers at Raigad set him up as ruler for Sambhaji’s infant son Shahu. Zulfiqar Khan was already closing on the fort. Rajaram slipped out before the ring was complete, and Raigad fell in November 1689; Yesubai and the boy Shahu went into Mughal captivity, where Shahu would stay for eighteen years. Rajaram rode south through Panhala and then, in disguise, across Bijapur and Karnatak country to Jinji, which he reached late in 1689.

02A state without a capital

From Jinji he governed by letter and by trust. Ramchandra Pant Amatya held the home country with the title Hukumatpanah; Pralhad Niraji sat beside the king as Pratinidhi. Santaji Ghorpade and Dhanaji Jadhav rode where they liked across the Deccan, cut Mughal supply lines and beat Mughal columns in the field. Rajaram gave out watans and grants freely, which bound the fighting families to the cause. Zulfiqar Khan besieged Jinji from 1690; the siege dragged on for years. Early in 1698, before the fort fell, Rajaram got away again, back to Vishalgad and then Satara.

Panhala Fort
Place · c. 1178–1209, Shilahara king Bhoja II; later Bijapur and Maratha worksPanhala FortThe great Shilahara fort above Kolhapur, where Siddi Jauhar trapped Shivaji in 1660, and from which he slipped out on a rainy night while Baji Prabhu held the pass behind him.Read →

03Death at Sinhagad

Back in Maharashtra he took the field himself and raided as far as Khandesh and Berar. The strain told. He fell ill and died at Sinhagad in March 1700, aged thirty. Aurangzeb had now spent nearly two decades in the Deccan and still had not finished the Marathas. Rajaram left two infant sons, Shivaji by Tarabai and Sambhaji by Rajasbai, and a widow who would carry the war on for seven more years.

Battles

The Mughal–Maratha War of 27 Years

Aurangzeb came south with the full strength of his empire in 1681 and never went back. For twenty-six years three Maratha rulers and a handful of great generals wore his armies down.

1681–1707 CE

Siege of Jinji

For eight years one of the strongest forts of the south held the Maratha king and tied down a large Mughal army far from the Deccan.

1690–1698 CE

Places

Panhala FortStanding
Cholas and the Southern Seas

Panhala Fort

The great Shilahara fort above Kolhapur, where Siddi Jauhar trapped Shivaji in 1660, and from which he slipped out on a rainy night while Baji Prabhu held the pass behind him.

Gingee (Senji) FortRuined
Sultanates, Vijayanagara and the kingdoms that stood

Gingee (Senji) Fort

Three granite hills bound by one wall, Rajagiri, Krishnagiri and Chandrayandurg, which Shivaji took in 1677 and from which Chhatrapati Rajaram held off a Mughal siege for nearly eight years.

VishalgadRuined
The Mughal era and the resistance

Vishalgad

The Sahyadri fort Shivaji reached on the night of 13 July 1660 after escaping the siege of Panhala, while Baji Prabhu Deshpande held the pass at Ghodkhind behind him. The samadhis of Baji Prabhu and his brother Phulaji are on the fort.

Sinhagad (Kondhana) FortStanding
The Mughal era and the resistance

Sinhagad (Kondhana) Fort

The fort south-west of Pune that Tanaji Malusare took back from the Mughals by a night climb in February 1670, dying in the fight. Shivaji renamed it Sinhagad, the lion’s fort.

Raigad FortRuined
The Mughal era and the resistance

Raigad Fort

The hill capital where Shivaji was crowned Chhatrapati on 6 June 1674 and where he died in 1680. His samadhi stands on the summit among the ruins of the palace and the market street.

Satara and AjinkyataraStanding
Maratha ascendancy and the Sikh empire

Satara and Ajinkyatara

The town below Ajinkyatara fort where Chhatrapati Shahu was crowned in 1708 and ruled for forty-one years, while his Peshwas carried Maratha arms across Bharat. In 1848 it became the first state the British took under the doctrine of lapse.