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Ruler

Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj

Second Chhatrapati, executed by Aurangzeb

1657—1689

1657–1689 CE; reigned 1681–1689

Shivaji’s elder son held the Maratha state for nine years against Aurangzeb’s full imperial army, the Siddis, the Portuguese and Mysore at once; captured at Sangameshwar in 1689, he was tortured and put to death at Tulapur on 11 March 1689.

01Nine years of war

Sambhaji was born at Purandar on 14 May 1657. His mother Saibai died when he was two, and he was raised by his grandmother Jijabai. As a boy of nine he went with his father to Agra. After Shivaji’s death he took Raigad and was crowned in January 1681. That same year Aurangzeb came south with the whole Mughal army, and he would never return to the north. Sambhaji fought on every side: he sheltered the rebel Prince Akbar, attacked the Siddis of Janjira, invaded Portuguese Goa in 1683, and held the forts of the Sahyadri while Mughal columns came at them year after year.

02Sangameshwar and Tulapur

Sambhaji was also a scholar who wrote the Sanskrit work Budhbhushanam. On 1 February 1689 Mughal troops under Muqarrab Khan surprised him at Sangameshwar in the Konkan and took him with his minister and friend, the poet Kavi Kalash. They were paraded before Aurangzeb’s camp at Bahadurgad. The Maasir-i-Alamgiri, the court chronicle, records his execution. Over many days he was tortured; Maratha tradition holds that he was offered his life for his forts, his treasure and his faith, and refused. He was killed at Tulapur, on the Bhima near Pune, on 11 March 1689. His samadhi is at Vadhu Budruk nearby.

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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

Sambhaji’s Siege of Janjira

Sambhaji tried to take the sea fortress of Janjira that had defied his father, even trying to bridge the channel with stone, but war with Aurangzeb called him away.

1681–1682

Siege of Ramsej

Ramsej was the first fort Aurangzeb attacked when he came to the Deccan to finish the Marathas. A small hill with a few hundred men on it defied his generals for years.

From April 1682

Sambhaji’s Goa Campaign

When the Portuguese viceroy, encouraged by the Mughals, attacked the Maratha fort of Ponda, Sambhaji answered by carrying the war to the walls of Goa itself.

October 1683 – January 1684

Places

Murud-JanjiraRuined
The Mughal era and the resistance

Murud-Janjira

The island fortress off Murud on the Konkan coast, held by the Siddis of Abyssinian descent as allies of Bijapur and then the Mughals. Shivaji, Sambhaji and the Peshwas all besieged it and none took it, and Shivaji built Padmadurg on the next rock to watch it.

Purandar FortStanding
The Mughal era and the resistance

Purandar Fort

Twin-peaked fort south-east of Pune where Sambhaji was born in 1657, where Murarbaji Deshpande fell holding off the Mughals in 1665, and where Shivaji signed away twenty-three forts that same summer.

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.

SangameshwarStanding
The Mughal era and the resistance

Sangameshwar

A Konkan town where the Shastri and Sonvi rivers meet, with the old stone Karneshwar temple of Shiva. On 1 February 1689 Chhatrapati Sambhaji was surprised and captured here by Mughal troops with his minister Kavi Kalash.

Tulapur and Vadhu Budruk, Sambhaji’s SamadhiStanding
The Mughal era and the resistance

Tulapur and Vadhu Budruk, Sambhaji’s Samadhi

The confluence of the Bhima, Indrayani and Bhama near Pune, where Chhatrapati Sambhaji was put to death on Aurangzeb’s order in March 1689 after refusing to submit. His samadhi is at Vadhu Budruk across the river.

On the timeline

  • 16 January 1681

    Sambhaji crowned at RaigadPolity

    Sambhaji is crowned Chhatrapati. For nine years he fights the Mughals, Siddis and Portuguese at once, while Aurangzeb moves his whole court to the Deccan.

  • 11 March 1689

    Sambhaji executed at TulapurResistance

    Captured at Sangameshwar, Chhatrapati Sambhaji is tortured for weeks and put to death at Tulapur on the Bhima after refusing to give up his forts or his faith. His samadhi stands at Vadhu Budruk.