01The night run from Panhala
Siddi Jauhar had held Shivaji shut in Panhala since March 1660. On the rainy night of 12 July Shivaji slipped out with some six hundred men, heading over the hills for Vishalgad, about 65 km away. Siddi Masud’s cavalry found the trail by morning. Where the path climbs through a gorge of rock and torrents, a few hours short of Vishalgad, Baji Prabhu Deshpande, once the record-keeper of the Bandal deshmukhs of Rohida, offered to hold the pass with half the men while Shivaji went on. In that cleft, too narrow for horsemen to use their numbers, the Mavalas fought for hours, many of them falling, Baji Prabhu wounded again and again. When the guns of Vishalgad boomed to say Shivaji was safe, Baji Prabhu died. His brother Phulaji fell with him.
02The pass today
The gorge lies in forest near the village of Pandharpani, a long day’s walk from Panhala. A memorial to Baji Prabhu and the fallen Mavalas stands at the pass, and their samadhis are at Vishalgad. Every July, in the rains, thousands of young people from Kolhapur, Pune and beyond walk the Panhala–Pavankhind–Vishalgad route over two or three days, through mud and swollen streams, to remember the night Shivaji escaped.
The life of this place
- 12–13 July 1660Shivaji escapes from Panhala; Baji Prabhu holds Ghod Khind and falls as Shivaji reaches Vishalgad.
Reached by road via Malkapur and Pandharpani; the July heritage walk from Panhala is organised by several groups each year.
