01The battle of Udgir
In the winter of 1759–60 the Nizam’s brother Salabat Jang, with Nizam Ali, moved against the Marathas. Peshwa Balaji Bajirao sent his cousin Sadashivrao Bhau with Vishwasrao and Ibrahim Khan Gardi’s trained gunners. The armies met near Udgir in early February 1760, and the Nizam’s army was surrounded and beaten. The treaty that followed gave the Marathas territory yielding some sixty lakh rupees a year, with great forts of the Deccan among them, Ahmednagar and Daulatabad. Bhau’s name rose so high that the Peshwa sent him north the next month to face Ahmad Shah Abdali, and to Panipat.
02The fort
Udgir fort sits on the plateau of the Marathwada country, ringed by a deep moat cut in the rock, with palaces and wells below ground level inside the walls. It belonged to the Bahmani sultans and then the Nizam Shahs of Ahmednagar. In October 1636 it surrendered to the Mughal general Khan Dauran in Shah Jahan’s Deccan campaign, a scene painted in the imperial Padshahnama. After 1760 it was held by the Marathas for a time, and it later came back to Hyderabad.
The life of this place
- October 1636The fort surrendered to the Mughal general Khan Dauran.
- February 1760Sadashivrao Bhau defeated the Nizam’s army near Udgir.
