After a lifetime of exploits and guerrilla warfare with Adilshah of Bijapur and Moghul emperor Aurangzeb, the local lord Shivaji founded an independent Maratha nation in 1674, with Raigad as its capital. Shivaji died in 1680, leaving a large, but vulnerably located kingdom. His eldest son Sambhaji (1657-1689), after a bloody tussle with the party supporting his half-brother Rajaram (1670-1700), ascended the Maratha throne.
Brave and arrogant, he somehow lacked his father's statesmanship. Meanwhilc Aurangzeb was distracted by the unrest in Rajputana and the rebellion of his son, Prince Akbar. Instead of strengthening the Maratha state and army under those favorable conditions, Sambhaji chose to wage useless wars against the Sidi rulers of Janjira Island and the Portuguese of Goa. The Mughals organized a number of expeditions against the Marathas and forced them to abandon the siege of Goa.
In 1684-1685 the Mughal army undertook a new offensive against Maharashtra and succeeded in taking a few important forts and the Karwar port. Sambhaji, however, found it more important to fight not the Mughals but the Shirkes, a hostile Maratha clan. In 1686-1687 Aurangzeb diverted his armies from Maharashtra and used them against Bijapur and Golkonda. Both sultanates were vanquished and acceded to the empire. Sambhaji neither assisted the sultanates nor made an attempt to strike the Mughals from the back. After the two sultanates were conquered, Aurang zeb invaded Maharashtra again. In a covert operation, a Mughal force captured Sambhaji who was traveling with a small detachment. Brought to Aurangzeb, Sambhaji was sentenced to a slow torturous death on March 11, 1689. - War and Religion: An Encyclopedia of Faith and Conflict, 2017.
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