Page:Shivaji and His Times.djvu/460

440 Power was bound to wage eternal warfare with the Mughals if it wished to exist. Hence Shivaji lost no chance of robbing Mughal territory in the Deccan.

With Bijapur his relations were somewhat different. He could raise his head or expand his dominion only at the expense of Bijapur. Rebellion against his liege-lord was the necessary condition of his being. But when, about 1662, an understanding was effected between him and the Adil-Shahi ministers, he gave up molesting the heart of the Bijapur kingdom. With the Bijapuri barons whose fiefs lay close to his dominions, he had, however, to wage war till he had wrested Kolhapur, North Kanara and South Konkan from their hands. In the Karnatak division, viz., the Dharwar and Belgaum districts, this contest was still undecided when he died. With the provinces that lay across the path of his natural expansion he could not be at peace, though he did not wish to challenge the central Government of Bijapur. This attitude was changed by the death of Ali II. in 1672, the accession of the boy Sikandar Adil Shah, the faction-fights between rival nobles at the capital, and the visible dissolution of the Government. But Shivaji helped Bijapur greatly during the Mughal invasions of 1679.

Shivaji's real greatness lay in his character and practical ability, rather than in originality of conception or length of political vision. Unfailing insight