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1648] But he does not seem to have occupied Mahad or the country south of that town at this time. Abaji Sondev was created viceroy of the province thus won in North Konkan, which included the eastern parts of the Thana and Kolaba districts. The Maratha forces here met with a great j:ejDulse at the hands of the Siddis (abouj: 1648), and Shivaji marked his displeasure with his defeated general Shyamraj Nilkanth Ranjhekar by removing him from the Peshwaship (Chit. 34) and conferring that post on Moro Trimbak Pingle, while a large army under Raghunath Ballal Korde was sent against the Siddis to retrieve the prestige of his arms. The history of Maratha activity in this region will be described in Chapter XI.

Shivaji 's annexations had reached this point by the middle of 1648, when his career of conquest was suddenly checked by alarming news from the Karnatak. On 6th August his father was arrested and all his property and contingent attached by the Bijapuri commander-in-chief, Mustafa Khan, then investing Jinji in the South Arcot district. Later historians have misunderstood the cause of this act. The contemporary Persian historian of Bijapur asserts that Shahji was imprisoned for displaying a spirit of insubordination to the commander-in-chief. The earliest Marathi bakhar, that of Sabhasad, is entirely silent about the affair. But Chitnis writing 160 years after the event, ascribes it to the Bijapuri king's anger