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represent very varying and disparate stages of artistic power, but the final explanation of this fact I cannot as yet essay to give.

For purposes of comparison, the colossal female figure from Besnagar presented by His Highness the Maharaja Scindia to the Indian Museum, may be cited. Here we are dealing with what is generally accepted as a product of the early indigenous school, where several of the characteristics of primitive art appear. In the matter of costume, however, the figure from Besnagar is not unlike our Dedarganj image, so far as the mutilated condition of the former permits of judgment. Here again we find a manystranded girdle worn in similar way. But the head-dress is markedly divergent, as the Besnaga: statue wears what is either a wig or a knitted scarf and the hair is shown plaited in two braids which fall to meet the top of the girdle in the back. The relief is lower in the case of Besnagar, and the edges of the component beads, etc., in the make-up of the girdle are less sharp. But this may be merely due to the image being more worn than our recent find. The face in particular is far too obliterated for any comparison to be drawn; but nowhere is there any trace of polish on the stone, and all in all, the Besnagar figure is far more clumsy than the one from Dedarganj. The lower portions of the latter, however, bear definite affinities with the same portions of the statue from Besnagar, while for the remaining portions the comparison is rather with the two colossi from Patna also in the Bharhut Gallery in Calcutta. They themselves, however, are least successful and convincing in their limbs and lower portions, and in this are closely allied to the chowri-bearer of our theme. That all three are of the same general school and period is hardly to be doubted, but I am not yet satisfied myself that the inconsistencies of all three have been finally explained as yet. To me they seem most probably transitional.

VI.-Shivaji in South Konkan and
Kanara.

By Professor Jadunath Sarkar, M.A.

Shivaji's dealings with the English merchants of Rajapur have been described in our December 1918 number. Here we shall narrate his doings in Kanara.

In the seventeenth century, Kanara, the extensive country along our west coast, was held by various Hindu chieftains. North Kanara (now included in the Bombay Presidency) owned the overlordship of Bijapur, which ruled directly over the coaststrip from Karwar (south of Goa) to Mirjan (14:30 N. Lat.), leaving the inland districts in the hands of feudatory chiefs, among whom the Nayaks of Sunda were the most important. The portion of Kanara that lay south of Mirjan formed a large and independent principality under the Keladi dynasty, whose capital was then at Bednur.

A Muslim officer with the hereditary title of Rustam-i-Zaman was the viceroy of the south-west corner of the Bijapur kingdom. His charge extended on the west coast from the Ratnagiri town, going round the Portuguese territory of Goa, to Karwar and Mirjan, while landwards it included the southern part of the Ratnagiri district, Kolhapur, Belgaum, a bit of Dharwar and the western corner of the North Kanara district. His seat was at Miraj. The fort of Panhala lay within his province but it was governed by a commandant directly under the orders of the Sultan. He administered by means of his agents the flourishing ports of Rajapur in the north and Karwar in the south, through which the trade of the rich inland places flowed to Europe. In both towns the English had factories.

"The best pepper in the world is of the growth of Sunda known in England by [the name of] Karwar pepper, though

five days' journey distant from thence." (Fryer, 11. 42.) Indeed, after the loss of Chaul, Karwar became the greatest port of Bijapur on the west coast. "The finest muslins of western India were exported from here. The weaving country was inland, to the east of the Sahyadris, at Hubli (in the Dharwar district), and at other centres, where the English East India Company had agents and employed as many as 50,000 weavers." (Bombay Gazetteer, X.V., Pt. 2, pp. 123-125.)

At Mirjan, a port twenty miles south-east of Karwar, pepper, saltpetre and betelnut were shipped for Surat. (Ibid, 383.) Gersappa, a district annexed by Bednur, was so famous for its pepper that the Portuguese used to call its Rani "the pepper Queen". (Ibid, 124.)

In 1649 the pepper and cardamom trade of Rajapur was the chief attraction that induced the English Company to open a factory there. Vingurla was spoken of in 1660 as a great place of call for ships from Batavia, Japan and Ceylon on the one side and the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea on the other. All the ports of the Ratnagiri district did much trade also in calicoes, silks, grain and coarse lac, though pepper was their chief export, "which coming out of Kanara is sent by sea to Persia, Surat and Europe. This country is the storehouse for all its neighbours." (Bombay Gazetteer, X, 175.)

II.

After the disastrous failure of Afzal Khan, Rustam-i-Zaman had marched against Shivaji (October, 1659) with 3,000 horse, but this show of hostility was made simply to save his credit with his King. The queen-regent, Bari Sahiba, being his enemy, he had made a secret alliance with Shivaji for self-protection. This fact was well known to the country around and even the English factors had heard of it. But even if Rustam had been in earnest, he could have done little with his small army.

Shivaji had followed up his victory over Afzal's army by pushing on to Panhala and capturing that fort. Then he entered the Ratnagiri district and began to "take possession of all the

port and inland towns". The Bijapuri governors of these places fled to Rajapur, which was at first spared, "because it belonged to Rustam-i-Zaman, who is a friend of Shivaji". (Rajapur to Surat, 10th October 1659, F. R. Rajapur.)

In March 1663, Rustam-i-Zaman did another friendly turn to Shivaji. Netaji Palkar, Shiva's "lieutenant-general", had raided the imperial territory, but a large Mughal division of 7,000 cavalry pursued him so close as to force him to march 45 or 50 miles a day. Rustam met this army near Bijapur and persuaded the Mughal commander to give up the chase as "that country was dangerous for any strange army to march in, likewise promising them to go himself and follow him, by which deceit Netaji got escaped, though not without the loss of 300 horse and himself wounded ". (Gyfford to Surat, 30th March and 8th April 1663, FR. Surat 103.) This reverse defeated Shivaji's plan of raiding North Kanara and penetrating to the rich port of Karwar. (F. R. Surat, Vol. 2, 9th October.)

On 1st March 1663, Ali Adil Shah II., with all his court, left his capital for Bankapur. There they were at first denied entrance by the mother of Abdur Rahim Bahlol Khan, in whose fief it lay. But the gates were soon opened to the King, Adil Shah summoned Bahlol Khan, Shahji and other officers from the Karnatak, who came by forced marches and waited on the King on the bank of the Warda (an affluent of the Tungabhadra). Bahlol and Shahji were at once arrested and placed in chains (end of June 1663), but Shahji was released in two days, though he continued to be deprived of his command for some time. The Bijapuri invasion of Kanara had already begun. (F. R. Surat 103, Gyfford to Surat, 8th April, 20th July 1663)

! F. R. Surat, Vol. 103, Gyfford to Surat, 20th July 1663. A letter from him to Surat, 30th March, says that the Adil Shahi court went there in fear of the Mughals who had come within five leagues of Bijapur in pursuit of Netaji. But Tarikh-i-Ali II., 160-164 (also B.S. 366) says that Ali went to Bankapur to direct the operations against the Rajah of Bednur in person.

III.

Shivappa Nayak, who governed Bednur for forty-five years (1618-1663), first as regent and then as king, had extended his kingdom on all sides by his conquests and stretched his sway over the whole of South Kanara, the north-west corner of Mysore, and North Kanara up to the Gangavati river, including the fort of Mirjan. At the close of his life his ambition brought him into collision with Bijapur. He had conquered Sunda and some other forts belonging to vassals of Adil Shah and had thus come dangerously close to Bankapur, the fortress of asylum of the Bijapuri sultans in the south-western corner of their kingdom. (Bombay Gazetteer, XV, Pt. 2, pp. 122-123.)

Ali Adil Shah's campaign against the Bednur Rajah was short but vigorous and an unbroken success. Shivappa Nayak could make no stand against the combined resources of the entire Bijapur kingdom; he lost Sunda, Bednur and many other forts, and was forced to make peace by restoring Sunda to its former chief and promising an indemnity of 7 lakhs of hun to Adil Shah. On 21st November the victorious Ali II, returned to his capital. (B.S. 368-370'; F.R., Surat 103, Karwar to Surat, 28th January and 27th February, also Gyfford to Surat, 20th July 1663.)

IV.

We now turn to the activities of Shivaji in this region. While Ali was engaged in the struggle with Bednur, Shivaji had been active in South Konkan and in the north-western part of the Kanara dis' rict. By way of Kolhapur and Kudsl, he marched to Vingurla (May 1663); "all the way, as he goes along, he gives his qaul (assurance), promising them that neither he nor his soldiers shall in the least do any wrong to any body that takes his qaul, which promise he hitherto hath kept". (F. R. Surat, Vol. 103, Gyfford to Surat, 24th May, 1663.)

1 In the Persian histories of Bijapur he is called Bhadrappa, from Bhadraiya, the original name of the founder of the dynasty. He is there styled the Rajah of Malnad, which is a Kanarese word meaning "hill country". (Mysore Gazetteer, II, 286.) The Bombay Gazetteer, XV, part 2, p. 122, places his death in 1670. But the English factory records prove that he died at the close of 1668. (Surat, Vol. 104, Karwar to Surat, 18th April 1664.)

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