ABSTRACT
In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the sultanates of the early modern Deccan resisted the Mughals. Of these, the sultanate of the Nizam Shahs of Ahmadnagar was conquered by the Mughals in the early seventeenth century and completely vanquished by 1636. The sultanates of the Adil Shahs of Bijapur and the Qutb Shahs of Golconda were not annexed by the Mughals till late in the seventeenth century, in 1686–1687. But the downfall of the Nizam Shahs did not mean that no other group in the northern and western Deccan resisted the Mughals. In the political vacuum created by the downfall of the Nizam Shahs, a new independent and sovereign kingdom of the Marathas was established by Shivaji Bhonsale (1630–1680). The Marathas had served the various sultanates as military commanders and small fief-holders for 200 years preceding this event. Thus, even as the Maratha kingdom served as a political rupture, a cultural continuum between the Nizam Shahs and the Maratha kingdom was retained. Shivaji’s own father had been an important commander for the Nizam Shahs, as had both his maternal and paternal grandfathers.
