The Rivals of the Mughals: The Marathas, the Sikhs and the Rajputs

Rivals of the Mughals and the Empire Under Aurangzeb

Region, Cause and Outcome of Each Rival

The three rivals rose in different regions and for different reasons, and each reached a different position by about 1720.

Aurangzeb's Policies and the Strain on the Empire

Aurangzeb crowned himself emperor in 1658 and ruled for almost 49 years. Under him the Mughal empire reached its greatest extent, yet it faced significant rebellions throughout. He reimposed the jizya on non-Muslims in 1679 and a pilgrimage tax on Hindus travelling to their sacred places, both of which Akbar had abolished. In 1669 he ordered governors to demolish temples, and shrines at Banaras, Mathura and Somnath were destroyed along with Jain temples and Sikh gurdwaras.

The strain showed in the south. Aurangzeb spent the last 25 years of his life fighting war after war in the Deccan, and the cost of keeping large armies in the field drained the treasury and burdened the administration. This is often counted among the key reasons for the rapid decline of Mughal power after his death in 1707.

Rajputs and Mughals: From Alliance to Resistance

How Akbar Won the Rajput Houses

Akbar made the Rajputs the strongest allies of the Mughals. The Kachhwaha ruler Raja Bharmal of Amer gave his daughter in marriage to Akbar on 6 February 1562, and Bharmal, his son Bhagwant Das and his grandson Man Singh rose to high rank in the nobility. Akbar gave his Rajput fathers-in-law and brothers-in-law places at court as equals, and did not insist on marriage as a condition of alliance. Surjan Hada, for example, accepted service on the condition that Akbar would not marry his daughter.

The alliance was built by force as well as favour. Akbar attacked the great fort of Chittor in Mewar in 1567 and took it in February 1568, ordering the massacre of some 30,000 civilians. He then took Ranthambore in 1568. By that point most Rajput kings had submitted, and only the clans of Mewar continued to resist.

Mewar Under Maharana Pratap and the Battle of Haldighati

Mewar was the exception. Its ruler Maharana Pratap, who held the throne from 1572, refused to accept Mughal overlordship despite repeated embassies from Akbar. The refusal led to the Battle of Haldighati, fought on 18 June 1576 at a narrow pass in the Aravalli hills near Gogunda. The Mughal force was led by Man Singh of Amer, a Rajput of the Kachhwaha clan, so the field itself showed how divided the Rajput world was.

The Mughal army had the upper hand, but Pratap escaped. He then fought a guerrilla war from the Aravalli hills for years, living in harsh conditions yet keeping his independence. The Bhils supported him strongly, joining his troops as archers and sharing their knowledge of the terrain; their service earned them a respected place in Mewar's military tradition, and a Bhil warrior appears on the Mewar emblem.

By the time of his death at Chavand on 19 January 1597, Pratap had recovered much of his ancestral kingdom and captured 36 Mughal outposts, though Chittor and Mandalgarh remained with the Mughals. His son Amar Singh I succeeded him.

Mewar After Pratap and the Settlement of 1615

Pratap's son Amar Singh I followed his father's policy and withdrew into the hills of western Mewar, from where his forces raided Mughal outposts. After Jahangir's accession in 1606 the Mughals sent new armies, and in 1613 Jahangir himself came to Rajputana to supervise the campaign. Mughal troops finally broke into the hill country in 1614.

The long war had drained Amar Singh's resources, and in 1615 he submitted on terms framed to suit both sides. Because of his age he was not required to attend the Mughal court in person, and Mewar, including Chittor, was assigned to him as a hereditary holding (watan jagir). His successor Karan Singh received a rank of 5,000. In return the Mughals secured their interest by forbidding the fortification of Mewar. The settlement shows how Mughal policy ended resistance, letting a ruler keep his land and honour in return for accepting Mughal overlordship.

The Rathor Rebellion Under Aurangzeb (1679 to 1707)

Aurangzeb broke the old Rajput alliance over Marwar. Maharaja Jaswant Singh of Marwar died in late 1678, and two of his queens were expecting children. Aurangzeb declared Jodhpur crown land and placed his own officers over it. One of the infants died; the survivor was Ajit Singh.

Aurangzeb summoned the family to Delhi and crowned Inder Singh Rathor, a grand-nephew of Jaswant Singh, in Ajit Singh's place. On 23 July 1679 he tried to divide Marwar between the two claimants and proposed that Ajit Singh be raised as a Muslim in return for Jodhpur. The Rathor nobles under Durgadas opposed this.

When Aurangzeb tried to seize the infant prince, Durgadas Rathor fired on the Mughal detachment, disguised the queens as men and personally carried Ajit Singh out through a running fight back towards Jodhpur. Rana Raj Singh of Mewar gave the boy shelter, and Mewar and Marwar joined against the emperor. Aurangzeb invaded Mewar, but the Mughals could not hold the hill country and suffered from the Rajput guerrilla war.

Aurangzeb's son Prince Akbar then rebelled and struck a bargain with Durgadas in January 1681, but Aurangzeb split them with false letters, and Akbar fled to the Deccan with Durgadas. Prince Akbar found shelter with Sambhaji, and Aurangzeb moved his court south in 1681. He remained in the south for the rest of his life.

The Rathor resistance lasted nearly 30 years. After Aurangzeb died on 3 March 1707, Ajit Singh took Jodhpur on 12 March 1707.

Rajput Resistance After Aurangzeb (1708 to 1710)

The quarrel resumed under Aurangzeb's successor Bahadur Shah I. In January 1708 he stopped at Amer and removed Jai Singh II from the throne in favour of his brother. When Bahadur Shah marched south, he forced Ajit Singh and Jai Singh II to go with him, and in April 1708 the two escaped from his camp at Mandleshwar and allied with Maharana Amar Singh II of Mewar. Marwar and Amer together recovered their capitals, Jodhpur in July 1708 and Amer in October 1708, and the Rajputs defeated Mughal forces at Sambhar.

Jai Singh II also wrote to the Bundelas, the Sikhs and the Marathas to spread unrest against the Mughals. Bahadur Shah, facing the rise of Banda Singh Bahadur in Punjab, had to make peace. In June 1710 Jai Singh II and Ajit Singh were invited to court, given robes of honour and presents, and made governors of Malwa and Gujarat.

The Marathas: Shivaji and the Maratha State

Shivaji's Rise in the Western Deccan

Shivaji was born in 1630 in the Bhonsle clan, the son of Shahji and Jijabai. Shahji served the Deccan sultanates and was often away, so Shivaji grew up in his father's jagir at Pune under Jijabai's care. At the time the Pune region suffered from constant fighting between the Deccan sultans whom the Marathas served.

At the age of 16 Shivaji began to capture neglected and unoccupied forts around Pune and to strengthen them. Behind this lay the idea of Swarajya, self-rule in a sovereign Maratha kingdom. The saints of Maharashtra, such as Dnyaneshwar, Namdev, Tukaram and Ramdas, had already given Maratha society a solid cultural foundation by composing devotional songs in the language of the people, and this later helped the Marathas to organise themselves politically.

His kingdom soon reached the west coast, and to secure the resources of the coast he founded a navy in 1657. Against bigger armies he used guerrilla warfare, fighting with small groups, speed, surprise and knowledge of the terrain. The Bijapur Sultanate sent its veteran general Afzal Khan against him. The two met at the foot of Pratapgad fort on 10 November 1659, Shivaji killed Afzal Khan, and the Marathas, hidden in the hills, routed Bijapur's army.

Conflict with the Mughals: Shaista Khan, Surat and Purandar

The Mughal nobleman Shaista Khan then invaded Shivaji's lands with a large army and stayed for three years. On the night of 5 April 1663, Shivaji raided Shaista Khan's camp with a small band; the Khan escaped, losing a few fingers, and left Maharashtra. In 1664 Shivaji sacked Surat, the wealthy Mughal port, and carried off treasure of almost one crore of rupees. He was careful not to attack religious places.

Surat was an insult to Mughal prestige, so Aurangzeb sent the Rajput general Jai Singh I to defeat him. Under the Treaty of Purandar, signed on 11 June 1665, Shivaji gave up 23 of his forts, kept 12, agreed to pay compensation and sent his son Sambhaji to serve in the Mughal army.

Jai Singh then persuaded Shivaji to visit Agra. In May 1666 he was made to stand in court in front of Aurangzeb and in the company of a Mughal general whom he had defeated earlier. Seeing this as an insult, he stormed out. He was placed under house arrest, then escaped with Sambhaji by hiding in the large baskets of sweets and fruit that he had been sending out as gifts. Aurangzeb never captured him again, and peace followed for some years. Shivaji sacked Surat a second time in 1670.

Coronation at Raigad and the Southern Conquest

On 6 June 1674 Shivaji was crowned with full Vedic rites at the mountain fortress of Raigad. His formal title was Shri Raja Shiva Chhatrapati, and he started his own era, the Rajyabhishek shaka. He minted gold and copper coins in his own name, and his seal carried a Sanskrit inscription, a departure from the Persian seals then in use. A crown, an era, a coinage and a seal of his own were the marks of a sovereign ruler.

In 1677 Shivaji set out on the dakshina-digvijaya, the conquest of the South, which took in parts of northern Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, including the forts of Vellore and Gingee. This southern extension later gave the Marathas strategic depth against the Mughals. His half-brother Ekoji ruled Thanjavur, and Maratha rule there began in the late seventeenth century.

Shivaji died of a fever at Raigad around 3 to 5 April 1680, aged 50. By then his fame had spread far enough that the Bundela prince Chhatrasal was inspired to build his own kingdom in Bundelkhand.

The Ashtapradhan: Shivaji's Council of Eight Ministers

Shivaji governed through the Ashtapradhan, a council of eight ministers, each in charge of one department. Its formal shape dates from the coronation of 1674, and it marked the birth of a bureaucracy. Two of the ministers, the Pandit Rao and the Nyayadhish, had civil duties only; the others also held military commands, and their deputies carried on the civil work in their absence.

The current NCERT textbook gives the Sachiv charge of land revenue; other accounts describe the Sachiv as the secretary who prepared royal edicts. Every account gives the Sumant foreign affairs and the Senapati the army.

Shivaji also built a relatively centralised administration. He abolished hereditary posts and land assignments, which had been the practice under the sultans and the Mughals, and paid every official a salary from the treasury. Officials were transferred from time to time so that none could gather enough power to dictate to the king. Pensions went to the widows of soldiers killed in battle, and their sons were offered military posts.

Revenue: Chauth and Sardeshmukhi

The Marathas levied two taxes on provinces outside their direct rule. Chauth was one-fourth, or 25 per cent, of revenue; sardeshmukhi was a further 10 per cent on top of it. The provinces concerned included places in the Deccan and in north India. In return the Marathas protected those provinces and did not interfere in their internal administration.

Historians read this arrangement in different ways. M. G. Ranade compared the chauth to the subsidiary alliances by which Wellesley later brought Indian states under British control, a payment for armed security. Jadunath Sarkar described it as protection money paid by states that wished to keep the Marathas out. Over time some of these provinces became a part of the Maratha empire, and the Mughals also approved the arrangement through treaties.

The formal Mughal recognition came after Shivaji. In July 1718 Balaji Vishwanath negotiated a treaty with the Mughal viceroy Hussain Ali Khan, and in 1719 the emperor granted Shahu the chauth and sardeshmukhi of six Deccan provinces in return for keeping a force of 15,000 troops. Chauth revenue was divided among Maratha functionaries. A share (babti) went to the Chhatrapati, a sahotra grant of 6 per cent went to the Pant Sachiv, and two-thirds, the mokasa, stayed with the Maratha sardars who collected it and kept up their troops.

Forts, Army and Navy

Forts were the mainstay of Maratha power. They controlled the important routes and sheltered the army during guerrilla warfare. Ramchandra Pant Amatya, Shivaji's finance minister, later wrote in the Adnyapatra that the kingdom had been created from forts alone, and that it was forts that let the state survive decades of Mughal attack.

The army had three arms, namely infantry, cavalry and a navy. Its cavalry had two kinds of trooper. The state paid for the horses and equipment of the bargirs, while the shiledars supplied their own. Swords and lances were the preferred weapons, but guns were used in sizeable numbers, and rockets were used from Shivaji's time.

The navy was a break with practice. The Bijapur sultanate kept merchant ships but no full-time naval force, and even the Mughals made little use of a navy. Shivaji's navy protected the coast and carried his own trade as far as Mocha in Yemen, Muscat in Oman and Malacca. Sindhudurg, near the Maharashtra and Goa border, is one of the naval forts the Marathas built. In the eighteenth century Kanhoji Angre guided the Marathas to victory in many naval battles, and the Marathas began to demand passes from Europeans, who had until then forced Indian ships to buy their cartaz.

The Marathas After Shivaji: The Deccan War

Sambhaji and the Mughal Invasion (1680 to 1689)

Shivaji had two sons, Sambhaji and Rajaram. After a short dispute over the succession, Sambhaji became Chhatrapati. The Marathas were then the only obstacle to complete Mughal control of the Deccan. Having come south in pursuit of Prince Akbar, Aurangzeb conquered the Bijapur and Golconda sultanates and then turned on the Marathas.

Sambhaji and about 25 of his advisers were captured in a skirmish at Sangameshwar in February 1689, and Aurangzeb ordered his execution. Sambhaji was executed on 11 March 1689 at Tulapur on the Bhima. Raigad, the Maratha capital, fell to the Mughals soon afterwards.

Rajaram and the Gingee Years (1689 to 1700)

Rajaram was informally crowned at Raigad on 12 March 1689. As the Mughals closed in, he escaped south through Pratapgad and Vishalgad to Gingee (Jinji) in present-day Tamil Nadu, taking the war far from Maharashtra. Gingee had been won in Shivaji's southern campaign, and Rajaram held it from November 1689. The Mughal commander Zulfikar Khan laid siege to it from September 1690, and it fell on 8 January 1698 after years of delay, but Rajaram had already escaped. He then set up his court at Satara.

While Rajaram held out in the south, Maratha generals such as Santaji Ghorpade and Dhanaji Jadhav harried the Mughal armies in the west. The Marathas defended their forts staunchly and often had the upper hand in battles and skirmishes. Rajaram died on 3 March 1700.

Tarabai and the Marathas on the Offensive

Rajaram's queen Tarabai proclaimed her infant son Shivaji II Chhatrapati and acted as regent from 1700 to 1708. She organised large Maratha armies and sent them into Mughal territory in the north. By 1705 Maratha forces had crossed the Narmada and were making raids into Malwa, and the Gujarat coast lay open to them. In that sense Tarabai was the architect of the northward Maratha expansion, and her tenacity preserved Maratha independence during a critical period.

Shahu, Balaji Vishwanath and the Rise of the Peshwa

After Aurangzeb's death, the Mughals released Shahu, Sambhaji's son who had been a prisoner for about 18 years, hoping to divide the Marathas. Shahu challenged Tarabai and her son and prevailed through his legal claim as Sambhaji's son and the diplomacy of Balaji Vishwanath. Tarabai set up a rival court at Kolhapur in 1709.

Balaji Vishwanath was the first of a series of hereditary Peshwas. Under Shahu, the Peshwa gained effective control of the Maratha state. The chauth and sardeshmukhi grant of 1719 was his work. Shahu's reign lasted from 1708 to 1749. The centralised state of Shivaji's time gave way to a looser structure, nominally centred on the Chhatrapati but with the Peshwa and the chiefs holding great power. Peshwa Bajirao I and his son Nanasaheb Peshwa led the pan-Indian expansion of the Marathas.

The Sikhs: From Faith to a Fighting Panth

Guru Arjan and the Adi Granth

Guru Nanak spread the message of equality, compassion and the oneness of God in fifteenth-century Punjab, and his followers came to be known as Sikhs. Sikhism began purely as a spiritual movement, and the Gurus who followed Nanak gave it its own institutions. Guru Angad, the second Guru, is credited in the Sikh tradition with the Gurmukhi script. Guru Amar Das, the third Guru, introduced the Manji system, zones of religious administration each under an appointed chief. Guru Ram Das, the fourth Guru, founded the town of Ramdaspur, later Amritsar, around a large man-made pool.

The fifth Guru, Guru Arjan, who became Guru in 1581, completed the Harmandir Sahib at Amritsar and compiled the Adi Granth, the first official edition of the Sikh scripture, which he installed in the temple in 1604. It later grew into the Guru Granth Sahib. He also asked Sikhs to give, where they could, one-tenth of their income to the Sikh organisation, a practice known as the dasvandh.

Emperor Jahangir had Guru Arjan arrested, accusing him of supporting his rebellious son Khusrau, and he was tortured and died in Mughal custody in 1606; records disagree about whether he died under torture or by drowning in the Ravi. His martyrdom is considered a turning point in Sikh history.

Guru Hargobind: Miri and Piri

Guru Arjan's son Guru Hargobind became the sixth Guru in 1606 at the age of 11. He answered his father's death by introducing martial training and forming a Sikh army. He wore two swords, one for miri, temporal power, and one for piri, spiritual authority, and built the Akal Takht in front of the Harmandir Sahib at Amritsar, now the highest seat of earthly authority of the Khalsa.

Jahangir jailed the young Guru in Gwalior Fort in 1609, and Sikh tradition holds that he secured the release of 52 Rajput hill rajas along with himself. Under Shah Jahan relations turned bitter again after a hunting party plundered the Guru's property in 1628, which triggered the first armed conflict. Hargobind's army fought several battles against the Mughals, including at Amritsar in 1634. He died in 1644.

Guru Tegh Bahadur and the Martyrdom of 1675

Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Guru, led the Sikhs from 1664 and founded the town of Anandpur Sahib in the same year. In 1675 a group of Kashmiri Pandits approached him for protection from religious persecution. The Guru chose to stand with them. Arrested, he was asked by Aurangzeb to convert to Islam, refused despite torture, and was publicly beheaded in Chandni Chowk in Delhi on 11 November 1675. Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib now marks the site.

Sources differ on why the conflict arose. Sikh accounts say the Guru defended the freedom of non-Muslims against Aurangzeb's intolerant policy; Mughal-side accounts say he was collecting taxes from non-Muslims and acting as a rebel. Either way, the execution of the ninth Guru left a lasting mark on the community.

Guru Gobind Singh and the Founding of the Khalsa in 1699

Guru Gobind Singh, born in Patna in 1666, became the tenth and last human Guru at the age of nine, after his father was executed. On Vaisakhi in 1699 he gathered the Sikhs at Anandpur Sahib and founded the Khalsa, a martial brotherhood committed to justice, equality and the defence of the faith. In the traditional account, the Guru asked for volunteers, and five came forward and were named the Panj Pyare. He baptised them with amrit stirred in an iron bowl with a double-edged sword, gave them the surname Singh (lion), and then asked them to baptise him. This initiation replaced the earlier charan pahul ritual.

Khalsa Sikhs wear the Five Ks, which are kesh (uncut hair), kangha (a wooden comb), kara (an iron or steel bracelet), kirpan (a sword or dagger) and kachera (short breeches). The Khalsa also replaced the masand system as the Sikhs' institution for temporal leadership.

The Khalsa soon fought the hill rajas and Mughal armies. At Chamkaur in December 1704 the Guru's two elder sons were killed, and his two younger sons were executed by the Mughal governor of Sirhind, Wazir Khan. In 1705 the Guru wrote the Zafarnama, a letter in Persian to Aurangzeb accusing him of cruelty. After Aurangzeb's death the Guru supported Bahadur Shah I in the succession war and then met him in the Deccan. He was stabbed at Nanded and died of his wounds on 7 October 1708.

Banda Singh Bahadur and the Sikh Rising (1709 to 1716)

Banda Singh Bahadur was born Lachman Dev in 1670 at Rajouri and became an ascetic named Madho Das Bairagi. He established a monastery at Nanded, where Guru Gobind Singh visited him in 1708 and made him a disciple. Sent to Punjab, Banda gathered a force and in November 1709 sacked Samana, the Mughal provincial capital.

On 12 May 1710 his army defeated the Mughal governor Wazir Khan at Chappar Chiri, and he took Sirhind. The Sikhs then held the entire province of Sirhind, from the Sutlej to the Yamuna. Banda abolished the zamindari system and gave property rights to the tillers, made Lohgarh his capital, and struck his own coins.

Bahadur Shah I was forced to abandon his plans against the Rajputs and march to Punjab; Banda escaped into the hills. In 1715 the Mughal governor of Lahore besieged Banda and his men in the village of Gurdas Nangal for eight months and captured them on 7 December 1715. Banda was taken to Delhi and executed in 1716.

Smaller Challenges: Jats, Satnamis and Bundelas

Jat Rising, Satnami Revolt and Chhatrasal's Bundelkhand

Not every challenge came from a large power. The Jat peasantry of western Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and eastern Rajasthan rose against an oppressive Mughal officer. The Jat rebellion of 1669 to 1670 around Mathura, led by Gokula of Tilpat, was crushed in a battle in which about 20,000 rebels fought; Gokula was caught and executed. Later, in the decline of the empire, the Jat leader Churaman founded a polity centred on Bharatpur.

In May 1672 the Satnamis, a sect near Narnaul, about 75 miles (about 120 km) from Delhi, rose in revolt. Aurangzeb sent an army of 10,000 with artillery and crushed them.

Chhatrasal of the Bundela Rajput clan raised the banner of revolt against the Mughals in Bundelkhand in 1671. Encouraged by Shivaji to fight in his own land, he built an independent kingdom and ruled as Maharaja of Panna from 1675 to 1731. Tribal groups, including the Bhils, Gonds and Santhals, also resisted attempts to annex their territory or impose taxes on them.

How These Rivalries Weakened the Mughal Empire

The Deccan War and the Drain on the Empire

The Rajput, Maratha and Sikh conflicts each took a share of imperial resources, but the Deccan war took the largest, and Aurangzeb died in 1707 without having subdued the Marathas.

The Mughals also absorbed some of their opponents. Between 1679 and 1707 the share of Hindu officials in the Mughal administration rose by about half, to 31.6 per cent, because more Marathas were recruited for the Deccan campaigns, and in the second half of Aurangzeb's reign Marathas outnumbered Rajputs among them. Resistance and service continued side by side.

Regional Powers Fill the Space After 1707

After Aurangzeb, the empire broke down quickly. Short-lived and weak rulers and civil wars over the succession caused political instability at the centre, the throne lost the revenue needed to pay its nobles, and the imperial army was bogged down in long and futile wars against the Marathas. After Farrukhsiyar's execution in 1719, local successor states took power in region after region. In Bengal, Murshid Quli Khan became the first Nawab in 1717. In the Deccan, Asaf Jah I asserted independence and encouraged the Marathas to invade central and northern India. Nader Shah's sack of Delhi in 1739 took the Mughal treasury and shattered what remained of Mughal prestige.

The three rivals filled much of the space. The Marathas controlled Delhi from 1754 and, after the defeat at Panipat in 1761, recaptured it in 1771. In Punjab the Sikhs fought on through the eighteenth century with the Dal Khalsa, their combined army, and formed confederacies of their own. At the turn of the nineteenth century Maharaja Ranjit Singh united them into a centralised Sikh empire, which held Punjab and parts of Kashmir until the British took it in the mid-nineteenth century. Mughal authority in Rajasthan remained limited.

Revision of the Rivals of the Mughals

Key Dates of Each Power in Order

Each power's milestones run in order of date, from Akbar's Rajput alliance of 1562 to Banda Singh Bahadur's execution in 1716.

• Rajput milestones: Akbar's alliance with Amer in 1562; Chittor in 1568; Haldighati on 18 June 1576; Amar Singh's settlement in 1615; the Rathor rebellion from 1679 to 1707; the Rajput revolt of 1708 to 1710.
• Maratha milestones: Coronation at Raigad on 6 June 1674; the Ashtapradhan; chauth at 25 per cent and sardeshmukhi at a further 10 per cent; Sambhaji executed in 1689; Rajaram at Gingee; Tarabai as regent; chauth and sardeshmukhi granted in 1719.
• Sikh milestones: Arjan martyred in 1606; Hargobind's miri and piri; Tegh Bahadur beheaded in 1675; the Khalsa in 1699; Banda Singh Bahadur at Sirhind in 1710 and executed in 1716.
• Smaller risings: Jats in 1669 to 1670; Satnamis in 1672; Chhatrasal from 1671.

Sources

• NCERT: Exploring Society: India and Beyond (Class VIII, Book 1), Chapter 2
• NCERT: Exploring Society: India and Beyond (Class VIII, Book 1), Chapter 3
• NCERT: Themes in Indian History II (Class XII), Chapter 7
• Government of Punjab (Amritsar district): History
• Government of Punjab (Rupnagar district): History
• Government of Maharashtra (Sindhudurg district): History
• Wikipedia: Akbar
• Wikipedia: Amar Singh I
• Wikipedia: Ashta Pradhan
• Wikipedia: Aurangzeb
• Wikipedia: Balaji Vishwanath
• Wikipedia: Banda Singh Bahadur
• Wikipedia: Battle of Haldighati
• Wikipedia: Chauth
• Wikipedia: Chhatrasal
• Wikipedia: Churaman
• Wikipedia: Dal Khalsa
• Wikipedia: Guru Amar Das
• Wikipedia: Guru Angad
• Wikipedia: Guru Arjan
• Wikipedia: Guru Gobind Singh
• Wikipedia: Guru Hargobind
• Wikipedia: Guru Tegh Bahadur
• Wikipedia: Jai Singh I
• Wikipedia: Khalsa
• Wikipedia: Maharana Pratap
• Wikipedia: Mughal-Maratha Wars
• Wikipedia: Mughal Empire
• Wikipedia: Nanaji Deshmukh
• Wikipedia: Rajaram I
• Wikipedia: Rajput Rebellion (1708 to 1710)
• Wikipedia: Rathore rebellion (1679 to 1707)
• Wikipedia: Sambhaji
• Wikipedia: Shahu I
• Wikipedia: Shivaji
• Wikipedia: Siege of Chittorgarh (1567 to 1568)
• Wikipedia: Tarabai
• UPSC: Civil Services Examination question papers