Mughal–Maratha Wars

The Mughal–Maratha Wars, sometimes referred to as a whole as the Deccan War, the Maratha War of Independence, or the Twenty-Seven Years' War were a set of wars fought between the Mughal Empire and the Maratha Empire from 1680 until the death of Aurangzeb in 1707.

This war began in 1680 by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb's invasion of the Maratha enclave in Bijapur, which was established by the Maratha leader Shivaji. The war expended a 100,000 Mughal troops annually, and thrice that number in horses, elephants and other beast of burden each year. After the death of Aurangzeb, Marathas defeated the Mughals in Delhi and Bhopal, and extended their empire up to Peshawar by 1758.

Quotes

Matthew White - Atrocitology, 2011

White, Matthew - Atrocitology _ humanity's 100 deadliest achievements-Canongate Books (2011)

• Finally deciding that he had to conquer the south himself, Aurangzeb rode out with an army reputed to number a half million. Not just an army, the traveling party included his entire court and a tent city of colorful pavilions, animal herds, wagons, corrals, and bazaars. For the remaining twenty-six years of his life, he would never again return to the north.
• In 1686–87 he overran the independent Muslim kingdoms of Bijapur and Golconda, whom he considered decadent and hedonistic. Then he turned his full attention against the Marathas on the mountainous rim of the Deccan plateau in west-central India. When the Mughals finally captured the Maratha king Sambhaji in 1689, Aurangzeb had him gradually dismantled over the next three weeks—cutting out his tongue the first day, eyes the next, then his limbs one by one. Finally Sambhaji was reduced to an unrecognizable fraction of his former self and was beheaded.
• As the war dragged on, southern India was devastated. According to contemporary sources, 100,000 of Aurangzeb’s men and 300,000 beasts of burden (horses, camels, asses, oxen, and elephants) died every year during the quarter century of war in the Deccan. When drought, plague, and famine hit the war-torn lands in 1702 to 1704, two million civilians died within a few years.
  • White, Matthew - Atrocitology _ humanity's 100 deadliest achievements-Canongate Books (2011)