Mudhol

Mudhol stands near the Ghataprabha River in the southern Maratha country. It was the seat of a branch of the Ghorpade family, hereditary chiefs who served the rulers of Bijapur. Their estates and military service placed them among the local powers of the Deccan. The family’s name was linked by tradition to an exploit in which a fort was scaled with the aid of a monitor lizard, called a ghorpad.

The Mudhol chief Baji Ghorpade helped capture Shahaji Bhonsle, father of Shivaji, for the Bijapur court. The episode left a bitter enmity between the families. According to the regional gazetteer, Shivaji later descended upon Mudhol, killed Baji and burned the town. The Ghorpades nevertheless retained a place among the chiefs of the southern Maratha country, and Mudhol became the centre of a small state in the later seventeenth century.