6_Glorious_Epochs_of_Indian_History

436 SIX GLORIOUS EPOCHS OF INDIAN HISTORY
in their opinion, were the only ones to smash the Muslim
power completely or perhaps because of the original
sustaining power of the Hindu nation in general that
nothing of the kind happened.
1063. For, on receiving letters from the Maratha
sardars and Gazi-ud-din andjothers, Peshwa Nanasahib imme­
diately sent Malharrao Holkar under the chief command
of Raghunathrao Dada, with a large army'*. Urgent letters
were also sent to the Maratha Sardars like Govindpant
Bundeley, Barve and others who were already in the North
to render every sort of assistance to Raghunathrao". Before
Raghunathrao left Indore and marched ahead news arrived
that hearing the reports of the Maratha advance Abdali had
left Mathura Vrindaban and other Hindu places of worship
and pilgrimage, and gone to Delhi and thence to Kabul
taking away all the booty he had acquired". But he had
vested, before his departure to Kabul, the supreme command
of that region in the hands of his son, Taimurshah, stationing
ten thousand soldiers under him at Sirhind, and installing
his officers at various important places in the Punjab".
1064. While on this side the Maratha forces under
different military leaders in the North which had gathered
together under the one command of Raghunathrao began to
punish severely all those who had begun anti-Maratha acti­
vities relying on Abdali for support. Sakharam Bhagwant,
Gangadhar Yashwant and Maratha Sardars entered the Doab
and once again beat down the Pathan-Rohilla malfactors,
released and brought into their fold Vazir [Gazi-ud-din, who
had been made a captive by the Abdali party". Vithal
Shivadev himself marched on Delhi, and after about a fort­
night's fierce fighting entered the city triumphantly crushing
down the Abdali faction completely. The greatest of the
triumphs was that the direst enemy of the Marathas and
Abdali's right-hand man, Najibkhan Rohilla, was caught
alive'". Eventually Abdali's settlement of the region under
his suzerainty toppled down completely. The Pathan army
of ten thousand strong, which Abdali had stationed at Sir-