The Karnatak plain or the Madras coast was known in that age as the land of gold.

It was an extremely fertile tract, rich in agricultural produce, with a population

that led a life of primitive simplicity and consumed very little in food and
clothing. The many ports on the long sea-board had fostered a brisk foreign trade
from remote antiquity, while the rich mines of the hinterland brought wealth into
the plains.Shahji had died in 1664, leaving to his younger son Vyankoji his vast
jagirs in the south and east of the Bijapur State. They practically formed a
kingdom with Tanjore for its capital, though their Rajah was nominally a vassal of
Adil Shah. All the personal property of Shahji had passed into Vyankoji's hands.
Raghunath Narayan Hanumante had ably managed Shahji's jagirs in the Kamatak and had
been left by his dying master as prime-minister of Vyankoji. Conscious of his own
ability and long experience in administration, the minister wished to keep all the
powers of the State in his own hands, and slighted his master as an incompetent
sluggard,while Vyankoji, irritated by Raghunath's overbearing conduct and his own
reduction to impotence in the government of his own realm, listened readily to the
minister's jealous rivals against his counsels. After much mutual irritation, one
day there was a stormy scene at Court ; Raghunath praised Shivaji as a model king
and charged his own master with lack of ambition capacity and spirit and with an
ignoble love of ease, while Vyankoji retorted by calling Shivaji a traitor and a
rebel against his lawful sovereign and rebuking Raghunath for his outspokenness.

The minister in disgust threw up his post and left Tanjore, feigning a desire to
retire to Benares. But he set out for Maharashtra instead, and on the way halted at
Haidarabad, where his theological learning and logical skill charmed Madanna Pant,
the Qutb-Shahi prime-minister. Here Raghunath was made much of, and in his far-
sighted diplomacy prepared the ground for a secret alliance between Shivaji and
Qutb Shah. Then he went to Satara and interviewed Shiva, who honored him highly for
the sake of his father Narayan Pant and his own great services, and inquired
minutely about Vyankoji's doings and aims and the condition of his kingdom.
Raghunath is said to have tempted Shivaji by giving him rich presents from the
produce of the Karnatak and describing its fabulous wealth and the ease with which
it could be conquered (Chit. 134.) As he knew the ins and outs of the country, he
was at once taken into Shiva's service, with a view to using his local knowledge
during the southern campaign , the idea of which was matured' during Shiva's long
illness at Satara in the earlier months of 1676.

By means of Raghunath Narayan Hanumante, many of the local chieftains, great and
small, of the Karatak were won over and their possessions were peacefully occupied
by Shivaji. In this way the impregnable fortress of Jinji was secured, without a
blow, from Rauf Khan and Nasir Muhammad Khan, the sons of the late Bijapuri wazir
Khan-i-Khanan (probably Khawas Khan), in return for money and jagirs elsewhere. As
soon as Shivaji with 10,000 cavalry arrived in its environs and encamped at
Chakrapuri on the bank of the Chakravati river, Jinji opened its gates to him (end
of May.) The captured fort was placed in charge of a Mavle captain named Ramaji
Nalge, and the surrounding district under Vithal Pildev Garud as viceroy, assisted
by a sabnis and a Public Works officer. The military and revenue administration
established by Shivaji in Maharashtra was introduced here without any change. He
"constructed new ramparts round Jinji, dug ditches, raised towers and bastions, and
carried out all these works with a perfection of which European skill would not
have been ashamed." (Letter of 1678 by the Jesuit priest Andre Freire in Mission du
Madure.)