SIVAJI (1627—1680)  , founder of the Mahratta power in India, was born in May 1627 He was the son of Shahji Bhonsla, a Mahratta soldier of fortune who held a jagir under the Bijapur government . From an early age he excelled in horsemanship and the use of weapons, and regarded himself as appointed to free the Hindus from the Mahommedan yoke . With this object he formed a national party among the Hindus of the Deccan, and opposed in turn the vassal power of Bijapur and the imperial armies of the Mogul of Delhi . By dint of playing off his enemies against each other and by means of treachery, assassination and hard fighting, Sivaji won for the Mahrattas practical supremacy in western India . In 1659 he lured Afzul Khan, the Bijapur general, into a personal conference, and killed him with his own hand, while his men attacked and routed the Bijapur army . In 1666 he visited the Mogul emperor, Aurangzeb, at Delhi, but on his expressing dissatisfaction at not being treated with sufficient dignity, he was placed under arrest . Having effected his escape in a sweetmeat basket, he raised the standard of revolt, assumed the title of raja, and the prerogative of coining money in his own name . But whilst at the height of his power he died on the 5th of April 168o at the age of fifty-three . Sivaji was an extraordinary man, showing a genius both fcr war and for peaceful administration; -but he always preferred to attain his ends by fraud rather than by force . He is the national hero of the Mahrattas, by whom he is regarded almost as a deity . See Grant Duff, History of the Mahrattas (1826) ; Krishnaji Ananta, Life and Exploits of Sivaji (1884); and M . G Ranade, Rise of the Maratha Power (Bombay, 1900) .