Even as Shahaji Bhosale and his clan served in Mughal armies, first under the Nizams of the Ahmednagar Sultanate and later under the Adilshahs of Bijapur, the dream of 'Swarajya,' an autonomous dominion for the Marathas, remained deep in their hearts. As Shahaji's son Shivaji unites the youth of the Maaval region under the banner of Hindvi Swarajya, that aspiration begins to take shape. Vishwas Patil's most ambitious work to date is the Shivaji Mahasamrat Series of novels. Few books on the establishment of the Maratha Empire have recreated so deftly the many durbars of seventeenth-century India, their political intrigues and war tactics, or revealed so much about the lives of Shivaji's forefathers?particularly Shahaji Bhosale, an extraordinary warrior in his own right, and Jijabai, an extraordinary warrior in her own right.