During the earlier Moslem invasions in 1100 and in subsequent years, the Mahrattas do not seem to have made much resistance. They submitted to several Mahommedan kings under the changing circumstances of those times. It was against the Mahommedan king of Bijapur in the Deccan that Sivaji, the hero of Mahratta history, first rebelled in 1657. Sivaji and his fighting officers were Mahrattas of humble caste, but his ministers were Brahmans. When the Mogul Empire absorbed the Bijapur kingdom he defied the emperor. He imparted a self-reliant enthusiasm to his countrymen, formed them into an army, and organized them as a political community; his mountaineer infantry, though limited in numbers, proved desperately courageous; his cavalry was daring and ubiquitous. The Moslems, having once overcome the Hindus in almost all parts of India, had not for centuries met with any noteworthy uprising. Sivaji, however, planned their expulsion, and before the end of his restless life made much progress in the execution of that design. The new state which he founded was maintained under various vicissitudes after his death. Mahratta resistance, once aroused by him, was never extinguished, and the imperial resources were worn out by ceaseless though vain efforts to quell it. The great Mogul emperor's impoverished and enfeebled successor was fain to recognize the Mahratta state by a formal instrument. The Mahratta king, a descendant of Sivaji, had become a _roi fainéant_, and the arrangement was negotiated by his Brahman minister, whose official designation was the peshwa. The office of peshwa then became hereditary in the minister's family, and grew in importance as the Mahratta kingdom rose, while the king sunk into the condition of a puppet. Thus the Mahratta power was consolidated throughout nearly the whole of Maharashtra under the Brahman peshwa as virtual sovereign, with his capital at Poona, while the titular Mahratta raja or king had his court at the neighbouring city of Satara. Despite his political importance, however, the raja was still venerated as the descendant of Sivaji.