most of his time in Gingee, fighting the Mughal siege. Before the Mughals captured Gingee, Rajaram returned to Maharashtra and died in Sinhagad in 1700. Ambikabai, one of his widows, committed sati at Rajaram's death. The Bhimthadi (or Deccani) horse was developed in the region under Maratha rule by crossing Arabian and Turkic breeds with local ponies. Peshwa rule (1714–1818) Shivaji's grandson, Shahu I, appointed the Chitpavan Brahmin Balaji Vishwanath as his Peshwa in 1714. Vishwanath received the area around Pune from the grateful mother of one of Shahu's ministers for saving her son's life. In 1718, Shahu sent him to Delhi to assist the Sayyads; in return for this help, Muhammad Shah (the Mughal emperor in Delhi) granted Shahu sardeshmukhi rights for Pune, Supa, Baramati, Indapur and Junnar. Shahu appointed Baji Rao I Peshwa in 1720, succeeding his father. Baji Rao moved his administration from Saswad to nearby Pune in 1728, laying the foundation for turning a kasbah into a large city. Pune grew in size and influence as Maratha rule extended through the subcontinent in subsequent decades. A well-known saying in the era before the third battle of Panipat was that the "ponies of Bhimthadi drank the water of the Indus river". Pune under the Peshwas Pune gained more influence under the rule of Baji Rao I's son, Balaji Baji Rao (Nanasaheb). Maratha influence waned after the disastrous 1761 Battle of Panipat, and the Nizam of Hyderabad looted the city. It (and the empire) recovered during the brief reign of Peshwa Madhavrao. The rest of the Peshwa era was rife with family intrigue and political machinations. The leading role was played by the ambitious Raghunathrao, the younger brother of Nanasaheb, who wanted power at the expense of his nephews Madhavrao I and Narayanrao. After Narayanrao's 1775 murder by order of Raghunathrao's wife, power was exercised in the name of his son Madhavrao II by a regency council led by Nana Fadnavis for most of the century. Under Peshwa rule, the urban elite came from the Chitpavan Brahmin community; they were the military commanders, the bureaucrats and the bankers, and had ties to each other by marriage. Nanasaheb built a lake in Katraj, on the city's outskirts, and a still-operational underground aqueduct to bring water from the lake to Shaniwar Wada. The city received an underground sewage system in 1782 which discharged into the river. Pune prospered during Nanasaheb's