Battle of Vasai
1739 conflict between the Portuguese and Maratha Empires in India
The Battle of Vasai or the Battle of Bassein was fought between the Maratha Empire and the Portuguese rulers of Vasai (Portuguese, Baçaim; English, Bassein), a town near Mumbai (Bombay) in the Konkan region of the present-day state of Maharashtra, India. The Marathas were led by Chimaji Appa, a brother of Peshwa Baji Rao I.
Background
By 1736, the Portuguese had been at work for four years constructing the fortress of Thana, and aside from the long delays, the workers were unpaid and unfed. Bhavangad Fort was built by Shrimant Chimaji Appa Peshave to capture the Fort Bassein by Maratha Army, and most of the secret activities were done at Bhavangad fort.
After the war of 1737-39, Chimaji Appa and his Maratha soldiers took the church bells from Vasai as memorabilia and installed them in various Hindu temples of Maharashtra; some of the bells they installed in the Khandoba Temple of Jejuri and the Tulja Bhavani Temple of Osmanabad. These church bells are still present in these temples. The garrison of Baçaim, thanks to the reinforcements received from Goa, was of about 1,200 soldiers, among Portuguese and Indian auxiliaries.
Siege of Baçaim
The siege of Baçaim began on 17 February 1739. All the Portuguese outposts around the major fort at Baçaim had been taken. Their supply routes from the north and south had been blocked, and with the English manning the seas, even that route was unreliable. Chimaji Appa arrived at Bhadrapur near Baçaim in February 1739.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Battle of Vasai” is 1739 conflict between the Portuguese and Maratha Empires in India. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Battle, Vasai and conflict, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4872652. Authority coordinates are 19.467, 72.800. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1736, 1737 and 1739.
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This entry incorporates text from “Battle of Vasai” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.