Global InformationMaratha Confederacy information
Maratha Confederacy Maratha Empire | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1674–1818 | |||||||||||||||||||||
 Flag
 Royal Seal of Shivaji I
| |||||||||||||||||||||
| Motto: "हर हर महादेव" "Har Har Mahadev" (English: "Praises to Mahadev (Shiva)") | |||||||||||||||||||||
 The Maratha Confederacy and controlled regions in 1760 near its peak (yellow) | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Capital | Royal seat:
Peshwa's seat: Poona (1728–1818) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Official languages |
Spoken languages: Other South Asian languages | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Religion | State religion: Hinduism Minority: Other religions in South Asia | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Government | Absolute monarchy (1674–1731) Federal oligarchy with a restricted monarchial figurehead (1731–1818) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Chhatrapati | |||||||||||||||||||||
• 1674–1680 (first) | Shivaji I | ||||||||||||||||||||
• 1808–1818 (last) | Pratap Singh | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Peshwa | |||||||||||||||||||||
• 1674–1683 (first) | Moropant Pingle | ||||||||||||||||||||
• 1803–1818 (last) | Baji Rao II | ||||||||||||||||||||
• 1858–1859 | Nana Saheb (claimed titular) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Legislature | Ashta Pradhan | ||||||||||||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||||||||||||
• Coronation of Shivaji | 6 June 1674 | ||||||||||||||||||||
• Deccan Wars | 1680–1707 | ||||||||||||||||||||
• Recognition of Shahu I as the legitimate ruler by Bahadur Shah I | 1707 | ||||||||||||||||||||
• Appointment of Balaji Vishwanath as hereditary Peshwa | 1713 | ||||||||||||||||||||
• Treaty of Bhopal | 1737 | ||||||||||||||||||||
• Third Anglo-Maratha War | 1817–1819 | ||||||||||||||||||||
• Dissolution of the Maratha Confederacy | 1818 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Area | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 1760[2] | 2,500,000 km2 (970,000 sq mi) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Currency | Rupee, Paisa, Mohur, Shivrai, Hon | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| Today part of | India | ||||||||||||||||||||
The Maratha Confederacy,[a] also referred to as the Maratha Empire or the Maratha Kingdom,[6][7] was an early modern polity in the Indian subcontinent comprising the realms of the Peshwa and four major independent Maratha states[8][9] who were often subordinate to the former. It was formed in 1674 with the coronation of Shivaji of the House of Bhonsle as the Chhatrapati of the Marathas. The Maratha realm was recognised by Bahadur Shah I, the Shahenshah of Hindustan as a tributary state in 1707 after a prolonged rebellion.[10] The Marathas continued to recognise the Shahenshah as their nominal suzerain similar to other contemporary Indian entities.[11][12][page needed]
Although Shivaji came from the Maratha community, the Maratha government also included warriors, administrators, and other nobles from the Maratha and several other Marathi groups from what is known today as Maharashtra.[13] The Maratha Kingdom was expanded into a large realm in the 18th century under the leadership of Peshwa Bajirao I.[note 1] The Marathas were a Marathi-speaking peasantry group from the western Deccan Plateau (present-day Maharashtra) who rose to prominence by establishing Hindavi Swarajya (meaning "self-rule of Hindus").[16][17]
The Marathas became prominent in the politics of the Indian subcontinent during the seventeenth century under the leadership of Shivaji, who revolted against the Adil Shahi dynasty and the Mughals to carve out a kingdom with Raigad as his capital.[18][19][20] The religious attitude of Emperor Aurangzeb estranged non-Muslims, and the Maratha insurgency came at a great cost for his men and treasury and eventually ensured Maratha ascendency and their control over sizeable portions of former Mughal dominions in the north of the Indian subcontinent.[21][22]
After Emperor Aurangzeb's death in 1707, Shivaji's grandson Shahu under the leadership of Peshwa Bajirao revived Maratha power and confided a great deal of authority to the Bhat family, who became hereditary peshwas (prime ministers). After he died in 1749, they became the effective rulers. The leading Maratha families—Scindia, Holkar, Bhonsle, and Gaekwad—extended their conquests in northern and central India and became more independent and difficult to control. The Marathas' rapid expansion was halted with the great defeat of Panipat in 1761, at the hands of the Afghan Empire, following which the effective power of Peshwas over other chiefs came to an end.[23][24][25]
The Maratha state was a confederacy of four Rajas under the leadership of the Peshwa at Poona (now Pune) in western India from 1721 till 1818. These were the Raja of Baroda of the House of Gaekwad, the Raja of Indore of the House of Holkar, the House of Scindia, and the Raja of Nagpur of the House of Bhonsle, while the Peshwa's dominions included the territories that later became the Bombay Province[b] and Central Provinces. After he was defeated by the Holkar dynasty in 1802, the Peshwa Baji Rao II sought protection from the Company, whose intervention destroyed the confederacy by 1818 after the Second and Third Anglo-Maratha Wars.[citation needed] The confederacy after 1737 extended from modern-day Maharashtra[26] in the south to Gwalior in the north after the Battle of Bhopal (1737), to Orissa in the east[27] or about a third of the subcontinent. A large portion of the Maratha realm was coastline, which had been secured by the potent Maratha Navy under commanders such as Kanhoji Angre. He successfully kept foreign naval ships at bay, particularly those of the Portuguese and British.[28]
- ^ Hatalkar (1958).
- ^ Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), p. 223.
- ^ Upton, Clive; Kretzschmar, William A. (2017). The Routledge dictionary of pronunciation for current English (2nd ed.). London ; New York: Routledge. p. 803. ISBN 978-1-138-12566-7.
- ^ Bollard, John K., ed. (1998). Pronouncing dictionary of proper names: pronunciations for more than 28,000 proper names, selected for currency, frequency, or difficulty of pronunciation (2nd ed.). Detroit, Mich: Omnigraphics. p. 633. ISBN 978-0-7808-0098-4.
- ^ Upton, Clive; Kretzschmar, William A.; Konopka, Rafal (2001). The Oxford dictionary of pronunciation for current English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 622. ISBN 978-0-19-863156-9. OCLC 46433686.
- ^ Sen, Sailendra (5 June 1994). Anglo-Maratha Relations, 1785-96, Volume 2. Popular Prakashan. ISBN 978-81-7154-789-0.
While the distracted Maratha kingdom of Aurangzeb's later ycars was fighting for survival, none could foresee that the insignificant British settlements of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta would one day become the political and economic bases of a vast empire.
- ^ Nandakumar, Sanish (7 February 2020). Rise and Fall of The Maratha Empire 1750-1818. Notion Press. ISBN 978-1-64783-961-1.
On April 1787, a treaty was signed between Mysore and the Maratha kingdom. It was the finalization of the treaty of Gajendragad. In this treaty, Tipu Sultan agreed to lay 40 lakh rupees to the Marathas as an arear, which his father Hyder Ali had owed to pay
- ^ Kumar, Ravinder (2013). Western India in the Nineteenth Century: A Study in the Social History of Maharashtra. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-03146-6.
Prominent among these chiefs were the Bhonsles who established themselves in Nagpur; the Scindhias who gained control of Gwalior; the Gaekwads who set themselves up in Baroda; and the Holkars who seized hold of Indore. Between the Peshwas and the Maratha chiefs there subsisted a relationship which it is most difficult to define. The chiefs were to all intents and purposes independent, yet they recognised the Peshwa as the head of the Maratha polity
- ^ Kantak (1993), p. 24.
- ^ Haig L, t-Colonel Sir Wolseley (1967). The Cambridge History of India. Volume 3 (III). Turks and Afghans. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University press. p. 395. ISBN 9781343884571. Retrieved 12 May 2017.
- ^ Garg, Sanjay (2022). The Raj and the Rajas : Money and Coinage in Colonial India. Taylor & Francis.
From the Mughal point of view, the hostilities between the Company Bahadur and the Marathas could appear as a troublesome contest for power between the Imperial Diwan of Bengal and the Vakil-i Mutlaq or Imperial Regent. The actual participants of course were considerably more cynical of the position of the Emperor, both the English and Scindia treating their suzerain lord with scant respect..The paramount position of the Mughal within the rituals of supreme and sovereign authority may be amply demonstrated by reference to the coins of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Following the doctrine of khutba and sikka, new claimants to hegemony could be expected to be revealed on the coins of different jurisdictions. Yet for much of India they are not to be found. Reference to the graph at the end of this paper will confirm that both the Marathas and the British coined in the name of the Mughal.
- ^ Mehta 2005: "Vishwanath consolidated the Maratha power in the Deccan and led an expeditionary force to Delhi (1718-19) as an ally of the Sayyad brothers. He made the Maratha presence felt at the metropolis for the first time, secured the release of Shahu's family members from Mughal captivity, and obtained the confirmation of the Mughal-Maratha Treaty of 1718 from the Emperor. This treaty, by which Shahu accepted the nominal suzerainty of the Mughal Crown in return for his right to collect chauth and sardeshmukhi from all the six provinces of 'the Mughal Deccan'...Delhi became the hub of Maratha political and military activities with effect from 1752, and they used the Mughal emperor as a mere tool in their hands to wield the imperial powers in his name and under his nominal suzerainty."
- ^ Kantak, M. R. (1978). "The Political Role of Different Hindu Castes and Communities in Maharashtra in the Foundation of the Shivaji's Swarajya". Bulletin of the Deccan College Research Institute. 38 (1): 44. JSTOR 42931051.
- ^ Gokhale, Sandhya (2008). The Chitpavans: Social Ascendancy of a Creative Minority in Maharashtra, 1818–1918. Shubhi Publications. p. 82. ISBN 978-81-8290-132-2.
- ^ Gordon, Stewart (1 February 2007). The Marathas 1600–1818. Cambridge University Press. pp. 120–131. ISBN 978-0-521-03316-9.
- ^ Pagdi (1993), p. 98: Shivaji's coronation and setting himself up as a sovereign prince symbolises the rise of the Indian people in all parts of the country. It was a bid for Hindavi Swarajya (Indian rule), a term in use in Marathi sources of history.
- ^ Jackson (2005), p. 38.
- ^ Pearson (1976), pp. 221–235.
- ^ Capper (1997): This source establishes the Maratha control of Delhi before the British
- ^ Sen (2010), pp. 1941–: The victory at Bhopal in 1738 established Maratha dominance at the Mughal court
- ^ Osborne, Eric W. (3 July 2020). "The Ulcer of the Mughal Empire: Mughals and Marathas, 1680–1707". Small Wars & Insurgencies. 31 (5): 988–1009. doi:10.1080/09592318.2020.1764711. ISSN 0959-2318. S2CID 221060782.
- ^ Clingingsmith, David; Williamson, Jeffrey G. (1 July 2008). "Deindustrialization in 18th and 19th century India: Mughal decline, climate shocks and British industrial ascent". Explorations in Economic History. 45 (3): 209–234. doi:10.1016/j.eeh.2007.11.002. ISSN 0014-4983.
- ^ Nandakumar, Sanish (7 February 2020). Rise and Fall of The Maratha Empire 1750-1818. Notion Press. ISBN 978-1-64783-961-1.
- ^ Ghosh, D. K. Ed. A Comprehensive History Of India Vol. 9. pp. 512–523.
- ^ New Cambridge History of India. The Marathas - Cambridge History of India (Vol. 2, Part 4).
- ^ Mehta (2005), p. 204.
- ^ Sen (2010), p. 16.
- ^ Pagdi (1993), p. 21.
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