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Maratha Empire

Maratha Empire
Maratha Confederacy
1674–1818
Flag
Flag
Royal Seal of Shivaji I of Marathas
Royal Seal of Shivaji I
Motto: "हर हर महादेव"
"Har Har Mahādēv".[1][2]
(English: "Praises to Mahādēv (Shiva)")
The Maratha Empire in 1760
The Maratha Empire in 1760
CapitalRoyal seat:
Peshwa's seat:
Poona (1728–1818)
Official languages
Religion
State religion:
Hinduism
Other:
Other religions in South Asia
GovernmentAbsolute monarchy (1674–1731)
Federal aristocracy with a restricted monarchial figurehead[4] (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)
LegislatureAshta Pradhan
History 
• Coronation of Shivaji
6 June 1674
1680–1707
• Recognition of Shahu I as the legitimate ruler by Bahadur Shah I
3 August 1707
• Appointment of Balaji Vishwanath as hereditary Peshwa
16 November 1713[5][6]
7 January 1738
8 March 1758 – 14 January 1761
5 November 1817 – 9 April 1819
• Dissolution of the Maratha Confederacy
1818
Area
1760[7][8]2,500,000 km2 (970,000 sq mi)
CurrencyRupee, Paisa, Mohur, Shivrai, Hon
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Mughal Empire
Bijapur Sultanate
Company Raj
Today part of

The Maratha Empire,[a][12][13][14] also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern polity in the Indian subcontinent. It comprised the realms of the Peshwa and four major independent Maratha states[15][16] under the nominal leadership of the former.

The Marathas were a Marathi-speaking peasantry group from the western Deccan Plateau (present-day Maharashtra) that rose to prominence under leadership of Shivaji (17th century), who revolted against the Bijapur Sultanate and the Mughal Empire for establishing "Hindavi Swarajya" (lit. 'self-rule of Hindus').[17][18] The religious attitude of Emperor Aurangzeb estranged non-Muslims, and the Maratha insurgency came at a great cost for his men and treasury.[19][20] The Maratha government also included warriors, administrators, and other nobles from other Marathi groups.[21] Shivaji's monarchy, referred to as the Maratha Kingdom,[22] expanded into a large realm in the 18th century under the leadership of Peshwa Bajirao I. Marathas from the time of Shahu I recognised the Mughal emperor as their nominal suzerain, similar to other contemporary Indian entities, though in practice, Mughal politics were largely controlled by the Marathas between 1737 and 1803.[b][23][24][c][26][27][d]

After 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. The Marathas' rapid expansion was halted with the great defeat of Panipat in 1761, at the hands of the Durrani Empire. The death of young Peshwa Madhavrao I marked the end of Peshwa’s effective authority over other chiefs in the empire.[29][30][31] After he was defeated by the Holkar dynasty in 1802, the Peshwa Baji Rao II sought protection from the British East India Company, whose intervention destroyed the confederacy by 1818 after the Second and Third Anglo-Maratha Wars.

The structure of the Maratha state was that of a confederacy of four Maharajas under the leadership of the Peshwa at Poona (now Pune) in western India. These were the Scindia Maharaja of Gwalior, the Gaekwad Maharaja of Baroda, the Holkar Maharaja of Indore and the Bhonsle Maharaja of Nagpur.[32][33] The stable borders of the confederacy after the Battle of Bhopal in 1737 extended from modern-day Maharashtra[34] in the south to Gwalior in the north, to Orissa in the east[35] or about a third of the subcontinent.

  1. ^ Madan, T. N. (1988). Way of Life: King, Householder, Renouncer : Essays in Honour of Louis Dumont. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. p. 360. ISBN 978-81-208-0527-9.
  2. ^ Chattopadhyaya, Sudhakar (1978). Reflections on the Tantras. Motilal Banarsidass Publ. p. 75. ISBN 978-81-208-0691-7.
  3. ^ Hatalkar (1958).
  4. ^ "Maratha Aristocracy: The Scindias of Gwalior".
  5. ^ Kincaid & Parasnis, p.156
  6. ^ Haig L, t-Colonel Sir Wolseley (1967). The Cambridge History of India. Vol. 3 (III). Turks and Afghans. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University press. p. 394. ISBN 9781343884571. Retrieved 12 May 2017.
  7. ^ Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), p. 223.
  8. ^ Bang, Peter Fibiger; Bayly, C. A.; Scheidel, Walter (2020). The Oxford World History of Empire: Volume One: The Imperial Experience. Oxford University Press. pp. 92–94. ISBN 978-0-19-977311-4.
  9. ^ 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.
  10. ^ 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.
  11. ^ 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.
  12. ^ O'Hanlon, Rosalind (2016), "Maratha Empire", The Encyclopedia of Empire, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, pp. 1–7, doi:10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe357, ISBN 978-1-118-45507-4
  13. ^ Guha, Sumit (23 December 2019), "The Maratha Empire", Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History, ISBN 978-0-19-027772-7
  14. ^ Vendell, Dominic (26 November 2021). "Transacting Politics in the Maratha Empire: An Agreement between Friends, 1795". Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. 64 (5–6): 826–863. doi:10.1163/15685209-12341554. hdl:10871/125607. ISSN 1568-5209. The secretaries Sridhar Lakshman and Krishnarao Madhav managed the communications of the Maratha ruler at Nagpur, while their partner, the merchant-moneylender Baburao Viswanath Vaidya, was the envoy of the Pune-based Peshwa, a powerful Brahmin minister and leader of the allied states comprising the Maratha Empire.
  15. ^ 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
  16. ^ Kantak (1993), p. 24.
  17. ^ 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.
  18. ^ Jackson (2005), p. 38.
  19. ^ 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.
  20. ^ 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.
  21. ^ 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.
  22. ^ Sen, Sailendra (1994). Anglo-Maratha Relations, 1785–96. Vol. 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.
  23. ^ Garg, Sanjay (2022). The Raj and the Rajas : Money and Coinage in Colonial India. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-000-82889-4. 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.
  24. ^ 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."
  25. ^ Chaurasia (2004), p. X, preface.
  26. ^ Chaurasia (2004), p. 12.
  27. ^ Vincent A. Smith (1981). The Oxford History of India, Edited by Percival Spear. Oxford University Press. p. 492. We have seen that the Marathas rather than the Persians or Afghans were the successors of the Mughuls as the holders of imperial power. The Persian attempt proved to be nothing more than a high-sounding raid while the Afghans of Ahmad Shah Abdali lacked the resources to sustain and the genius to exploit their victory. The Maratha succession proved to be an abortive one, but they controlled a larger part of India for a longer period than anyone else during the Anglo-Mughul interregnum
  28. ^ 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.
  29. ^ Ghosh, D.K. Ed. A Comprehensive History Of India Vol. 9. pp. 512–523.
  30. ^ New Cambridge History of India. The Marathas – Cambridge History of India (Vol. 2, Part 4).
  31. ^ "Maratha confederacy | Maratha Empire, Peshwa, Shivaji | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 24 April 2025. The effective control of the peshwas ended with the great defeat of Panipat (1761) at the hands of the Afghans and the death of the young peshwa Madhav Rao I in 1772. Thereafter the Maratha state was a confederacy of five chiefs under the nominal leadership of the peshwa at Poona (now Pune) in western India. Though they united on occasion, as against the British (1775–82), more often they quarreled.
  32. ^ Goswami, Arunansh (1 December 2023). "Maharaja's German: Anthony Pohlmann in India. | EBSCOhost". openurl.ebsco.com. Retrieved 16 May 2025.
  33. ^ "Rajas of Maratha Confederacy". Britannica History. Retrieved 17 October 2024.
  34. ^ Mehta (2005), p. 204.
  35. ^ Sen (2010), p. 16.


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