Maratha Confederacy Maratha Empire | |||||||||||
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1674–1818 | |||||||||||
Royal Seal of Shivaji I
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Motto: "हर हर महादेव" "Har Har Mahadev" (English: "Praises to Mahadev (Shiva)") | |||||||||||
![]() The Maratha Confederacy and its occupied territories during the Afghan–Maratha War in 1758 (yellow) | |||||||||||
Capital | Royal seat: Peshwa's seat: Poona (1728–1818) | ||||||||||
Official languages | |||||||||||
Religion | State religion: Hinduism Other: 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 | ||||||||||
1680–1707 | |||||||||||
• Recognition of Shahu I as the legitimate ruler by Bahadur Shah I | 1707 | ||||||||||
• Appointment of Balaji Vishwanath as hereditary Peshwa | 1713 | ||||||||||
7 January 1738 | |||||||||||
5 November 1817 – 9 April 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,[6][7][8] was an early modern polity in the Indian subcontinent. It comprised the realms of the Peshwa and four major independent Maratha states[9][10] often subordinate to the former. It was established in 1674 with the coronation of Shivaji as the Maratha Chhatrapati and recognised by Emperor Bahadur Shah I as a tributary state in 1707 following a prolonged rebellion.[11] Following this, the Marathas continued to recognise the Mughal emperor as their nominal suzerain, similar to other contemporary Indian entities, though in practice, imperial politics at Delhi were largely influenced by the Marathas between 1737 and 1803.[b][12][13]
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.[14] Shivaji's monarchy was initially referred to as the Maratha Kingdom,[15][6] which 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").[18][19]
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.[20][21][22] 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.[23][24]
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 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.[25][26][27]
The structure of the Maratha state was that of 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, Raja of Ujjain of 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[c] and Central Provinces.
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 stable borders of the confederacy after 1737 extended from modern-day Maharashtra[28] in the south to Gwalior in the north after the Battle of Bhopal (1737), to Orissa in the east[29] or about a third of the subcontinent.
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.
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
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.
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.
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