from India, history of

The Marathas

The Maratha kingdom at the death of Shivaji (1680).

Early history

There is no doubt that the single most important power that emerged in the long twilight of the Mughal dynasty was the Marathas. Initially deriving from the western Deccan, the Marathas were a peasant warrior group that rose to prominence during the rule in that region of the sultans of Bijapur and Ahmadnagar. The most important Maratha warrior clan, the Bhonsles, had held extensive jagirs (land-tax entitlements) under the 'Adil Shahi rulers, and these were consolidated in the course of the 1630s and '40s, as Bijapur expanded to the south and southwest. Shahji Bhonsle, the first prominent member of the clan, drew substantial revenues from the Karnataka region, in territories that had once been controlled by the rulers of Mysore and other chiefs who derived from the collapsing Vijayanagar kingdom. One of his children, Shivaji Bhonsle, emerged as the most powerful figure in the clan to the west, while Shivaji's half-brother Vyamkoji was able to gain control over the Kaveri delta and the kingdom of Thanjavur in the 1670s.

Shivaji's early successes were built on a complex relationship of mixed negotiation and conflict with the 'Adil Shahis on the one hand and the Mughals on the other. His raids brought him considerable returns and were directed not merely at agrarian resources but also at trade. In 1664, he mounted a celebrated raid on the Gujarat port city of Surat, at that time the most important of the ports under Mughal control. The next year, he signed a treaty with the Mughals, but this soon broke down after a disastrous visit by the Maratha leader to Aurangzeb's court in Agra. Between 1670 and the end of his life (1680), Shivaji devoted his time to a wide-ranging set of expeditions, extending from Thanjavur in the southeast to Khandesh and Berar in the northwest. This was a portent of things to come, for the mobility of the Marathas was to become legendary in the 18th century.