Maharashtra, 1908
Maharashtra
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
The name given to the country in which the Marathi language is spoken, and more especially to the Deccan in its most restricted sense. The origin of the word is still a subject of speculation. Molesworth in his Dictionary of the Marathi language gives currency to the derivation from Alahar and rdshfra, i. e. the country of the Mahars, an early and now socially degraded tribe found throughout the Deccan ; but a better opinion seems to be that it is derived from Maharatha, i. e. the great Ratha or Ratta, the Rattas having been once the ruling race in the Southern Maratha Country A branch of this tribe, the Rashtrakutas, ruled in the Deccan between the sixth and tenth centuries a. d. In su})port of this derivation, there is an inscription of the second century in which the terms ' Maharatha ' and ' Mahablioja " are used, which suggests that Maha is an honorific affix. In the third century before Christ, Asoka is reported to have sent Buddhist missionaries to the country. In the time of the early Chalukyas, the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsiang (a. d. 640) refers to their kingdom as Mo-ho-lo-cha, i. e. Ma-ha-ra-tha.
The country between Gujarat and the Carnatic, in which Marathi is spoken, includes the line of the western Ghats for many hundred miles, and the country lying below and above this barrier. On the west it is a country of gorge and mountain, the trap formation of the hills offering a natural line of fortifications, of which the Marathas in their early struggles for power were not slow to avail themselves. Inland from the crest of the Ghats the country for some distance resembles the spurs and valleys lying below, and both were formerly classed together as the Konkan Ghat Matha, or 'spurs of the Ghats.' Farther east the rocky promontories become less marked until ihey sink into isolated hills, the country assuming the aspect of a vast and almost treeless plain, intersected by numerous rivers, but for the most part scantily watered and infertile.
Maharashtra is the country of the Marathas, who form 30 per cent, of its population. Once a large tribe, the Marathas have divided into numerous occupational castes, such as the Maratha Brahman, the Maratha Kumhar, Shimpi, Dhobi, &c., who do not usually describe themselves as Marathas in their own country. The term is now reserved for the descendants of the old fighting stock, a hardy and vigorous class once the terror of India, now merged very largely in the cultivating class known as Kunbls. A Maratha and a Maratha Kunbi differ only in social precedence. Thus the leading Maratha families wear the sacred thread, do not allow widow marriage, and claim the rites and position of Kshattriyas, while the Maratha Kunbis allow widow marriage, and neither wear the thread nor claim to be ' twice- born.' As a body, the Marathas are divided into numerous clans, whose surnames betray Aryan, Rajput, and Uravidian elements, the last being the strongest. There are traces of an original totemistic organiza- tion still to be detected among them. Three million persons in the Konkan and Deccan returned themselves as Marathas in the Census of 1 90 1, and form the backbone of the population of the Bombay Presidency. Fond of their traditions of deeds of valour, embodied in the ballads of the country-side, the Maratha peasantry are a frugal and peace-loving people, content to extort a bare subsistence from the stony Deccan uplands or the rocky spurs of the Ghats. At holiday seasons they make pilgrimages to numerous shrines of saints and heroes scattered over the country-side, and expend small sums in harm- less merrymaking when the business of the pilgrimage has been disposed of. It is possible that the Marathas are connected with the Reddis of the Telugu country.
For the salient facts of Maratha history see Bombay Presidency.
