SINDIA, the name of a powerful family of Mahratta chiefs and princes. which occu pies a conspicuous place in the history'of India during the 18th and 19th centuries. The founder of the family was RANOJEE SINDIA, a sudra of the Iambi ("cultivator") tribe, who from a menial station in the household of the peishwa, rose to a high rank in the body-guard, and after 1743 received in hereditary fief the half of the extensive province of His son. MADITAJEE SANDIA (1750-94), joined the Mahratta confederation, and was present at the battle of Paniput (1761), where he was so desperately injured as to be left for dead, but he speedily recovered. and, on the retirement of the Afghans and their allies, repossessed himself of his hereditary dominions. On the death Him Holker (q.v.) he became the chief of the Mahratta princes. and had the command of the peishwa's bodyguard; and in 1770, the peishwa and 'his two powerful feuda tories, Sindia and Holka•, aided the emperor of Delhi in expelling the Sikhs from his territories, of which the administration was handed over to Sindia, who was now by far the most powerful of the Nahratta chiefs. The murder of the young peishwa by his uncle, Ragoba, and the consequent expulsion of the murderer from the throne he had seized, brought Sindia for the first time into collision with the who had espoused Ragoba's cause; but in the war (1779-82) which followed, fortune distributed her favors with impartiality, and by the treaty of Salbye (1782) Sindia was recognized as a sov ereign prince, and confirmed in all his possessions. In 1784 he captured the stronghold of Gwalior, and in the following year marched on Delhi, to restore his preponderance in the councils of the puppet monarch, and subsequently seized Agra, Allyginir, and nearly the whole of the Deab (q.v).. The manifold advantages of European discipline had struck hith forcibly during the war with the British, with the aid of an able French officer, lie introduced it into his own army. An army of 13,000 regular and 6,000 irreg ular infantry, 2,000 irregular and 600 Persian horse,' with 200 cannon, was accordingly raised, and under the leadership of De Boigne, the officer above noticed, reduced Joud pore, Odeypore, and Jypure, three Raj!)fit states, and effectually humbled the pride of Holkar.—DowLur RAo SLNDIA (1794-1827) continued his grand-uncle's policy, and during the troubles which convulsed Holkar's dominions at the commencement of the 19th c., he ravaged Indore and Poona, but was wholly routed in 1602 by Jeswunt Rao Holkar.
Having joined Bhonsla, the rajah of Berra, in a raid on the nizam (1803), he brought down upon himself the vengeance of the East India company. The confederated Mah rattas were routed at Assaye and Argaum by sir Arthur Wellesley; Sindia's disciplined troops, under the command of French officers, were scattered irretrievably at Patper gunge (near Delhi) and •aswari by lord Lake, and he only escaped total ruin by aceeding to a treaty by which all his possessions in the Doab and along the right bank of the Jumna were ceded to the British. Gwalior was, however, restored in 1805, and from this time became the capital of Sindia's dominions.. Sindia had been taught by his reverses a useful lesson, and he declined to join Holkar, the peishwa, and Blionsla, in their attack (1817) on the British, and thus escaped the swift destruction which was visited upon his turbulent neighbors. During the reign of BFIAGERUT RAO SINDIA, a minor, the Gwalior dominions vere in such a state of anarchy, that the British were compelled to insist on certain guarantees for the preservation of tranquillity; and on these being rejected, a war followed, and the Mahrattas were routed at 3faha•ajpar (Dec. 29, 1843) by lord Gough, and at Puniaur by maj.gen. Grey on the same day. Gwa-• lion fell into the hands of the British, Jan. 4, 1k4, and Sindia submitted to the condi tions demanded of him, besides maintaining a contingent force of sepoys at Gwalior. In 1853 he was declared of age by the East India company, and in 1858 he took the field at the head of his own army against tie Gwalior contingent, which had joined in the great sepoy mutiny. But the most of his troops deserted him during the battle (June 1), and he narrowly escaped by fleeing to Agra. Sindia was subsequently reinstated by sir Hugh Rose, and received from the British government numerous testimonials of its grateful respect. He is a knight grand cress of the order of the bath.
GI1TE'CrRE (Let. sine curer, without care), in common language, an office which has revenue without employment. In the canon law, a sinecure is an ecclesiastical benefice, such as a chaplainry, canonry, or chantry, to which no spiritual function is attached, except reading prayers and singing, and where residence is not required. The strictest kind of sinecure is where the benefice is a donative, and is conferred by the patron expressly without cure of souls, the cure either not existing, or being committed to a vicar. Sinecure rectories were abolished by 3 and 4 Viet. c. 113, s. 48.