MAIIRATTA, a country, called Maharashtra, first mentioned in Indian history in the Mahawanso. Maharashtra was one of the nine kingdoms of Southern India in the time of Hiwen Thsang, the Chinese Pilgrim (640 s.D.). The Mahratta race inhabit the country lying between the range of mountains which stretches along the south of the Nerbadda, parallel to the Vindhya chain, and a line drawn from Goa, on the sea-coast through Beder to Chanda, on the Wardha river. That river is its boundary on the east, as the sea is on the west. At the census of 1881 the number speak ing the Mahratta language was returned as 16,966,663.
The district of Poona, and the adjacent tracts of Satara and Sholapur, the home of the Mahrattas. stretch for about 150 miles along the Sahyadri ghats, between the 17th and 19th degrees of latitude, and extend at one point as far as 160 miles inland. To the west the Mahrattas pos sessed the narrow but strong tract of country which borders on the Konkan, and stretches parallel with the sea from near Surat to Canara. This country is well calculated for the mainten ance of defensive warfare, but that the people were not of the Kshatriya military caste is proved by the names of their particular tribes, the Kunbi, the Dhangar, and the Goala, or the farmer, shep herd, and cowherd, all of them rural occupations.
It is not known under what form of government the Mahrattas anciently dwelt- Early in the Christian era, Maharashtra is said to have been ruled by the great Salivahana, whose capital was at Paitan, on the Godavery. At a later period a powerful dynasty of Chalukya Rajputs reigned over a large part of Maharashtra and the Karnatic, with their capital at Kalliani, not far from Sholapur. The founder of the line, Jai Siuh, had overthrown another Rajput tribe, the Pallava. The Chalukyas rose to their greatest power under Talapa Deva, in the 10th century, and became extinct about the end of the 12th century, when the Yadhava rajas of Deogiri became supreme, and were ruling at the time of the Muhammadan invasion in 1294. There was also a raja at Punalla, near Kolhapitr, at the end of the 12th century, whose power extended as far north as the Nira river: He was conquered by Singhan, the Rajput ruler of Deogiri, whose camp is shown at Mhasurna, near Pusesauli, in the Satara district.
The first Muhammadan invasion took place in 1294, but the •Yadhava dynasty was not finally extinguished until 1312.
The Dekhan remained subject to the emperor of Dehli till A.D. 1345, when the Muhammadan nobles revolted from Muhammad Taghalaq.
The Mahrattas are mentioned by Ferishta in the transactions of the year A.D. 1485, but it was under the Bijapur kings that the Mahrattas first began to make themselves conspicuous. In the middle of the 16th century, the Adal Shahi king of Bijapur adopted the Mahratta language for his financial papers, and he enlisted a considerable number of Mahrattas in his army, and others of them were employed by Kutub Shah, king of Golconda. Later on, among the officers of Malik Amber (A.D. 1610, 1612) was Malaji Bhonsla, a Mahratta of respectable family, an active partisan, who at one time had been in the service of the Ahmadnaggur dynasty. His son Shah Ji married a daughter of Lukji Jadu Rao, one of Malik Amber's officers. One of the fruits of this union was Sivaji, the founder of the Mahratta empire.
It is certainly extraordinary that a nation so numerous as the Mahrattas should have remained almost wholly unnoticed in Indian history for so long a period as from the first Muhammadan con quest until the reign of Aurangzeb ; but it appears probable that prior to the time of Sivaji, the Mahratta country, like the other parts orthe Dekhan, was divided into little principalities and chicfships, many of which were dependent on the neighbouring Muhammadan princes, but never completely brought under subjection. Towards the close of the 17th century they suddenly started on a career of conquest, during which they obtained the control over a great portion of India, and established governments of shorter or longer duration at Poona, Satara, Kolhapur, Gwalior, Nagpur, Indore, Gujerat, and Tanjore.