MAHRATTAS, ma-rat'tnz. A people inhabit ing Central India, south of the Ganges from Gwalior to Goa. They are a mixed people, speak ing a Hindu language, the Marathi (q.v.), and are Hindus in religion. The Nahrattas are a vigorous and active race, possessed of great endur ance. and distinguished for military courage, with which cruelty has been combined. They seem to have entered India prior to the Moham medan conquests by Nahmud of Ghazni at the beginning of the eleventh century. The founder of the Nahratta power was Sivaji, a freebooter or adventurer, whose father was an officer in the service of the last King of Bijapur. By policy or by force be eventually succeeded in compelling the several independent chiefs to acknowledge him as their leader, and with the large army then at his command, he overran and subdued a large portion of the Emperor of Delhi's territory. In 1674 Si vaji was formally proclaimed Maharaja of the Konkan. He organized and levied a species of blackmail on his neighbors, called ehauth (Skt.
caturtha, `four') , a fourth of the land revenues. Sivaji's son, Sambaji, succeeded him in 1680, and after vigorously following out his father's policy was taken prisoner by Aurungzebe (q.v.) in 16S9, and put to death. The incapacity of the subse quent rulers gave free rein to the intrigues, and am bitions of their Brahman prime ministers or posh was. (See PEsnwA.) Soon the Peshwa became the hereditary sovereign, Sivaji's descendant being degraded to the position of a titular monarch. In this respect Mahratta history is of special inter est as presenting a struggle between the priestly and warrior castes, with the victory finally won by the Brahmans. Early in the eighteenth cen tury five Mahratta States were formed—Baroda, Gwalior, Indore, Nagpur, and the Peshwa's do minions (the capital of which was Poona). The
usual internecine wars followed, and ultimately the East India Company was compelled to inter fere. The invasion of the Empire of Delhi by the Persian Nadir Shah in 1739 afforded the Iffahrattas an opportunity, of which they eagerly availed themselves, to wrest additional territory from the Mogul Emperor. From this time they discharged the office of arbiters in the quarrels between the Emperor, his Vizier, and his rebel lious subjects; but the defeat they sustained in January. 1701. at the hands of Ahmed Shah, the ruler of Afghanistan, on the field of Panipat, greatly weakened their power for a time. The wars between the British and the Mahrattas be gan in 1779 during the administration of Warren Hastings. The Mahratta War of 1803-05 was marked by the brilliant victories of Wellesley, Lake, and others over the armies of Gwalior, Indore, and Nagpur, and resulted in large ac quisitions of territory by the British. In 1817 the Peshwa of the Afahrattas took up arms against the British, who were also attacked by the Raja of Nagpur and by the ruler of Indore. The Brit ish speedily broke the power of the enemy and annexed the Pesh•a's dominions to the Presi dency of Bombay. Indore became a vassal State of the British, who at a later period annexed Nagpur. The Mahratta State of Gwalior, which had risen to great power in the eighteenth cen tury, came under British control in 1843-44. The three "Alahratta States of Indore. Gwalior, and Baroda refrained from participation in the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. The ruler of lndore hears the name of Holkar (q.v.), that of Gwalior is called Sindia (q.v.), and that of Baroda is known as the Gaekwar (q.v.). See Grant-Duff, History of the Mahrattas (Bombay. 1863).