The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c21.148

v4.c21.148

The Marāthās were now a very different people from the sturdy hillmen who had fought and conquered under the great Shivājī, "like our old Britons", as Fryer describes them, "half naked and as fierce". Contact with the Mughuls had introduced into the Deccan a love of refinement and culture before unknown. The nobles and their wives went about arrayed in silk and cloth of gold. Contemporary correspondence contains constant applications from writers in the Deccan to their friends in Hindūstān to procure for them old Sanskrit manuscripts, pictures and carvings, other articles of luxury, and dancing girls and musicians. The fine examples of Mughul and Rājput painting to be found to-day in places like Sātārā probably found their way to the south about this time. The Shanwār Wādā in Poona, the Peshwā's official residence, was six storeys high, and contained a series of sumptuous halls decorated with mirrors and carved ivory, and marble courtyards where innumerable fountains played incessantly.² In the Peshwā's court, the elaborate etiquette of the Mughul nobility was strictly followed. But all this imported luxury had a demoralising effect upon the hardy and simple character of the nation.