A History of the Mahrattas v1.c5.s3.23

v1.c5.s3.23

‘In common parlance the term Marāthā is used with varying meanings. Residents in the Deccan, the ancient Mahārāshtra, speaking the language of the Bombay Deccan, Marāthī, would be referred to when in other parts of India as Marāthās or Arers. The term “Mahārathini” is applied to a princess mentioned in the cave-inscriptions of the first century A.D.; but we hear little of Marāthās, as such, until the rise of Sivājī in the seventeenth century brought them into political prominence. At that time Sivājī and his followers were referred to by contemporary writers as Marāthās or Sivājīs, this designation probably covering Dhangars, Rāmoshis, and Kolis (Māvalis), who joined in the Marāthā crusades across India. At the present day, Marāthā in its most limited sense means a member of the superior Marāthā land-owning or fighting class, of which His Highness the Mahārāja of Kolhāpur, a direct descendant of Sivāji, is a leading example. Used in this sense the term denotes a class that claims Kshattriya rank, does not allow widow-remarriage, and will not intermarry with the very numerous occupational divisions known as Kunbīs, Sutārs, Lohārs, Parīts, &c. It is worthy of note that a member of the ordinary cultivating caste in the Bombay Deccan will ordinarily describe himself as a Marāthā. Pressed as to what kind of Marāthā he is, he will explain that he is a Kunbī, i.e. cultivator, thereby indicating a distinction, based on occupation, with its inferior social status, between his class and the land-owning and fighting class already referred to, which for lack of a better term may be described as Marāthās proper. The claims of the latter to Kshattriya rank based on alleged Rājpūt descent are of very doubtful validity; and it is probable that they and the Kunbīs do not differ greatly in racial origin. When the Kunbīs are more closely examined, it appears that on the one hand a Kunbī may, if successful, rise to the superior Marāthā status, while on the other hand there is by no means an insuperable barrier between Kunbīs and the tribe of Kolis, an undoubtedly aboriginal tribe of the Western Ghāts. A Kolī taking to settled cultivation in the plains may become a Marāthā Kunbī. Proof of such a development in certain villages of the Poona district was furnished to me during the census of 1901. From this it is not unnatural to assume that there is to be found in Marāthās of all grades a greater admixture of aboriginal tribal elements than it has been usual in the past to admit.