A History of the Mahrattas v1.c5.s3.38

v1.c5.s3.38

² Elphinstone (*History of India*) arrived at the same conclusion. ‘The chiefs (Mahratta) in those days were men of families who had for generations filled the old Hindu offices of heads of villages or functionaries of districts, and had often been employed as partisans under the governments of Ahmadnagar and Bijāpur. They were all Sūdras, of the same caste with their people, though some tried to raise their consequence by claiming an infusion of Rājpūt blood’ (*O.H.I.*, 431).