A History of the Mahrattas v1.c5.s3.42

v1.c5.s3.42

Again, one of the salient traits of the upper-class Marāthās of historic times was their profound attachment to the small estates or villages in the Deccan, in which they had originally held the hereditary office of pātel or village headman; and this attachment persisted long after they had carved out for themselves principalities and states in other parts of India. The Bhoslē of Nāgpur adopted a personal title from the village of Deor in Sātāra District; the Rājā of Sātāra, after he had become a mere puppet of the Pēshwās, clung to the watan lands which he had inherited from Sivājī. Sindia preferred to be styled Pātel in the revenue accounts of the villages he acquired in Nimār; while Holkar and the Powārs of Dhār struggled desperately after the British conquest to recover the pātelki rights in Deccan villages which had belonged to their ancestors. Lastly we read that Rāghuji Bhoslē, the first Rājā of Nāgpur, used to celebrate his Dasahra on the ninth instead of the tenth day, as is usual among the martial classes, in order to emphasize the fact that he was originally an agriculturist of Mahārāshtra, and only incidentally a warrior.³ It seems impossible to regard this trait as arising merely from land-hunger or political considerations. Was it not rather the manifestation of a natural instinct, of an innate conviction that they were the real autochthones of Mahārāshtra, and that their connexion with the very soil of the Deccan dated back to misty ages long before the rise of Saka viceroys, Chālukya overlords and Muhammadan Sultāns?