A History of the Mahrattas v1.c7.50

v1.c7.50

³ The Peishwas, who attained sovereign authority in the Mahratta nation, were of this class. Concanists, from this circumstance, and the power which it naturally threw into their hands, pretend to some superiority in cast; but these pretensions are not well founded. They are termed Chitpawun, which, amongst other significations, means ‘a dead body raised.’ Their origin, according to what is mentioned in a Sanscrit work, entitled The Syhadree Kind [Sahyādrī Khand], was fourteen dead bodies of different casts that had been drowned in the sea; whence they were transported by Vishnoo in his outar of Pureshram, after he had forced the sea to give up the Concan, or Pureshram Ksheter [Parasurām Kshetra], and re-animated to people his new country. From these fourteen families sprang the Concanee