The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c7.s13: Vijayanagara and the Marathas
The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c7.s13
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Vijayanagara and the Marathas
c7.s13.1
1. The Empire of Vijayanagara (1336-1565) in the South was perhapes the most important seat of independent Hindu culture during the period of Moslem hegemony.⁴³ In any case, it emerged as an organ of Hindu sovereignty to withstand the inroads of the Moslem Turks into the South anticipating by three centuries the rise of the Marathas and the Sikhs as the bulwark of Hindu freedom against Moslem expansion.
c7.s13.2
⁴³ Sewell: *A Forgotten Empire* (London 1900); Heras: *The Aravidu Dynasty of Vijayanagara* Vol. I. (Madras 1927); B. A. Saletore: *Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire*, 2 vols. (Madras 1934).
c7.s13.3
2. The Empire of the Marathas (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries).⁴⁴ The Maratha power represents the *risorgimento* of Hindu political energism against the Moslem-Moghul Empire. The Marathas were in contact with the new forces—Portuguese, French and British—from Europe.
c7.s13.4
⁴⁴ J. N. Sarkar: *Shivaji and His Times* (Calcutta), G. S. Sardesai: *Main Currents in Maratha History* (Patna 1933), S. N. Sen: *Administrative System of the Marathas* (Calcutta 1923), *Military System of the Marathas* (Calcutta 1928).