Administrative System of the Marathas c14.s1.1

c14.s1.1

In his military organisation Shivaji aimed at efficiency. Vastly inferior to his enemies in numerical strength, he tried to compensate by quality the lack of quantity. He, therefore, tried to enforce strict discipline in his army and appealed not only to the military instinct but also to the patriotism of his soldiers. His earliest adherents were the Mawalis, a race of hardy hillmen, who came into prominence under Shivaji's leadership and have since then relapsed to their original obscurity. Shivaji depended mainly on these hillmen and the hills. The hills constituted an excellent defence, while the hillmen accompanied him in all his blod excursions and perilous raids. The ill clad and ill fed hillmen of Mawal were trained into an excellent infantry by the great Maratha captain, and he converted the bare rocks and mountains into impregnable forts to bar the enemy's progress through his country. At the time of his death, Shivaji possessed no less than two hundred and forty forts and strongholds, and in the jabita swarajya of Shahu¹ we find that not a single Taluka or Pargana was left without a protecting fort. Scott-Waring says that, "before his death he (Shivaji) had established his authority over an extent of country four hundred miles in length, and one hundred and twenty in breadth. His forts extended over the vast range of mountains which skirt the western shore of India. Regular fortification barred the open approaches : every pass was commanded by forts: every steep and overhanging rock was occupied as a station to roll down great masses of stone, which made their way to the bottom, and impeded the labouring march of cavalry, elephants, and carriages."² Chitnis pointedly remarked that forts were the very life of a kingdom,³ and Lokahitavadi tells us that Shivaji was famous mainly for building forts.