Administrative System of the Marathas c14.s1.8

c14.s1.8

The system was neither new nor unknown in Southern India. The regulations of Muhammad Adil Shah of Bijapur lay down clearly that the officers in charge of a fort should be three in number, neither less nor more. The Muhammadan ruler also says that these officers should be frequently transferred from one fort to another.⁶ We have seen in the preceding chapter that Shivaji also used to transfer the Mudradharis or officers in charge of forts and strongholds very often. He could not safely ignore the low standard of public morality that prevailed at the time while framing these regulations. It would have been sheer imprudence to leave a single officer entirely in charge of a fort in those days of disloyalty and treachery, when gold succeeded where policy and prowess failed. Shivaji himself had frequently used the golden bait with success and it was but natural that he should take proper precaution against its repetition at his cost. It was also necessary that he should conciliate the three principal castes by distributing the responsible posts under his government equally among them. The Prabhus and the Brahmans were jealous of one another, may be for social reasons, but the state of their feeling could not be overlooked even in affairs administrative. Shivaji himself had reason to fear Brahman opposition when he assumed the sacred thread prior to his coronation. The Marathas of his time also eminently deserved high commands in the army. The different sections of the great Brahman caste were not in amity⁷ and Chitnis tells us that the Sabnises were recruited from all classes of Brahmans, *viz.*, the Deshasthas, the Karhadas, the Konkanasthas and the Madhyandins.