Administrative System of the Marathas c7.2

c7.2

While dealing with the Peshwa period, we are confronted with such an amazing abundance of materials, that we can hardly expect to do justice to them. State-papers have been carefully preserved. Revenue regulations, instructions to revenue collectors and higher officials, deeds of sale, and other documents, judgments in both civil and criminal suits, have come down to us in their hundreds and thousands. They give us a vivid picture of the government as it actually was in the Peshwa period. But when we approach the Shivaji period, we are confronted with such a scarcity of materials as is most discouraging. Of state-papers we have but very few, and they are not very important either. Mr. Rajwade complains¹ that during his twenty years of labour and research, he has hardly come across twenty-five important Shivaji-papers. Most of these papers again are political and diplomatic correspondence, and do not enlighten us about the administrative system. Fortunately, however, some old documents, that cannot properly be styled as state-papers, have after ages seen light, thanks to the labour of Mr. V. K. Rajwade. These give us useful information about some of the early adherents of Shivaji, the history of their *watans*, sometimes an account of their deeds and exploits and often a long and exhaustive list of the taxes, cesses, and *abwabs* of those days.² From these family papers of the old *Sardars* and *Jagirdars* we can frame a fairly accurate sketch of the administrative system of Shivaji, but these papers have to be used with extreme care and caution.