Administrative System of the Marathas c8.s5.22

c8.s5.22

It is clear from the name of the departments that most of these officers were concerned more with the king's household than with any work of imperial or public interest. A few of them, on the other hand, like those in charge of the artillery, the mint, and the public treasury, fall under a different category. Shivaji's division of his government and household affairs into eighteen karkhanas and twelve mahals was, therefore, not a scientific one. But we cannot expect from a man surrounded on all sides by enemies, and ever engaged in a war of defence as well as of conquest, a scientific division of departments on modern lines. He had evidently copied from the existing system and found little leisure in his eventful career to improve upon it.