The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c12.22

c12.22

Shivaji did not permit any women to accompany his forces, but the Peshwa’s camp was generally full of them. When exactly this innovation or lapse first occurred we do not know. Probably when Baji Rao I began to enliven the tedium of his leisure hours in the company of the fair Mastani, his followers also began to seek similar relief and similar relaxation. Gopika Bai sometimes accompanied her lord on his expeditions; and at Panipat the presence of the wives and mothers of his comrades caused Sadashiv Rao no little embarrassment and anxiety. Parvati Bai, his wife, was safely conducted home, but Nana Fadnavis lost his mother. The experience of Panipat, however, proved no deterrent, for Forbes, Broughton and Moor, who wrote from personal knowledge, all testify to the presence of a large number of women and non-combatants in the camps of Raghoba, Daulat Rao Sindhia and Parashram Bhau Patwardhan.² Moor says that ‘the number of women with this (Patwardhan’s) army, could they be at all accurately computed, would not be believed; our estimate so far exceeds the bounds of probability, at least strangers would deem it so, that we are afraid to give it’.³