[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Polity, law and society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity) › [The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.sen-1928) › c2.2 # The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c2.2 The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c2.2 - **Language:** English ### [c2.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.sen-1928.c2.2) If the civilian student of military history suffers from some disadvantage due to his lack of technical knowledge, he is further handicapped when he selects the military history of the Marathas as the subject of his enquiry. In England a large number of useful works on the art and science of war was written and published in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries but the Maratha commanders and strategists have left us nothing of that kind. Their military theories must, therefore, remain a subject of conjecture. Luckily facts and figures, on which such conjectures can safely be based, are not wanting, though they are still buried in unpublished records scattered in different parts of India and Europe. All the information we need cannot be found in Marathi records, but these can be profitably supplemented by contemporary English, Portuguese, French and Dutch records; and for the last phase of the Maratha military organisation we have the valuable accounts left by European military experts like Tone and Smith, who wrote from personal knowledge. On the naval history of the Marathas their own records do not throw much light, and we have to rely almost entirely on foreign sources. It has been my endeavour to piece together these widely scattered scraps of information in the following pages; with what success, it is for my readers to judge. I have examined, as far as possible, all the manuscript records available in London, Paris, Lisbon, Evora and Goa, and I have not neglected the rare old publications likely to throw light on my subject. But these old records and manuscripts are without any index and in some cases they are not in a good state of preservation. It is, therefore, quite possible that some papers bearing on the subject may have escaped my scrutiny. - [Previous: c2.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.sen-1928.c2.1) - [Next: c2.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.sen-1928.c2.3) - [Up: c2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.sen-1928.c2) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.sen-1928.c2.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.sen-1928.c2.2) · Pramāṇa