The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c7.30

c7.30

The Peshwas had their own method of classifying horses as first class, second class, third class and useless. We read in a paper² of Balaji Baji Rao’s time that, ‘A horse worth Rs. 400 should be classed as superior, that worth Rs. 200 as middling and that worth Rs. 100 as inferior. Any horse worth less than Rs. 100 should not be counted in the muster. A horse classed as superior but having a bad rider should not be counted in the muster’. The standard was obviously lowered in Baji Rao’s time, for we find in the *sanad* granted to Bapuji Ganesh Gokhle³ in 1813-14 that a horse worth Rs. 300 was to be regarded as first class and a horse worth Rs. 150 as second class, and it is clear from the few papers that have come down to us that in a *saranjamdar’s* force first class animals formed a small proportion, and third class mounts largely preponderated though they were often expressly forbidden to employ third class and useless horses. In 1764-5, during the Karnatak expedition a muster of Khande Rao Pawar’s cavalry was taken at Galagnath on the banks of the Tungabhadra and out of the 963 horses of his forces: