The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c8.65

c8.65

The Pendharis formed a source of income to the Maratha generals. These predatory hordes accompanied the Maratha army in its expeditions and were employed not so much for fighting as for plundering the country through which they passed. They received no pay from the Peshwa or his principal chiefs, but, on the contrary, paid to the general, to whose army they were attached, a tax, called Palpatti, in return for the protection which they received from him. Though the Pendharis became most numerous towards the close of the Maratha period, they were by no means the peculiar product of the Maratha method of warfare. The employment of trained robbers to harass an enemy was the time-honoured custom among the ancient Hindu princes. Kautilya recommended the employment of ‘brave thieves and wild tribes who make no distinction between friend and foe’, and Brihaspati and the author of Shukra’s polity lay down rules about the division of spoils brought by such licensed robbers. ‘When anything has been brought from a hostile country by freebooters’, says Brihaspati, ‘with the permission of their lord, they shall give a sixth part to the King and share (the remainder) in due proportion.¹ The same principle is also advocated by the *Sukranitisara*.² It lays down: ‘if thieves steal something from other’s kingdom by the King’s order, they should first give one-sixth to the King and then divide the rest among themselves’. This proves beyond doubt the employment by belligerent powers of thieving hordes similar to the Pendharis, who shared their spoil with the State employing and protecting them, as did the Pendharis during the Peshwa period.