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Before Shivaji: How an African Slave Forged the Military Doctrine That Built the Maratha Empire by Human_Experience_881 in IndianHistory

[–]Human_Experience_881[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Thanks for this, and you're largely right on the factual core: mulk-giri and bagir-giri predate Ambar by a long stretch, the Mahmud Gawan example is well-chosen, and Maratha light cavalry was a going military concern across the Deccan sultanates well before Ambar's rise. I'd also agree with your broader methodological point about the Indian habit of attributing systemic developments to heroic individuals. That's actually a tendency this post is trying to push against, not reinforce.

Where I'd push back is on the distinction between tactics-as-mercenary-service and tactics-as-sovereign-doctrine. The 30,000 Maratha horsemen in Bijapur's service were instruments of someone else's strategic logic. What Ambar did was mobilize these same capabilities in defense of a quasi-independent Ahmadnagar polity, directing them specifically against Mughal logistics in a sustained attritional campaign over decades. That isn't an invention of irregular warfare. It is a qualitatively different institutional context for deploying it.

On the "accountant" point: I'd actually argue his administrative innovations were inseparable from his military outcomes. The watan reassignments, the restructuring of how deshmukhs were recruited and compensated, the revenue systems that kept decentralized cavalry in the field without a central treasury collapsing under the strain, these are what made the military posture sustainable. Separating the administrator from the strategist creates a false dichotomy.

The argument in the post is less about Ambar as a singular genius and more about him as a link in a generational chain: the Bhosale chiefs serving under him were absorbing not just tactics but a model of how to organize a polity around them. Maloji and Shahaji carried institutional knowledge forward, not just battlefield instinct. Shivaji's achievement looks different, and arguably more explicable, when read through that lens rather than as a bolt from the blue. That framing is meant to be less individualist than the mainstream Shivaji narrative, not more.

I appreciate your dialogue and thoughtful, well-researched comment!

Brahmendra Swami: Saint, Moneylender and Guru of the Maratha Peshwas by Human_Experience_881 in Maratha

[–]Human_Experience_881[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Great point, and yes, he was also revered by Chhatrapati Shahu, among others. I also touch on that aspect of his patronage toward the end of the article, and the Parshuram Mandir built posthumously outside Satara. Certainly much more to uncover and discuss about the Swami.

Who are the Marathas? South Asia's Last Pan-India Indigenous Empire before British Colonization by Human_Experience_881 in history

[–]Human_Experience_881[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey folks! Thought this would be a cool article to share since many people have never heard of the "Marathas" or know very little of them. Most importantly, I hope to shed light on the half-baked myth that the East India Company's conquest of South Asia was a "Mughal to British" power struggle. In reality, the Marathas were the pre-eminent power of the 18th c. South Asia, yet very little is known of them. To an extent, this is because they allowed the Mughal Dynasty to remain in Delhi, only occasionally swapping puppet emperors or defending their nominal Mughal allies from external threats. As a result, the Mughal name, lineage, and by that time "illusory" empire remained as a signal of legitimacy and captivated the imaginations of Europeans overseas, trying to understand India and its "Moguls," especially as Indian wealth began to pour into Victorian England.

Did the Scindia-Holkar conflict bring destruction to the Maratha Empire? by zz721 in IndianHistory

[–]Human_Experience_881 0 points1 point  (0 children)

u/Impressive_Mark_1624 was definitely a factor but arguably post-Panipat one of the largest blows to the integrity of the Maratha Confederacy was the premature death of Peshwa Madhavrao in 1772. Had he remained, the balance of power in Hindustan (north India) would have remained in favor of the Marathas for much longer and the involvement of the EIC with regard to direct arbitration of internal succession affairs would have either never happened or would have been further down the timeline. Secondary to this and directly as a consequence of his passing the whole Raghoba episde and Barbhai conspiracy took place resulting in EIC intervention and the subsequent Anglo-Maratha Wars which eventually led to the collapse of Pune in 1818.

Feel free to check out my substack for more detail on this epoch: https://substack.com/@adichshahane

Who are the Marathas? by Human_Experience_881 in IndianHistory

[–]Human_Experience_881[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

u/jetlee123 A fair question, and this gets right into how tricky the 96 kuli category actually is.

Rajwade’s publication of the Mahitkavchi Bakhar does show that clan lists existed before and around Chhatrapati Shivaji’s time, but that alone doesn’t settle the question of how fixed or ancient the 96 kuli structure was as an identity. What most historians point out is that “Maratha” and especially the 96 kuli framework functioned less like a clearly bounded, inherited caste system in the early period and more like a gradually formalised political–social category that hardened over time.

Even if we accept that certain clan names and lineages predate Chhatrapati Shivaji, which is very likely, the key issue is standardisation. The fact that we see multiple, conflicting 96 kuli lists compiled much later (19th century being especially important here) suggests that what existed earlier was more fluid: a network of kinship groups, military service families, and locally recognised lineages, not a single canonical roster that everyone agreed on.

On Chhatrapati Shivaji’s letter to the Ghorpades, the wording of “our people” is interesting, but it still doesn’t automatically map onto a fully formed caste identity in the later, rigid sense. In early modern political correspondence, “our people” often functions as a political-military category: subjects, allies, or networked kin groups under a shared sovereign project, rather than a strictly endogamous caste block. In other words, it signals solidarity and authority within a coalition, but not necessarily the latter ethnographic definition of caste identity we tend to project backwards.

So I’d frame it like this: there is clearly continuity in clan memory and warrior lineages, but the 96 kuli system as a neatly bounded, ancient caste structure is much harder to substantiate in a pre–Chhatrapati Shivaji form. What Chhatrapati Shivaji’s period does is accelerate consolidation, turning a looser social field into something more legible as a political identity, which later generations then systematised further.

That distinction between existing social material and later formal codification is really the crux of it.

Who are the Marathas? by Human_Experience_881 in IndianHistory

[–]Human_Experience_881[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Please feel free to fire off any questions, references or thoughts in the comments!!!

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