Maratha peshwa

Battle of Panipat in Light of Rediscovered Paintings book is written by Manoj Dani is based on the third battle of Panipat on 14 January 1761 between Marathas and Abdali. Author has given more than 80 rare paintings, photographs and maps that shed more light on the tactics, the strategy and the principal 21 primary characters who participated in the events of the battle of Panipat. Author has done extensive research and gathered Rare photographs and treasures related to the battle of Panipat from the museums worldwide. Author has used many primary sources in Marathi, Urdu, Farsi, Pashto, Dari, English, and French including new sources unknown to the researchers of the Maratha history. This book also includes contemporary architecture overview including the rare depiction of the Shaniwar Wada before it was destroyed by the great fire in 1828.

The 18th-century in the subcontinent witnessed the decline of the Mughal Empire and the rise of several successor states in its wake, of which one was of the Marathas. However, instead of studying the Maratha state in isolation, I have studied it in relation to the similarities and differences between the Maratha state and the Mughal Empire. The paper tries to locate the imperial decline within the wholesale changes taking place in the provinces that have changed hands from the Mughals to the Marathas. It also argues that even though the empire is in a state of decline, several of its institutions survive and are breathed a new life in these successor states.

In today's India one often gets to hear how the Peshwas 'united Hindus' against the 'tyranny' of Mughals. But, buried in the cacophony of this mainstream narrative built over a century by those who support Maratha Empire, are the stories of Maratha Empire atrocities suffered by tens of thousands of non-Maratha Hindus across India-the Bengalis, Rajputs, Dilli-wallas, Tamils and not to forget the Kannadigas. This research traces fifty towns, villages and Hindu temples which faced destruction by Maratha Armies in their attacks on Karnataka (erstwhile Mysore Kingdom) in 17th and 18th centuries CE (1600s and 1700s). Some of these places never recovered. If authors like Francis Buchanan are to be believed, the loss of life was very high, probably over a 100,000 (one lakh). An example is Sathyagala in present day Chamarajanagara District. This place was a district headquarters having over a thousand houses, when Peshwa Madhava Rao plundered it, during his invasion of Karnataka in 1770. Famines followed almost all Maratha attacks, as these barbarians usually destroyed crops as well. It is said that four hundred families died of hunger at Sathyagala in the famine that followed the Peshwa's attack. Even if each family had seven members (a married couple with two parents and three kids), the number of deaths would run to twenty eight thousand humans! Read on.

From the two unpublished Persian Documents an attempt is made to understand the administrative arrangements made during the regime of the Peshwas. In this articles it is observed that how the Peshwa administration conveniently managed the far off provinces very easily by taking into confidence the influential persons of the area.

It is a generally accepted view today that men and women are equals having equal rights. This was not an acceptable view a few centuries ago. Men were the bread earners and women were responsible for home and child care. As in other parts of the world of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, women of the western Indian state of Maharashtra were subjected to severe scrutiny and discipline where their behavior was concerned. A patriarchal society controlled several aspects of their lives including their marriageable age, their daily conduct, their clothing, even their sexuality. These rules were designed to restrict both their indoor as well as outdoor activities. In essence, all classes of women including women of regal and elite families were constrained to home and hearth. In that period of time, members of the elite class often commissioned portraits of the male members of their families. Paintings of female members of such families are rare. Among the artefacts in the collection of the Peshwe Museum in Pune, India, a painting of an unidentified young girl is displayed. With a wide-ranging background of the societal and traditional norms of the eighteenth and nineteenth century Maharashtra, the present study aims to examine this portrait through the lenses of household norms, social customs and pecuniary background of the female subject. A combination of semiotics, visual rhetoric and interpretative qualitative analysis of the observations is used as the methodology for carrying out visual analysis of the image.

The water supply system of Pune during the Peshwa Period is a testament to exemplary engineering, administration and city planning. Complex system of cisterns/ reservoirs (Haud), dipping wells (Ooswas), and underground man-made aqueducts (Nal/ Nahar) constituted this network and has worked efficiently till date. This magnificent system with more than 20 km long network and 200+ outlets is heritage of Pune. Accelerated urbanisation over the last few decades has left many components of this system either abandoned or completely destroyed. Digital reconstructions in 3D space have been built to understand and enables people to experience this system in it's entirety.