Who are the Marathas

The Marathas are a people native to the Deccan plateau, more exactly present-day Maharashtra.

They are identified with their language, Marathi, which has a rich, unbroken literary history since the 12th century.

In the 13th century most of Maharashtra was ruled by the Yadava dynasty, with its capital at Devagiri (present-day Daulatabad). In the early 14th century the Yadavas were defeated by the Khilji Sultanate of Delhi.

But the chapter's real explanation of the Maratha rise is not about politics. Through all those changes, cultural traditions carried on, especially bhakti: devotion to the divine or to a particular deity.

Between the 7th and 17th centuries, saints across India chose the path of bhakti over outward rituals alone. They came from many different sections of society, and they wrote devotional songs and poems in the languages of ordinary people, which is why their messages spread so far.

In Maharashtra, saints like Dnyaneshwar, Namdev, Tukaram and Ramdas became popular. They translated important texts, the Upaniṣhads and the Bhagavad Gītā, into Marathi, so ordinary people could understand them.

Some saints also worked on social organisation and political awareness; the book compares this to the Sikh Gurus.

And this is the chapter's claim: "the society acquired a solid cultural foundation, which later helped the Marathas to organise themselves into a political power." Some Maratha chiefs had tried to set up their own rule in the 17th century and failed, until Chhatrapati Shivaji brought the Marathas together on that foundation.