Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 7.djvu/141

 MAHRATTAS. (371)

HOUGH Mahrattas do not belong to the ordinary population of Malwah, there are many still in the country, descendants of the soldiers who, under Sindia, Holkar, the Puars and Bhoslays, wrested Central India from the Mussulmans, and eventually subverted the empire of Delhi, and carried their victorious arms into all parts of India, forming in several localities independent monarchies and principalities, of which Sindia, Holkar, Puar of Dhar, the Gaekwar, and the state of Travancore in the south of India, are the present representatives.

It is scarcely necessary to do more than allude in general terms to the progress of the Mahrattas from cultivators and shepherds, to the eminence they attained in Indian history. Early in the year 1657 Sivajce, whom all Mahrattas honour as au incarnation of divinity, the lord of a small mountain tract in the Syhadree western chain of Uhauts, formed a league against the Mussulman King of Beejapoor; and, after a series of forays and attacks upon the King's possessions and forts, succeeded in establishing himself in Purtab Gurh, one of the chain of mountain fortresses, and thence carried on his depredations with singular success and energy. In that year he drew into an ambuscade the army of Beejapoor under Afzool Khan, which had been sent to reduce him: murdered him at a conference, and destroyed the whole of his army. He then proclaimed the nationality of the Mahrattas, and put himself at its head, carrying war by means of predatory expeditions, not only into adjacent provinces, but to the south, while his active commanders attacked Maiwab, and Guzerat, with Berar, and wrested them from the empire of Delhi.

His descendants carried on a successful war for many years with the Emperor Aurungzeeb; and thus the Malirattas became a power in India which was for the time irresistible, till the English rose after the battle of Plassey, and in their turn the Mahrattas were defeated and checked: and by the deposition of their last Peshwah, Bajee Rao, the kingdom ceased to exist, and its provinces fell under British rule. In less than one hundred years the Mahratta power had reached its