Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Some Excerpts from our history.....

I highly recommend reading the book,"The Rise of The Maratha Power" by Mahadeo Govind Ranade and especially the chapter on 'MARATHAS IN SOUTHERN INDIA'

He begins this chapter on the history of the settlement of Marathas in Thanjavur and other Southern states as...

"NEITHER MR. GRANT DUFF nor any of the native writers of
Marathi Bakhars have given much attention to the fortunes of
the Maratha colony in the far South at Tanjore, though the Mara-
tha dominion there was of an older date than in many other parts
of India, and the family which ruled at Tanjore for nearly two
centuries, 1675-1855, was closely allied to the founder of the
Maratha power in Western India"

So while we delve and search for our history the above lines from this renowned scholar and social reformer give us a good idea of our bearings and our connection to the State where we came from!

While revealing the census statistics of 1881 , the author describes the marathi population to be divided amongst these places... ..
  • Ganjam
  • Vizagapatam
  • Godavari
  • Krishna
  • Nellore
  • Cuddapah
  • Kurnool
  • Bellary
  • Chingalpat
  • North Arcot
  • South Arcot
  • Tanjore
  • Trichanapoly
  • Madurai
  • Tirunelveli
  • Salem
  • Coimbatore
  • Nilgiris
  • Malabar
  • South Kanara
  • Madras city
  • Pudukottai
I am sure many of you TMD readers will be associated with one of these places!

Here are some excerpts from the book.....

"There is thus not a district in that Presidency which has not
a small Maratha colony of settlers who have permanently made
it their home. "

"The city of Tanjore and the districts in its neighbourhood, North Arcot,
Salem, and Madras City, show the largest aggregates of the foreign
Maratha settlers whose ancestors accompanied Shahaji and his
son to the south. Tanjore has been very happily styled by the
Maharaja of Travancore as the southern home of the Marathas"

"The military settlers included both Brahmans and Marathas, and
by reason of their isolation from their distant home, the sub-
divisions which separated these castes in their mother-country
were forgotten, and they were all welded together under the
common name of Deshasthas"

"The great city of Kombhakonam has a
large sprinkling of distinguished Maratha families whose represen-
tatives, Sir T. Madhavrao, Diwan Bahadur Raghunathrao,
Venkaswami Rao, Gopal Rao, etc., have risen to great distinc-
tion, each in his own line, and some of them have even attained
an Indian reputation for statesmanship, learning and philanthropy.
The Native States of Travancore and Mysore have afforded scope
to the display of the heighest abilities of some of these Maratha
statesmen, both in the last and in the present century. The services
of the Travancore Minister, English Subbarao, are well known,
and one of his successors, Sir T. Madhavrao, rescued that State
from disorder and insolvency, and turned it into a model State,
and the father of Diwan Bahadur Raghunathrao achieved equal
distinction in Mysore."

"In North Arcot the little Jahagir of "Arni" is still in the
enjoyment of a Maratha Brahman Chief, whose ancestors acquired
it originally as a fief for military service from the Bijapur King
more than two hundred years ago."
"Similarly, the small state of Pudukottai
which still retains its subordinate integrity, has a large Maratha
population, and its affairs were administered by many Brahman
Diwans, and the most distinguished of these belonged to the
family of Maratha settlers in the south."

"The Native State of Cochin contains a large Maratha population"
" In the district of Bellary there is another small Maratha State at Sonda
which has survived the general decay of Maratha power in the
south"


"The first entrance of the Marathas in Southern India took place
during the leadership of Shahaji Bhonsle, the father of Shivaji, in
1638. He led an army as a general in the service of the Adilshahi
Bijapur kings. ".........." and he conquered Mysore, Vellore in reward for his services".

Shahaji also obtained a jahagir which included Bangalore, Kolar, Sira or Cutta and other places in Mysore in 1648 and established Bangalore as his headquarters

Venkoji, son of Shahaji and step brother to Shivaji, succeeded to this jahagir and when the dispute arose among the Tanjore and Madurai nayaks, the Tanjore Naik sought the help of the Bijapur Court. The Bijapur Court then ordered Venkoji to place the Tanjore Nayak back on his throne.
Tanjore was taken by Venkoji in 1674, and he removed
his headquarters from Bangalore to Tanjore in 1675

"The most noteworthy event during the period of Venkojis
rule over Tanjore, was the expedition of Shivaji in those parts of
the country in 1676 Shivaji obtained easy possession of the Kama-
tik Jahagir of the family, and Venkoji was unable to maintain his
position. " Shivaji laid claim to Tanjore and Trichy and the karnatak jahagir. Basically, Venkoji was dethroned and despaired and vowed to give it all up and become a byraagi!
"Shivaji at this time generously yielded all his claims to his father's patrimony
to satisfy his brother. "
"Venkoji continued to be in charge of his principality down to the
time of his death in 1687"

And here the author makes a very interesting point, he discusses what cut this Maratha kingdom and all its settlers from its place of origin in Maharashtra. He also discusses what might have been if we had stayed connected and Shivaji had not " generously yielded all his claims to his father's patrimony to satisfy his brother. "and given up the southern kingdom and jahagirs to his half brother!
Here...
"In the interest of the Maratha con-
federacy it would certainly have been better if Shivaji had
strengthened his hold in these parts at this time. By his abandon-
ment of the kingdom to Venkoji, he cut off this settlement from
its proper place in the united Maratha kingdom, and Tanjore
suffered grievously by reason of this isolation. "

"Venkoji was not a strong ruler, and in consequence of his inability to retain his
distant possession in Mysore, he was obliged to make Bangalore
over to the Mysore Rajas, who purchased this Maratha town for
the small sum of three lakhs. "
"These cessions cut off the Tanjore
kingdom completely from its parent source in the Deccan, and it
was not long before it was hemmed in on one side by the English,
and on the other by the Mysore rulers Hyder Ali and his son Tipu."

He ends with...

"This, in short, is the unfortunate story of this little military
settlement of the Marathas in the far south. While the confederate
Marathas were able to hold their own against the power of the
Moghuls, and to recover their independence after a struggle
carried on for twenty years, this little settlement, by refusing to
be a member of the confederacy"........ virtually ceased to be
a leading independent State in 1762. There can be no doubt that
If it had kept up its connection with the parent State, it would
played a most part in the several invasions of the Maratha Kingdom
which took place between 1762 and 1792, and in all which the
Maratha- arms prevailed"

15 comments:

  1. Cool Man ,I am a Marathi From Pune I am pleased to see this..that our Maratha Empire is such a great in culture ,power and its presence..Jai Shivaji

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  2. nice rendering. My wife supriya is also from the arni jagir family . Her granddad's name was C.H.Venkat Rao Saheb great granddad's name was C.T.Hari Rao Saheb and great great grandad's name was Tirumal Rao Saheb.

    This Tirumal Rao saheb was the brother of Raghunath Rao Saheb from whom whose line your mom -in-law also comes.

    We live in chennai?. Where do you live?

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  3. It is not entirely due to Venkoji that deshasthas migrated to Tanjore, though it was major reason. Other reasons include the itineracy of the monks of Uttaradi matha. Many deshasthas migrated to pursue philosophical studies.
    My mother hails from a branch of the Arni family that migrated to Bellary in 19th century

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  4. @Viswapriya... We live in New Jersey. Good to know of the connection....
    @Suresh, It is true that different reasons drove the part migration of the Marathi speaking Deshesthas from Maharashtra to the South. I have listed only the major reason; Maybe the regime of Kokanastha Baji Rao Peshwa effected a need for the change, who knows!?
    It is very interesting though that your mother can trace the migration to the 19th century! Amazing!

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  5. Nice Reading. Maratha's could have consolidated south too under the great Shivaji Maharaj. Not sure whether I can take pride in being called marathi deshastha after reading many such articles, where we do not have affinity to the origin by rule or tradition. We can say that we were wanderers, sometimes in tanjore, sometimes in trivendrum and all the kings used us but we did not give back anything legendary to the greate maratha empire in consolidation. I am suffociating to know our back ground and origin- we are cut off totally.

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  6. It is true that if only Shivaji Maharaj had not acceded the South to his brother and retreated, we might have been a part of the great maratha empire! But history dictated otherwise and here we are ...calling ourselves Thanjavur Marathis!

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  7. mangesh sir DeshpandeJune 5, 2011 at 3:04 AM

    YOURSI AM A STUDENT OF OLDE MARATHI FOR LAST THIRTY YEARS.PL. WRITE TO ME SHOULD YOU NEED THE MEANING/EQUIVALENTS/ETYMOLOGY OF ANY MARATHI/KONKANI/FARSI WORD IN ANY DIALECT OF MARATHI.I FIND THIS SITE V.V.INTERESTING.PUNE MARATHI AND NOT MUMBAI MARATHI,IS KNOWN AS THE PRAMAAN[STANDARD]MARATHI ALTHOUGH I BEYG TO DIFFER.I WELCOME YOUR QUERIES.---MANGESH N.SIR DESHPANDE.

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  8. Shri Deshpande,

    I am so glad you found this blog so interesting. Thank you. Your help will be invaluable to me. I am very interested in identifying the origin of this Marathi and some of its words. Why is it no longer used? Did these words and phraseology change in the 400 to 600 years or did it get preserved in its archaic form? Your help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you for visiting my blog.

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  9. mangesh Sir DeshpandeOctober 21, 2011 at 4:48 AM

    dear sister PRATIBHA,nice to hear from you,at last.well,let me introduce myself,first.I love linguistics,and you`ll be surprised to know that I keep hunting for new linguistic sites to add to whatever little I know about the various languages.before the advent of the internet I had gathered 168 various dictionaries,languages,weights,science,geography,abbrev.,fruits,flowers,animals, and what not.Marathi is my mother tongue and hence I have a v. special liking for the same.I have a v.large possession of Marathi books,especially reference books.when I was younger,I used to read Novels,poetry,short stories,detective books etc.but not any more.I do not from where you are,but my love for Marathi BHASHA took me all the way to Mauritious as our people went there in the 18th century.they are mainly from our konkan coast.they also speak older language like you folks.But you`ll be pleased to know that I visited TANJAVUR in 1995,just to visit your SARASWATI MAHAL LIBRARY.I know a lot about the great SARFOJEE RAJE ll,I am an ardent admire of him.He is my IDOL.He was much more learned than I am and knew a lot of languages.He was an eye surgeon in those days and performed cataract operations in the those days.He was the FIRST EYE SURGEON of ASIA or probably the WORLD.sorry,if I have bored you.more ,next time,upon hearing from YOU.

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  10. Dear Shri Deshpande,
    Thank you for your valuable addition in making us proud of our language.
    We became a small secluded community in the South and due to being too small a community marriages to kannada speaking deshathas and non-deshasthas took place. I found the need to preserve my mother tongue and here is my humble attempt at it.
    Please do enlighten us and correct our language so we continue to preserve our Thanjavur Marathi. Thank you.

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  11. pratibhaji
    namaste !
    i am watching your blogs for last one year.i am studying marathi peoples in tanjaoor.i am very glad to see your efforts in preserving MATRUBHASHA.
    i would like to ask you
    1)will all the languages willbe disappeared within a century and only english will survive?
    2)what will be the future of all languages as mother tounge? or english will become mother tounge also

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  12. my athya said we have an older modi lipi and she could actually read it and write-she is 98 and very sharp!I wonder if you know about this?I just wish we had paid more attention as children,but it was so much easier just to speak kannada!even though the rule at home was only marathi-

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  13. I am south indian TM and love to learn languages.I speak Tamil,Telegu Bengali Hindi .I love Samskrit bhasha.I am happy that my ancestors migrated to South India and due to this we are speaking a beautiful language called Tanjavur Marathi.

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  14. Madam,
    We are also TMB as you have classified. My paternal ancestors are supposed to be from Arni family. However, we(me and my brother) have not been able to link it to the tree. If anybody could help us solve the riddle it would be of great help. Yadunath Rao

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  15. my paternal ancestors came from Poona maternal from Anegondi of Vijayanagar [ all Deshastha Brahmins ; Dewan Purniah during Mumadi Krishnaraja wauayars time was also responsible as also Pesjwa who was partial to Uttaradhi Matta


    But we consider ourselves as Kannadigas

    Lokkur Vasanthi Rao

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