THE WORLD ATLAS

Empire · 1674–1818 · Middle East & South Asia

Maratha Empire (Maratha Confederacy)

Also known as Maratha Confederacy, Mahratta states, Maratha

The Marathas, Marathi-speaking warriors of the western Deccan hills, rose under Shivaji, who used hill forts and swift guerrilla raids to carve a kingdom out of the Bijapur sultanate and the Mughal Empire, crowning himself Chhatrapati in 1674. They survived Aurangzeb's long war against them, and from 1713 real power passed to hereditary chief ministers, the Peshwas, ruling from Pune.

Peshwa Baji Rao I led cavalry far into the north, and by the 1750s Maratha armies collected tribute from Delhi to Bengal and the far south. Their advance was checked by the Afghan Ahmad Shah Durrani at the third battle of Panipat in 1761. The realm then became a confederacy of powerful chiefs, the Scindias, Holkars, Gaekwads and Bhonsles, who fought the British East India Company in three wars and were finally defeated in 1818.

Follow its story on the map

Walls of Raigad Fort in Maharashtra, the capital of Shivaji, who was crowned there in 1674
Walls of Raigad Fort in Maharashtra, the capital of Shivaji, who was crowned there in 1674 Gbaadkar · CC BY-SA 3.0
Years
1674–1818
Capital
Raigad, then Satara; Pune under the Peshwas
Greatest extent
1760, about 2.50 million km²
Region
Middle East & South Asia

c. 2.5M km² (Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006), including tributary lands, just before defeat at Panipat

Legacy

The Marathas ended Mughal supremacy and were India's last great indigenous power before British rule; Shivaji remains a hero in Maharashtra.

Timeline of Maratha Empire (Maratha Confederacy)

  1. Shivaji's southern campaign takes Gingee and Vellore

    Shivaji had carved out a Maratha kingdom in western India from the lands of Bijapur and the Mughals, and was crowned Chhatrapati (king) in 1674. In 1677 he visited Hyderabad and made a treaty with the Qutb Shahi sultan of Golconda to oppose the Mughals jointly. Backed by Golconda's artillery and money, he invaded the south with a large army of cavalry and infantry and seized the forts of Gingee and Vellore, along with much of his half-brother Venkoji's lands. The campaign gave the Marathas a vast territory on the Mysore plateau and the Madras Carnatic, and Gingee later served as their refuge from the Mughals.

  2. Sambhaji captured and executed by the Mughals

    After Shivaji's death in 1680 his son Sambhaji became Chhatrapati and fought the huge Mughal army that Aurangzeb had brought into the Deccan. Mughal pressure grew, key commanders died and troops deserted. In February 1689 Sambhaji and 25 of his advisers were captured by the Mughal commander Muqarrab Khan at Sangameshwar. He was paraded in humiliation, tortured and executed on Aurangzeb's orders on 11 March 1689. The Maratha kingdom fell into disarray, and Sambhaji's young son Shahu was held captive by the Mughals, but his half-brother Rajaram took the throne, moved the capital far south to Gingee and continued the war.

  3. Shahu released after Aurangzeb's death and claims the throne

    Shahu, Sambhaji's son, had grown up as a captive at the Mughal court since 1689. After Aurangzeb died in 1707, his son Azam Shah released Shahu, hoping to set off a civil war among the Marathas. Shahu's aunt Tarabai, ruling in the name of her own son, denounced him as an impostor, and the two sides fought for the throne. Shahu won wide support and was crowned Chhatrapati at Satara on 12 January 1708. The split weakened the Marathas for a time, but under Shahu, who reigned until 1749, the state grew from a regional kingdom into an empire.

  4. Shahu appoints Balaji Vishwanath Peshwa

    Shahu needed capable ministers to defeat Tarabai's faction and deal with the Mughals. On 16 November 1713 he appointed Balaji Vishwanath, a Chitpavan Brahmin administrator, as Peshwa (chief minister). Balaji won over powerful Maratha commanders to Shahu's side, and in 1718–19 he helped the Sayyid brothers, kingmakers at the Mughal court, march on Delhi in return for Maratha rights to collect chauth and sardeshmukhi (shares of revenue) in the Deccan. The office of Peshwa became hereditary in his family, and from then on the Peshwas, based in Pune, were the real rulers of the Maratha state.

  5. Baji Rao I defeats the Nizam at Palkhed

    Balaji Vishwanath's son Baji Rao I became Peshwa in 1720 and soon clashed with Asaf Jah I, the Nizam of Hyderabad, who disputed the Maratha right to collect revenue in the Deccan. In 1728 Baji Rao's fast-moving cavalry outmanoeuvred the Nizam's army and trapped it near Palkhed, cutting its supplies and communications. Forced to make peace, the Nizam signed the Treaty of Mungi Shevgaon on 6 March 1728, recognising Shahu as king and the Maratha right to collect taxes in the Deccan. The campaign is often praised as a masterpiece of strategy, and it made the Marathas the dominant power in the Deccan.

  6. Baji Rao I raids Delhi and defeats the Mughals at Bhopal

    Baji Rao I expanded Maratha power north into Malwa, Gujarat and Bundelkhand, demanding revenue from Mughal provinces. In 1737 he raided as far as the outskirts of Delhi and defeated a Mughal army there, the high point of his military career. On his way back, the Nizam, called in by the Mughal emperor, intercepted him with a combined army near Bhopal. The Marathas surrounded the Nizam's forces, cut off their water and supplies, and won the Battle of Bhopal on 24 December 1737. The victory showed that the Mughals could no longer protect even the lands near their capital.

  7. Treaty of Bhopal confirms Maratha control of Malwa

    Trapped and short of supplies after the Battle of Bhopal, the Nizam had to accept Baji Rao's terms. In the Treaty of Bhopal, signed on 7 January 1738, the Mughals ceded the large province of Malwa in central India to the Marathas and agreed to pay 50 lakh rupees as war expenses. Malwa became a Maratha territory, later ruled by Maratha families such as the Holkars and Scindias. By the time Baji Rao died in 1740, the Maratha Empire had reached its greatest extent yet and was one of the largest powers in India.

  8. Marathas win at Attock and take Peshawar

    After the Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Durrani plundered Delhi in 1756, the Peshwa's brother Raghunath Rao led a Maratha army north. In August 1757 he took Delhi, defeating the Afghan garrison, and then pushed into the Punjab, taking Lahore. In 1758 the Marathas won at Attock on the Indus, and on 8 May 1758 they defeated the Afghan troops at Peshawar and captured the city. Maratha power now stretched to the borders of Afghanistan, its furthest reach, but the advance provoked Ahmad Shah Durrani, who returned to India to fight them.

  9. Crushing defeat by Ahmad Shah Durrani at the Third Battle of Panipat

    Ahmad Shah Durrani invaded India again, backed by the Rohillas and the Nawab of Awadh, to drive the Marathas from the north. A large Maratha army under Sadashivrao Bhau, with the Peshwa's son Vishwasrao and tens of thousands of pilgrims and camp followers, marched north to meet him. On 14 January 1761, at Panipat north of Delhi, the Afghans crushed the Marathas; Sadashivrao and Vishwasrao were killed, along with tens of thousands of soldiers, and many non-combatants were massacred afterwards. Maratha authority in northern India collapsed for a decade.

  10. Mahadaji Shinde recaptures Delhi

    After Panipat, the Marathas slowly rebuilt their power in the north under leaders such as Mahadaji Shinde (Scindia) of Gwalior. In early 1771, ten years after Panipat, Mahadaji recaptured Delhi, and the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II, who had spent six years in the fort at Allahabad, returned to his capital under Maratha escort. Shah Alam became in effect a Maratha puppet. Mahadaji was later made deputy regent of the empire, and the Marathas again controlled much of northern India, now competing with the British East India Company.

  11. Treaty of Salbai ends the First Anglo-Maratha War

    In the 1770s a succession dispute among the Peshwas led the former Peshwa Raghunath Rao to seek British help, starting the First Anglo-Maratha War. The Marathas held their own, forcing a British force to surrender at Wadgaon, and the war ended without major British gains. On 17 May 1782 Mahadaji Shinde and the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, signed the Treaty of Salbai, under which the Company kept Salsette and Broach, pensioned off Raghunath Rao and recognised Madhavrao II as Peshwa. The treaty brought twenty years of peace with the British, during which the Marathas remained the leading power in India.

  12. Victory over the Nizam at Kharda

    The Nizam of Hyderabad had long disputed the Marathas' claims to revenue in the Deccan. In 1795 the Maratha chiefs, united for the last time under the command of Parshuram Bhau Patwardhan, marched against him and won a decisive victory at Kharda on 11 March 1795. After a siege of his camp at Kharda fort, the Nizam made peace in April 1795, agreeing to pay a large indemnity and cede the territories of Daulatabad, Aurangabad and Solapur. It was the last great victory won jointly by the whole Maratha Confederacy, which soon fell into rivalry among its chiefs.

  13. Peshwa accepts British protection in the Treaty of Bassein

    After the deaths of strong leaders such as Mahadaji Shinde in 1794, the Maratha chiefs quarrelled. In 1802 Yashwantrao Holkar of Indore defeated the forces of Peshwa Baji Rao II and the Scindias at the Battle of Poona, and the Peshwa fled to the British. On 31 December 1802 at Bassein (Vasai) he signed a treaty accepting British protection: he agreed to host Company troops, exclude other Europeans from his service and conduct his foreign relations through the British. The Treaty of Bassein was a decisive step in the break-up of the Maratha Empire and soon led to war.

  14. Second Anglo-Maratha War against the East India Company (to 1805)

    The Scindias of Gwalior and the Bhonsles of Nagpur refused to accept the Treaty of Bassein, and war with the East India Company broke out in August 1803. British armies under Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington) and Gerard Lake won major battles, including Assaye in the Deccan and Laswari in the north, and took Delhi, bringing the Mughal emperor under British protection. Holkar joined the war later. By 1805 the Marathas had lost large territories, including the regions around Delhi and parts of Gujarat, to direct Company rule, and the British were now the strongest power in India.

  15. Third Anglo-Maratha War: Baji Rao II surrenders; Peshwa rule ends

    In 1817 Peshwa Baji Rao II, resenting British control, rose against the East India Company, supported by the Bhonsles of Nagpur and the Holkars of Indore, while the Company also campaigned against the Pindari raiders. Maratha armies were defeated at Koregaon and other battles, and the Peshwa was pursued across the Deccan until he surrendered in June 1818. He was pensioned off to a small estate at Bithur, near Kanpur, and the office of Peshwa was abolished. Most of his lands became part of the Bombay Presidency, and the end of the Maratha Empire left the British masters of most of India.

Periods and reigns

Rulers

Realms on the map

Chapters

Sources