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"The Marāthās" is a collective term referring to an Indo Aryan group of Hindu , Marathi -speaking Caste s of warriors and peasants hailing mostly from the present-day state of Maharashtra , who created a substantial empire, covering a major part of India , in the late 17th and 18th centuries AD. The "Marathas" were known by that name since their native tongue was almost invariably . Thus, the terms "Marathi people" and "Maratha people" are not interchangeable and should not be confused for each other. ETYMOLOGY Several theories have been proposed by various scholars for the etymology of the words "Marātha" and "Marāthi". One theory holds that a reference to a clan known as "Rāshtrika" in some of Ashoka 's inscriptions alludes to a people of the Deccan who were progenitors of the Marathi -speaking (and maratha) people; that the later "Mahārāshtri" Prakrit , a dialect of Sanskrit , is associated with these people; and that the word "Marāthi" is a derivation of the word "Mahārāshtri". This theory does not address the deeper root of the word "Rāshtrika" and its use in reference exclusively to a specific people in south-central India. The Sanskrit word "Rāshtra" is presently translated to "nation" ("Rāshtrika" meaning "national") but in millennia past, the word could apparently be applied to any sizable administrative division. Other theories link the words "Marātha" and "Rāshtri" with "Ratta", supposedly a corruption of " Rāshtrakuta ", the name of a dynasty that held sway over The Deccan between the 8th and 10th centuries AD. However, the Ashokan inscriptions predate the Rashtrakuta s by more than a millennium, and these theories cannot be reconciled. However the word itself indicates that these people were charioters ( ma_ratha).Needless to mention that marathas were well known for their cavalry since antiquity. The confusion regarding maratha word is on many occasions due to bias of certain scholars, sometimes as a kind of propaganda and partly lack of indepth knoweldge. All theories however affirm, as do linguists, that the modern Marathi language has developed from the Prakrit known as Mahārāshtri . ORIGINS AND GENETICS Maratha caste is geographically dispersed and represents more than 50% of the current Maharashtrian population. This endogamous community of fifty- million individuals became dominant owing to their occupational hierarchy. The Marathas are believed to be of mixed origins. Historians, researchers and scholars are divided over the origins of Marathas. Some put their origins as Scythian s, while some put their origins as Aryan s. Still, others point out that their origins are mixed and the clan is mostly a mixed stock of Scythian s and Indo-Aryan s. However, it is believed that there are a few minority Marathas who are of stocks as varied as Dravidian s, Caucasians and Hunnic s. Some of the Maratha clans are descendants of the local dynasties. There is a Kunbi or Kurmi kshatriyas group apart from 96 royal clans of marathas. Linguistically, they belong to exclusively Indo-Aryan linguistic group. As far as genetics study of marathas is concerned, it reveals different aspects and there is a wide variation. So far, there is no comprehensive study of marathas at any level. Some studies are as below. The recent Genetic study shows that some Marathas are of South Asian origins (Gaikwad et al. 2005). Their major Y-Haplogroups are H and J2. The frequency of these two haplogroups is comparable to that of South Indian non-brahmin castes (Sengupta et al. 2006). Haplogroup J2 is associated with the spread of agriculture in South India. This haplogroup in Maratha population might concur with historical fact of farmer communities during Shivaji 's time joining other Maratha communities and founding Maratha empire. The haplogroup H is a major component of Dravidian tribes. In other words, this supports the theory that present day Maharashtra region was Dravidian(mainly Kannada ) until the advent of Indo-Aryan Marathi. Some of the present day Maratha clans show many lineages of past kingdoms that supported Kannada language and culture, viz, Rashtrakuta , Chalukya and Hoysala . These clans could be descendants of soldiers of these kingdoms or could be descendants of royal families. There is another genetic study which shows affinity between Karan, a middle rank group of Orissa with Marathas. So in nutshell, Marathas is a wide social group .It is a social cluster which compromises 96 royal clans which sprang out of 5 tribes of Rigveda, certain sections of Kunbis and in a broader sense for certain period of history almost all marathi-speaking population. Perhaps this great flexibilty in the social structure of Marathas to accommodate vast groups explains their strength as a nation. HISTORICAL PROMINENCE See Also: Maratha Empire The Marathas have contributed a glorious chapter to the history of India. They first came into historical prominence under the leadership of Chhatrapati Shivaji in the 17th Century . Shivaji Maharaj, born into the Bhonsle Clan Of Marathas , secured an independent state by dint of lifelong struggle and thereby founded an empire, the remnants of which lasted until the independence of India in 1947. The state thus founded by Chhatrapati Shivaji attained its zenith under the tutelage of the Peshwa s in the 18th Century , extending from The Indus in present-day Pakistan to Orissa in the east and northern Karnataka in The South . The kingdom of Thanjavur in present-day Tamil Nadu was also ruled by a Maratha dynasty, albeit outside the ambit of the main Maratha Empire . At its peak, the Maratha Empire established a protectorate over the Mughal Emperor and paramountcy over the numerous Rajput chieftains of Gujarat , Rajasthan , Central India and elsewhere. This vast empire declined gradually after the Third Battle Of Panipat (1761); by 1818, all of present-day India had fallen to the British East India Company . The history of the states and dynasties comprising the Maratha Empire constitutes a major portion of the history of late medieval India. While that extensive history is detailed elsewhere, it is noteworthy that the rise of the Marathas:
To this day, their days of empire form a central part of how the marathas view themselves. In particular, they are known for espousing a particularly passionate brand of nationalism, often criticised as being ultranationalism. It is debatable whether this nationalism stems from their history, or whether the course their history took followed from this peculiar brand of nationalism. Maratha states Since the marathas ruled much of India in the period immediately preceding the consolidation of British Rule In India , the maratha states came to form the largest bloc of Princely State s in the British Raj , if size be reckoned by territory and population. Prominent maratha states included: which seved as a capital of Maratha Empire in the 17th century]]
Maratha clans See Also: Maratha Clan System According to some sources, every maratha must belong to one of 96 different clans (the "96 Kuli Marathas"). The list of 96 Maratha clans is different as per different historians. An authoritative listing was apparently first attempted in 1888 and a list finalised in 1956 by the Government of India. One of several available listings of the various maratha clans are available at Maratha Clan System . Notable Marathas
Prominent maratha dynasties
Non-Marathi Marathas The empire also resulted in the voluntary relocation of substantial numbers of maratha and other Marathi-speaking people outside Maharashtra , and across a big part of India. Thus, there are today several small but significant communities descended from these emigrants living in the north, south and west of India. These communities tend often to speak the languages of those areas, although many do also speak Marathi in addition. Gujarati , Hindi , Konkani , Kannada , Telugu and Tamil are some of the other languages thus spoken REFERENCES # Haplogroups of the Marathi people # Molecular insight into the genesis of ranked caste populations of western India by Sonali Gaikwad and VK Kashyap # Influence of language and ancestry on genetic structure of contiguous populations by Sanghamitra Sahoo and VK Kashyap # Polarity and Temporality of High-Resolution Y-Chromosome Distributions in India Identify Both Indigenous and Exogenous Expansions and Reveal Minor Genetic Influence of Central Asian Pastoralists by Sengupta et al. SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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