Marhatta country

Marhatta or Maratha country was some region in the Western Maharashtra or Desh or Deccan region and Konkan region of present day Maharashtra.

The Prakrit word Marhatta is found in Jain Maharashtri literature.^[1] In tenth century Al-Biruni mentions the Marhatta region with Thane as its capital. The word Marhatta must be derived from the word Bara-Hatta or must be its corruption which means a country of the Dhangars of twelve hattis. ^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Later Maratha Empire comprised much of present day India.

National Anthem of India includes Maratha region, "O! Dispenser of India's destiny, thou art the ruler of the minds of all people, Thy name rouses the hearts of Punjab, Sindh, Gujarat, the Maratha country, in the Dravida, Utkala and Bengal.

Maratha meant person of Maratha country. In 1342, the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta referred to all the native inhabitants of Deogiri region as belonging collectively to the "tribe" of 'Marhatas', whose elite included both Brahmins and Ksytriyas.^[7][8] Mahratta is an English corruption or misspelling of the word Marhatta. Marhatta later became Maratha.

References

1. ^ Udyotan Suri's Kuvalayamala of the Eighth century.
2. ^ The Castes and Tribes of H. E. H. The Nizam’s Dominions, Bombay. 1920, pp. 248–66.
3. ^ S.B. Joshi. ’Etymology of place-names’, Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Vol. 13, 1952, 5066;
4. ^ also see Sontheimer. Pastoral Deities of Western India. London, 1989, p. 127.
5. ^ Landscapes in Conflict: Flocks, Hero-stones, and Cult in early medieval Maharashtra. Ajay Dandekar. Centre For Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University
6. ^ see also modern day Marathwada(Bar/ Mar-hat-wada)(country of Dhangars) i.e. area around Hingoli
7. ^ Ibn Batutta, Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325–1354, trans. H. A. R. Gibbs (1929; reprint Delhi, 1986)227–228)
8. ^ A social history of the Deccan, 1300–1761: eight Indian lives, Volume 1 By Richard Maxwell Eaton, pg 191

See also

• Maratha Empire