Relational Sovereignty and Sacred Geography: Reimagining the Maratha Polity in Early Modern India

This paper redefines the Maratha polity as a model of relational sovereignty as opposed to an example of a regional military power that primarily fought the Mughal Empire. It states that Maratha power was created as a result of the interplay of rajadharma, sacred geography, control of space through forts, mobile warfare, and negotiated local power. By relying on the writings of J. Duncan M. Derrett, Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau, Diana Eck, and Sumit Guha, the study shows that the Maratha polity was not politically incomplete due to the fact that it did not have strict centralization; rather, the ability to integrate ethics, landscape, mobility, and mediation in a sustainable form of rule was its unique strength. The paper provides a theoretical and philosophical framework for explaining the polity based on the ideas of sacred geography and relational sovereignty to comprehend the Maratha state formation as a new model of early modern Indian polity.