Exploring Maratha Masculinity Through Sivabharata

Abstract

The Maratha state that emerged in seventeenth-century western India was not merely a military power but a cultural formation that redefined the ideals of manhood and governance. This paper explores how notions of masculinity shaped, and were shaped by, the Maratha political order under Shivaji and his successors. Drawing on literary sources such as Sivabharata and the writings of historians including Stewart Gordon, S.N. Sen, Rosalind O’Hanlon, and Uma Chakravarti, it traces how martial discipline, moral restraint, and religious piety together constituted the core of Maratha masculine identity. The study shows that while the battlefield remained a crucial site for proving masculine virtue, the household and the figure of the mother—exemplified in Jijabai—were equally central in producing disciplined and dutiful men. In this synthesis of war, dharma, and domesticity, the Maratha ideal of manhood became both a political ethic and a social code, shaping the region’s historical memory long after the fall of the empire.

DOI: 10.46700/asssr/2025/v7/i2/160