The sturdy agriculturists of the Deccan region of Pune, Satara and Kholapur are collectively known as Marathas and as farmers cultivating the land they belong to the Hindu caste of Vaishyas. One Bhosle family became very successful in acquiring large farming areas of the Deccan. Shivaji the founder of the Maratha empire belonged to this family. He collected his fellow Marathas under his leadership and successfully overthrew the Muslim sultanates of the Deccan by employing military strategies of guerrilla warfare. He became the Hindu ruler of Peninsular India.
After consolidating his empire , he wished to undergo a dharmic ceremony of crowning a king. However, it is believed that that the powerful Desh brahmins of Pune/Satara region politely refused to carry out the coronation ceremony on the grounds that he was a Vaishya by caste and hence not entitled to coronation ceremony which was the exclusive preserve of the Kshatriya caste i.e. royal families. Shivaji then approached some influential brahmins of North India and tempting them with gold and precious stones , succeeded in having himself crowned King according to dharmic traditions. One of the consequences of the refusal by Desh brahmins to carry out coronation ceremony was that Shivaji then entrusted the administration of his empire to some obscure brahmins of North Konkan regiion known as Chitpavan brahmins. The latter as Peshwes (hereditary Prime Ministers) succeeded in bringing the whole of Indian sub-continent under their rule (the precursor of later British Indian Empire) After his coronation ceremony Shivaji and his fellow chieftains started claiming themselves to be of Kshatriya caste and as a result of this missmatch, there are today quite a number of Kshatriya-Maratha organizations.
