The Calamity Of A Famine

                        Agiculture was dependent on rainwater. If it did not rain, crops would fail. It became difficult for the people to get foodgrains and other things.

                        A great famine occured in Maharashtra in AD1630. People were greatly distressed due to this famine. It has been described in these words ---'People were ready to sell themselves for a piece of bhakri, but there was nobody to buy them'.

Pargana

                   Many villages together made a Pargana. Pune Pargana consisted of 290 villages. Deshpandes and the Deshmukhs were the watandar officers of the Pargana. The Deshpande was the chief of all the Kulkarnis in the Pargana.

Mauja

                      Most of the people lived in villages. The villages were also known as 'Mauja'. The chief of the village was the Patil. A Kulkarni helped the Patil in his work. The Kulkarni kept the record of the revenue collected.

Maharashtra Before The Times Of Shivaji Maharaj

                      At the beginning of seventeenth centuary AD, most of the territory was in the possession of the Nizamshah of Ahmednagar and the Adilshah of Bijapur. In the coastal belt of Konkan, there were two sea powers --- the Portugese and the Siddi. The British and the Dutch also had their factories on the coast. There was constant conflicts among these. These conflicts had led to instability and insecurity in Maharashtra.