ABSTRACT

The cultural-linguistic region of Maharashtra has two major subdivisions: the Desh and the Konkan. Balaji Vishvanath Bhat was succeeded in the Peshwaship by his son, Bajirao, and thus began a century of power based in Poona, with the top position held by members of this Chitpavan Brahman family. The establishment of the Kula-vrttanta Sangha in 1938 and the publication of Pendse's booklet Kula-vrttanta-marga-darsana in 1949 represent high points in the gradual institutionalization of Chitpavan family history writing. The virtual usurpation by Chitpavan Brahmans of the Maratha king's power led inevitably to feelings of mutual distrust on the part of Marathas and Chitpavans. The Atri gotra may in fact be the crucial link that makes for Irawati Karve's statement that the Chitpavan caste "shows an evenly spun web of kinship". Since the nineteenth-century Chitpavan society put the value of a widow at more or less nil, it is amazing how many photographs of widows are included.