Two Marathi Letters from the Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia: A Snapshot of Dutch-Maratha Relations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Coromandel

Abstract

AbstractThe third volume of Dutch Sources on South Asia mentions that there are some late-eighteenth-century Marathi letters, written in the Modi script, preserved in the National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia.1 Scanned copies of the same were obtained by Lennart Bes (Leiden University) with the kind permission of the Indonesia Archives. Using these scanned copies, this paper gives the complete Roman transliteration of the two letters as well as their translation, and contextualizes the letters within Maratha documentary practices as well as within the contemporary political scene of the late-eighteenth-century Coromandel Coast. In addition, this article provides a commentary on the Maratha perception of Europeans in general and of the Dutch in particular, arguing that the Marathas had an unusually positive opinion about the trade-oriented Dutch, especially when contrasted with the territorially ambitious English and the Portuguese.