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| Hemadri Pandit. |
Decolonisation is not merely the removal of foreign political power. It is the restoration of intellectual confidence. It is the recovery of systems. It is the reclaiming of institutional memory.
The Maratha Empire did not simply challenge imperial authority on the battlefield; it reconstructed the civilizational backbone of Bharat. At the heart of that reconstruction lay something deeply profound yet often overlooked: the revival of the ancient Indic tradition of accounting and state book-keeping embodied in the concept of मेस्तक (Mestak).
What is Mestak?
Mestak was a structured accounting manuscript tradition, a codified format for recording state revenue and expenditure. But more than that, it was a philosophy of governance.
The preserved shloka states:
लेखकासी हे मेस्तक। नीतिवंता नीतिशास्त्र देखा।
राजकी लोकांसि विवेक। प्रकट करी।।
लेखणी दिधली ज्याचे हाती। तो स्वीकारिला सरस्वती।
लेखनकळा वर्षा आरती। साधली तया I आताही जे असता धरिती
येणेप्रमाणे लिहिती। त्यासी पावेल सरस्वती। संदेह नाही।।
Simply stated, Mestak belongs to the scribe and is governed by ethical discipline and established rules. It must uphold fairness toward both the king and the people. Writing must be controlled, precise, and disciplined. Records must be carefully verified and accountable. Those who follow these principles shall be blessed by Saraswati.
The text contains elaborate and highly technical codifications of bookkeeping and accounting practices. For those who wish to explore this subject in depth, I strongly recommend the remarkable work 13th Century to 18th Century by Dr. Anjali Sanjay Vekhande.
To understand this revival is to understand how decolonising the mind is both possible and practical.
The Interrupted Civilizational Continuum:
Ancient Bharat was not a civilization without systems. The Arthashastra, the Smriti literature, the Dharmashastric traditions, and regional administrative manuals all testify to a sophisticated fiscal order. State accounting, treasury management, land surveys, and revenue classification were not colonial imports; they were civilizational inheritances.
From the Yadava dynasty to the Deccan polities, a lineage of administrative science evolved. Hemadri Pandit’s influence in the Yadava period represents one such institutional continuity.
Hemadri Pandit, popularly known as Hemadpant, served as the Shrikarandhip (Chief Revenue Officer, often equated with prime ministerial authority) under the Yadava rulers of Devagiri in the 13th century. He was not merely an administrator but a true polymath of medieval Bharat.
On one hand, he systematised and popularised the Bhumij style of Nagara temple architecture, leaving behind an enduring architectural imprint across the Deccan. On the other, he authored the monumental treatise “Chaturvarga Chintamani,” an encyclopaedic compendium on Dharma, Shastra, ritual law, and civil order.
Equally significant, though less widely acknowledged, was his codification of principles of bookkeeping and accounting in a structured administrative manual known as मेस्तक (Mestak).
Centuries later, during the Peshwai period of the Maratha Empire, this administrative legacy was consciously revived and recomposed. Manuscripts were rediscovered in Modi script and later found, studied, and published by Itihasacharya V.K. Rajwade. In the revived text, the importance of Hemadri Pandit and Mestak is acknowledged through the following verses:
अप्रसिद्ध जगामाजी। पिशाच लिपी हे योजी।
जीणे प्रतिष्ठा समाजी। विप्र पावती।
ऐसा अनागत द्रष्टा। हेमाद्री नामप्रतिष्ठा। योजुन ठेविली।।
त्यासी साष्टांगी नमन। करुनिया ग्रंथारंभण।
केले रिघोनि शरण। लेखक जनासी।।
These verses express that Hemadri Pandit’s administrative wisdom, once obscure and nearly forgotten, was consciously revived. The later compilers acknowledge him as a visionary whose codified system of accounting had endured the test of time. They begin their work with reverence, offering salutations and aligning themselves with his intellectual lineage.
However, prolonged foreign rule disrupted this organic development. Administrative structures shifted. Indigenous intellectual traditions were sidelined. Persianate bureaucratic practices replaced native record-keeping languages like Modi. The degradation was not merely political; it was systemic and epistemic.
This is the undercurrent that must be acknowledged: the Maratha resurgence was not only about sovereignty; it was about restoring the indigenous grammar of governance.
The Maratha Resolve: Restoration, Not Reaction
When Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj established Swarajya, he did not merely build forts and lead campaigns. He reconstructed administration. He revived institutional ethics. He reintroduced disciplined record-keeping.
Annaji Datto initiated land revenue reforms rooted in precision and accountability. Surveys were conducted meticulously. Records were preserved systematically in Modi script. Financial registers were maintained with clarity.
This was not imitation of European models. It was the revival of an Indic lineage.
And this revival took shape in the form of Mestak.
From Arthashastra to the Marathas: The Restoration of a Civilizational Lineage
The story of Mestak begins not with the Marathas but with the civilizational foundations of Bharat. From Kautilya’s Arthashastra, which established treasury management, audit, and fiscal ethics as instruments of sovereignty, this lineage flowed through the Dharmashastras into Deccan administrative traditions, where Hemadri Pandit codified these principles in Mestak under the Yadavas of Devagiri. Though prolonged foreign rule disrupted and obscured this indigenous system, it was the Marathas who restored this broken chain of institutional continuity.
The Radical Shift: From King to State
One of the most transformative developments under the Marathas was the shift from the income and expenditure of the king to the income and expenditure of the state. This was not a minor procedural change. It marked the emergence of institutional governance.
The treasury ceased to be the personal purse of the ruler. The state became a juridical entity distinct from the sovereign. Fiscal responsibility became public, structured, and documented.
In modern terminology, this is the foundation of public finance accountability.
Under Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj and later under the Peshwas, Nanasaheb, Madhavrao, and Administrator Nana Phadnavis, this administrative philosophy matured. The revived Mestak tradition refined revenue classification. Expenditure heads were codified. Documentation became systematic. Accountability was institutionalised.
Colonial historiography often suggests that structured accounting entered India through European influence, frequently citing Luca Pacioli’s 1494 double-entry system as the beginning of modern bookkeeping.
The Marathas did not reject innovation; they revived tradition and adapted it to contemporary needs. They demonstrated that modern governance need not erase indigenous roots.
Decolonising the administrative mind begins by recognising that the grammar of institutional accountability in India has its own genealogy.
The revival of Mestak was not merely a fiscal correction; it was an act of cultural and intellectual reclamation.
By restoring the use of Modi script in official records, reinforcing Bharatiya administrative autonomy, and reintroducing Dharmashastric ethical frameworks into governance, the Marathas reinterpreted ancient norms for contemporary statecraft.
Strengthening institutions over personalities through a clear separation between office and individual; embedding ethical accountability within financial systems; teaching Arthashastra, Hemadri’s codifications, and Maratha administrative traditions alongside global frameworks; reviving archival literacy and indigenous scripts to rebuild institutional memory; and training civil servants in India’s own governance heritage to cultivate rooted confidence.
Decolonisation, therefore, is not symbolic assertion; it is systematic restoration. They did not romanticise the past; they operationalised it with institutional clarity. That very template offers a practical roadmap for contemporary Bharat.
The Way Forward: Re-anchoring Modernity
If the Marathas in the 17th and 18th centuries could restore ancient institutional systems under politically hostile and unstable conditions, there is no reason 21st-century India cannot reclaim intellectual sovereignty in an era defined by global interconnectedness. Their example reminds us that civilizational confidence does not emerge from isolation but from rootedness.
Re-anchoring modernity does not mean rejecting IFRS, global accounting standards, or international regulatory frameworks. It means recognising that structured accounting, ethical treasury management, and the separation of ruler and state were embedded in our own traditions long before colonial mediation. Modern systems can be engaged with confidence when they are integrated into a civilizationally grounded foundation.
The quest, therefore, is not to romanticise the past; it is to stabilise the future by reconnecting it to its own lineage.
The Marathas demonstrated that civilizational memory can be revived after disruption, that systems can be restored with discipline, that governance can be both ethical and indigenous, and that accounting can achieve technical precision without losing moral grounding.
In this light, Mestak becomes more than a manuscript tradition; it becomes a metaphor. It symbolises accountability rooted in ethics, discipline anchored in duty, institutional sovereignty beyond personalities, cultural self-assurance in administration, and revival after historical degradation. It represents the continuity of a civilization that refused to forget its own grammar of governance.
Decolonising Bharat, therefore, is not an abstract slogan. It is a structured, actionable process, sector by sector, institution by institution, discipline by discipline. True sovereignty lies not merely in territorial control but in systemic control: in the ability to measure honestly, record faithfully, audit rigorously, and govern according to civilizational values.
The path forward is clear and practical: reclaim the lineage, restore the systems, reinterpret the tradition, and nstitutionalize integrity. That was the Maratha way. And it remains the pathway toward a confident, rooted, and future-ready Bharat.
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