Maharaja

Mahārāja (Sanskrit: महाराज, also spelled maharajah) is a Sanskrit title for a "great ruler", "great king" or "high king".Rana or Maharana is an equivalent title. The female equivalent, Maharani (or Maharanee, Mahārājñī), denotes either the wife of a Maharaja or Maharana, and also in states where that was customary, a woman ruling in her own right the equivalent title was Maharani. The widow of a Maharaja is known as a Rajmata "queen mother". The form Maharaj indicates a separation of noble and religious offices, although the fact that in Hindi the suffix -a is silent makes the two titles near homophones.

Etymology

The word Maharaja originates in Sanskrit and is a compound karmadhāraya term from mahānt- "great" and rājan "ruler, king"). It has the Latin cognates magnum "great" and rex "king". Due to Sanskrit's major influence on the vocabulary of most languages in Greater India, the term maharaja is common to many modern languages of India such as Kannada, Tamil, Hindi, Marathi, Rajasthani, Malvi, Telugu, Odia, Punjabi, Bengali and Gujarati. The Sanskrit title maharaja was originally used only for rulers who ruled a considerably large region with minor tributary rulers under them. Since the mediaeval times, the title was used even by rulers of smaller states since they claimed to be the descendants of the ancient maharajas.