MAHARAJA

also spelled Maharajah, Sanskrit Maharaja (from mahat, great, and rajan, king), an administrative rank in India; generally speaking, a Hindu prince ranking above a raja. Used historically, maharaja refers specifically to a ruler of one of the principal native states of India. The feminine form is maharani (maharanee). The title seems to have been introduced sometime in the first century BC by the Kushans. They had been influenced by the Saka (Scythian) and Persian-Mongolian rulers of northwestern India and preferred the honorific great king to king. Candra Gupta I, the third king of the Gupta period (c. AD 320540), took the title maharajadhiraja (great king of kings), a Sanskrit rendering of the Persian shahanshah. Other, still more inflated honorifics followed, and during certain periods even vassal kings with relatively small holdings were known as maharajas.