Three warrants on the Maratha polity: Purandare's popular statecraft/deeds history of Shivaji, Laine's critical-historical study of how the Shivaji legend was constructed across three centuries, and Pillai's prequel history of the cosmopolitan Deccan sultanates (Khilji → Bahmani → Vijayanagar → the five Rebel Sultans → Golconda → the Mughal conquest) that produced him — deeds, construction, and substrate held together.