There is very little material regarding the architecture of the earlier period covering the reigns of Shivaji, Sambhaji, Rajaram and Shahu. The earlier Maratha rulers had neither the time nor the resources to indulge in such activities due to their protracted wars with the Mughals.

However, we can get some idea about the characteristic of the Maratha style from later buildings such as forts, palaces and temples. Brick, wood, mortar and stone were the materials used for construction. Besides other apartments, the palaces contained darbar halls and ranga and chitra mandirs.

The use of the arch was kept to the minimum and, where used, followed the Deccan style. Forts were naturally the most common feature of the earlier period.

The decorative features of the mansions were “pointed arches, heavy carved stone brackets, narrow balconies projecting on rows of such brackets, domical shallow ceilings resting on a variety of squinches, the chief being the interwoven type”.

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Among the temples constructed during the period, we may refer to the Vitthalwadi temple near Poona and the temple of Shambhu Mahadvat Shinganapur. Both of them are said to have been constructed during the time of Shivaji. These temples followed the earlier style of the Yadava temples.

Herman Goetz writes about their architectural style in his work ‘Five Thousand Years of Indian Art’: “The Maratha temples generally provided with a huge lampstand (deepmala), represents a renaissance of the medieval western Chalukyan or Shilhara sanctuary often combined with the Mughal arches and coupolas, its spire is a curious transposition of the ancient shikara (tower) into Deccani-Mughal forms, a bulbous lotus dome (in place of amalaka) rising on top of several storeys of domed chhattris (pavilion).”

The Maratha architecture lacked the beauty and grace of the buildings of the Mughals, and the Rajputs. But the Marathas excelled in fort architecture. The wood work they used to decorate their palaces and other civil buildings was intricate and minute. Maratha art could have developed and attained a distinctive character but it was not possible because of the turbulent times.