Early dynasties.
The origin of the name Maharashtra is unclear. It may come from the word rathi (chariot) whose drivers formed an army (maharathis). They probably migrated south and settled in the upland area in the 600's. There they mingled with aboriginal tribes.
The territories making up present-day Maharashtra formed part of several Indian empires. The earliest empire to control the region was the Mauryan. Its most famous ruler was the emperor Asoka, who lived during the 200's B.C.

Between the 700's and the 1300's there were a number of Hindu kingdoms. These included the Satavahana, the Kalacuri, the Rastrakuta, the Chalukya, and the Yadavas. The first Muslim dynasty was founded in 1307 and was followed by a string of others. The Muslims used Persian as the language of the court and this had a marked influence on the development of the Marathi language.

Rise of the Marathas. In the 1400's and 1500's, the Maharashtra region went through a religious revival influenced by the "Sants" of bhakti a devotional Hindu religion. By the middle of the 1500's, Maharashtra consisted of several small kingdoms ruled by Maratha chieftains who spent much of their time fighting each other.
In a reign that lasted from 1627 to 1680, the Marathan prince Shivaji welded these various Marathan kingdoms into a powerful state. The power of the new Marathan state was based on a strong, well-organized army. It threatened the Mughal empire in the north, weakened it through constant military campaigns, and contributed to its downfall.

The last Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb, spent nearly the whole of the second half of his reign fighting the Marathas in the Deccan Plateau. Aurangabad is named after him. The Mughal Empire could not withstand this sustained onslaught and gradually withdrew. During the 1700's, nearly all western and central India and large portions of northern and eastern India came under the control of a Marathan confederacy.
The imperial ambitions of the Marathas were shattered by the Afghans, who defeated them in the third Battle of Panipat in 1761, and later by the British, who fought them in three wars and eventually overcame them in 1817. The British administration annexed a large portion of Maratha territory to form a colonial administrative unit called the Bombay Presidency.