Crossword Dictionary
rajah
raja, rajah - n
a prince or king in India
Raja (from Sanskrit: राजनà¥, IAST rÄjan-) is a royal Sanskrit title used for Indianmonarchs. The title is equivalent to king or princely ruler in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.
The title has a long history in South Asia and Southeast Asia, being attested from the Rigveda, where a rÄjan- is a ruler, see for example the daÅ›arÄjñá yuddhá, the "Battle of Ten Kings".
A raja is a monarch in India, parts of Southeast Asia, and Indonesia. The term can designate either a prince or a full-fledged king, depending on local usage. Variant spellings include rajah and rana, while the wife of a raja or a rana is called a rani. The term maharaja means "great king," and was once reserved for the equivalent of an emperor or the Persian shahanshah ("king of kings"), but over time many petty monarchs bestowed this grander title upon themselves.