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Nana Fadnavis (also Nana Phadanvis, May 4, 1741 - March 13, 1800) was the great Maratha minister at Pune, Maharashtra. India at the end of the 18th century.

His real name was Balaji Janardhan Bhanu; but, like many other Marathas, he was always known by a kind of nickname. Nana properly means a maternal grandfather; Phadnavis ("Ph" as in "Elephant") is the official title of the finance minister, derived from fard = an account and anvis = a writer. Incidentally, the name is often spelled "Phadnavis". He was born at Satara on the 4th of May 1741, and was the son of a Chitpavan Brahman, of the same caste as the Peshwa.

Nana escaped from the fatal Third Battle of Panipat (1761) and from about 1774 became the leading personage directing the affairs of the Maratha Confederacy, though never a soldier. This was the period when one Peshwa was rapidly succeeded by another, and there was more than one disputed succession. It was the endeavour of Nana Farnavis to hold together the confederacy in the teeth of both internal dissension and the growing power of the British.

Nana died at Pune on the 13th of March 1800, just before Peshwa Baji Rao II placed himself in the hands of the British, provoking the Second Anglo-Maratha War that began the break up the Maratha confederacy. In an extant letter to the Peshwa, the Marquess Wellesley describes^[1] him thus: "The able minister of your state, whose upright principles and honourable views and whose zeal for the welfare and prosperity both of the dominions of his own immediate superiors and of other powers were so justly celebrated."

Vijay Tendulkar's famous Marathi play, Ghashiram Kotwal (1972) is inspired by his life.

• Nana Phadnavis, the rationalist

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

v • d • e Maratha Empire
History	Shivaji - Shambhaji - Raja Ram - Balaji Vishwanath - Peshwas - Third Battle of Panipat - Anglo-Maratha Wars - Nana Sahib
Battles	Battle of Pratapgarh - Battle of Kolhapur - Battle of Pavan Khind - Battle of Surat - Battle of Sinhagad - Battle of Palkhed - Battle of Vasai - Third Battle of Panipat - Battle of Patan - Battle of Poona - Battle of Delhi - Battle of Assaye - Battle of Laswari - Battle of Farrukhabad - Battle of Bharatpur - Battle of Khadki - Battle of Mahidpur
Maratha Confederacy	Peshwa of Poona - Bhonsle of Nagpur - Gaekwad of Baroda - Sindhia of Gwalior - Holkar of Indore
Adversaries	Aurangazeb - Ahmad Shah Abdali - British Empire
Forts	Lohagad - Pratapgad - Raigad - Ratangad - Sindhudurg - Sinhagad

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