raj: [18] English acquired the word raj, of course, from the period of British rule in India. It was borrowed from Hindi rāj ‘reign’, which goes back to Sanskrit rājā, a derivative of rājati ‘he rules’. Closely related is rajah [16], which came (probably via Portuguese) from Hindi rājā, a descendant of Sanskrit rājan ‘king’ (the Sanskrit feminine from rājnī produced ranee [17]).
The whole family of words goes back to an Indo- European base *rēg-, which also produced Latin rēx ‘king’, source of English regal and royal. Maharajah [17] means literally ‘great ruler’ (Hindi mahā ‘great’ comes from the same source as Latin magnus ‘great’, ancestor of English magnify, magnitude, etc). => regal, royal
