Kolhapur City

HISTORY OF KOLHAPUR

Importance

Kolhapur derives its importance from its past political associations and its position as a great commercial, religious and educational centre. It was the capital of the former Kolhapur State", a premier state in the Deccan, and was also the seat of the Residency for Deccan States. Its importance as a commercial centre is well known. Kolhapur is a big market for jaggery (Gul) of which the district is a very large producer. This jaggery is supplied to various parts of India and is exported to different countries. As a religious centre, Kolhapur is known as the Dakshin Kashi or the Kashi of the South, the ancient temple of Mahalaksmi being the main attraction. The city has two Arts and Science Colleges, one Law College, one B. T. College and one Commerce College. It has also 20 High Schools. There are numerous cheap hostel facilities. Kolhapur has produced many well-known artists and sculptors and it has also been the birth place of Marathi film industry. It has been a sports centre and has produced many well-known wrestlers, cricketers and sportsmen who have represented India in international contests. Although mainly a residential and commercial town till lately, Kolhapur is now fast becoming an industrial town with emphasis on the engineering industry.

History

Kolhapur, or as it seems to have been formerly called Karvir, is probably one of the oldest religious and trade centres in western India. In Brahmapuri Hill, near the centre of the present city, have been found Buddhist coins which are believed to belong to the first century before Christ; a small crystal casket which is believed to have enclosed Buddhist relics of about the same age and a shattered model of a brass relic-shrine or daghoba whose shape also belongs to about the first century before Christ. [ Jour, B.B.R.A.S. XIV, 147-154.] The discovery of a Shatakarni inscription probably of the first century after Christ at Banavasi in North Kanara and the known extent of the power of that dynasty in the North Deccan, make it probable that, as suggested by Professor Bhandarkar, Ptolemy's (A.D. 150) Hippokurh rejia Baleokuri refers to Kolhapur, the capital of king Vilvayakura, who from inscriptions is believed to have reigned about A.D. 150.
Recent excavations at Brahmapuri have revealed that " a city of well-built brick houses stood on the banks of the Pancaganga river, when the Satvahana (or Audhra according to the Puranas) Emperor, Gautamiputra Satkarni ruled in the Deccan about A.D. 106-130. The beginnings of this city were probably laid in the preceeding one or two centuries. [H.D. Sankalia and M. G. Dixit:-Excavations at Brahmapuri (Kolhapur) 1945-46.] " Before the temple of Mahalaksmi was built in the 7th or 8th century there appears to have been six centres of habitation or hamlets. These were,

(1) Brahmapuri where though the old city had declined, people continued to live,

(2) Uttareshwar, which was a suburb of the old Brahmapuri city,

(3) Kholkhandoba which also was a suburb of the old Brahmapuri city,

(4) Rankala which seems to have been a separate hamlet,

(5) Padmala on the banks of Padmala lake and

(6) Ravnesvar which was a separate hamlet. These six centres continued their separate existence uptil the building of the Mahalaksmi temple, which became the centre of Kolhapur city.

[Kolhapur Nagarpalika-Centenary Souvenir-pp. 174-180,] In former times this great temple was surrounded by a circle of shrines several of which lie buried many feet under ground. Every pool of standing water was sacred and in the city and country round about there are many broken images of Brahman and Jain worship which are supposed to belong to temples destroyed by the Musalmans in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. According to Major Graham [Graham's Kolhapur, 112.] in the eighth or ninth century an earthquake overturned many temples and buildings in Kolhapur. Among the traces of the earthquake are the two underground temples of Khandoba and Kartik Swami, over which houses have since been built In the old temple of Ambabai the wall is of unequal height in different places, and the ground has passed through so many changes that the original level cannot be discovered. In digging the foundations of the high school in 1870, and in making other excavations, at a depth of over fifteen feet, stones slabs covered with strange figures, shrines and old inscriptions were found. In support of his statement that many of these changes are due to the action of an earthquake Major Graham refers [Graham's Kolhapur 317.] to several small mounds or upheavings near the city and to the discovery in 1849 of the bed of the Panchaganga seventy feet above the level of the present bed. In the Karavir or Kolhapur Mahatmya [Though it probably embodies old legends and traditions the Karvir Mahatmya or the Greatness of Kolhapur wag -written as late as 1730,] or account of the greatness of Kolhapur, Kolhapur is mentioned as the Kasi or Benares of the South. According to local tradition, when the Jains were building the temple of Ambabai on Brahmapuri hill a fort was made by a Kshatri Raja Jaysing who held his court at Bid about nine miles west of Kolhapur. In the twelfth century the Kolhapur fort was the scene of a battle between the Kalahhurya or Kalachurya who had conquered the Kalyani Chalukyas and become the ruler of the Deccan, and the Silaharas of Kolhapur, the feudatories of the Chalukyas. Bhoja Raja II (1178-1209) of the Kolhapur Silaharas made Kolhapur his capital but the headquarters of the State were soon after moved to Panhala about twelve miles to the North-west, and remained there till the country passed to the Bahamani Kings. The Bahamani Sultan Allaudin Hasan Bahmon Shah (1347-1359) towards the end of his reign made a conquest of Goa and Dabhol and while returning from this campaign passed through Karad and Kolhapur where he establihed the rule of the muslims. Kolhapur is next mentioned as the place where Mahmudd Gawan (1469) encamped during rainy season in his expedition against Visalgad. [Briggs Ferishta, II., 482-485,] Under the Bijapur Kings, from 1489 till it came under Sivaji about 1659, owing to its nearness to the strong fort of Panhala, a Bijapur Officer was stationed at Kolhapur. Under the Marathas, especially after 1730, when it became independent of Satara, Kolhapur rose in importance. In 1782 the seat of Government was moved from Panhala to Kolhapur. Up to this time Kolhapur's only protection against robbers and enemies was a mud wall. During the feuds between the Patvardhans and the Kolhapur State (1773-1810) which filled the latter years of the eighteenth century, a stone wall thirty feet high and ten to twenty-six feet thick, was built more than 1¼ miles in circumstance. At equal distances the wall had forty-five bastions with battlements and loopholes and outside a deep and wide ditch with a rough glacis. In the wall were six gateways, three of them with stout wooden gates, bristling with long iron spikes to keep off elephants. After the river reservoirs and the wards to which they led, the gates were named the Ganga, Rahkala, Varunitirth, Aditvar, Mangalvar and Sanivar, The entrance to each gate was across a drawbridge. The gates used to be shut at eleven in the evening and opened by four in, the morning. [With four of the six gates some great event is connected. By the Ganga gate which opened on the Panchaganga river, no corpse except one of a member of the royal family was allowed to be carried. By the Aditvar gate, in 1857 the second band of rebels led by Firangu Shinda entered the town, broke into the jail, and set the prisoners free. By the Mangalvar gate, in 1857 the rebels of the 27th Kolhapur Native Infantry tried in vain to enter the city. At the Shanvar gate, which is said to have been built by Ali Adil Shah I of Bijapur (1557-1579), a hard battle was fought in 1800 between the Raja of Kolhapur and the Patwardhans under Ramchandra, son of the well known Parshurambhau. In this gate, after a seige of two months a breach was made scaling ladders were appled, and the city was on the point of being taken when an intrigue at the Poona Court suddenly obliged the assailants to leave the city. In 1858 by breaking open the Shanvar gate, Sir LeGrand Jacob entered the city and arrested the rebels under Firangu Shinda, who was shot by the treasury guard of the Kolhapur infantry.] When the town was growing in the eighteenth century, the people built houses without any order wherever sites could be had, and the streets were narrow, often not broad enough for two carts to pass. As the city increased in size weekly markets came to be held outside the walls. Beyond the walls ten subrubs or peths were founded. After the names of the founders or of the presiding god of the place, or of the days on which weekly markets were held, the new suburbs were called Ravivar Somvar, Mangalvar, Budhvar, Sukravar and Sanivar and Uttresvar, Candresvar, Kesapur and Logmapur. In these suburbs the lanes were wide and were planted here and there with trees. In the eighties of the nineteenth century to improve the air and health of the city the walls were pulled down and the ditch filled The modern development of Kolhapur can be said to have started when the British obtained political suzerainty in 1844 and built the Residency during 1845-48. The New Palace was built near the Residency in 1877. The chiefs and jagirdars also began building their mansions in this area. Then came the railway in 1891-92. The site for the station was selected beyond the Jayantinala, about 2 miles from the city. The station exerted a considerable pull on the city and development of the city towards the station started. The Sahupuri colony was started near the station in 1895 and was completed in 1920. Then came the Laxmipuri colony in 1926-27 between Shahupuri and the city. In 1929, the Rajarampuri Colony was started. In 1933, the area between the railway line and Rajarampuri was developed and was called the Sykes Extension. In the city, fields and vacant sites came to be developed as population increased. From 1884, efforts were made to fill up the numerous lakes and tanks in the city. The Kapiltirth was first filled up and a vegetable market was established on the site. Indrakund was also filled up. The Mahar talao Kumbhar talao, Umak, Petala, Maskuti, and Ravneswar, were gradually filled up. Khasbag, Sakoli, Varunitirth, Ravanesvar, Belbag, Udyam-nagar and Maskuti talao areas came to be developed into residential areas all of which except Khasbag and Sakoli are very recent development, i.e., of 1944-45 onwards.