Osmanabad
| Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R) |
Osmanabad (उस्मानाबाद) is a city and district in Maharashtra. Osmanabad district derived its name from the 7th Nizam of Hyderabad - Mir Osman Ali Khan. The district headquarters are located at Osmanabad. Temple of goddess Tuljabhavani at Tulajapur is famous in India.
Variants
Location
Osmanabad district lies in the southern part of state. It lies on the Deccan plateau, about 600 m above sea level. Parts of the Manjira and Terna River flow through the district. The district is located on the east side of the Marathwada region between latitude 17.35 to 18.40 degrees north, and latitude 75.16 to 76.40 degrees east. Osmanabad District is bordered by the Beed District to the north, Latur District to the east, Solapur District to the west, Ahmednagar district to the north-west and the Bidar and Gulbarga districts of state of Karnataka to the south. Most of the district lies in the hilly areas of the Balaghat Range.
History
Note: Following content is from the book - History And Legend In Hyderabad, Department of Information and Public Relations, 1953,pp.101-105
Osmanabad as a district is quite recent but it has many places of protohistoric as well as historic importance which proclaim even today the glory of the ancient past.
According to local tradition Sri Rama received divine guidance about the route to Lanka in the vicinity of Tuljapur near the Jumnajal hill. Here Sri Rama prayed to Devi Tuljabhavani who revealed the path, and the place is even today known as Ghat Saile.
Tagara, whose ruins still remain unexplored in the town of Thair (Ter), was famous during the Andhra period as Tagara muslin and Paithan onyx were two of the commodities exported to Imperial Rome.
Latur — corrupted from Lattalur — is a link with the Rashtrakutas of Manapura, King Krishna I of which dynasty was the author of the famous Kailasa at Ellora. It is not known whether Manapur or Lattalur was the original capital until it was shifted to Manayakheta by King Govinda III. Osmanabad was originally Dharasiva, a name lost in the history of Saivism.
Osmanabad has been a frontier district of the State in more ways than one. Like Aurangabad and Nalgonda, it has had an aura of military importance inasmuch as it is a wild rocky area difficult to attack but easy to resist. Probably because the district was the nearest point of attack for the Marathas in their heyday that it came to assume a strategic value for the Nizams. Historically, it has been a bone of contention between the Adil Shahis of Bijapur and Ahmadnagar.
The district came under Muslim rule in the beginning of the 14th century, when it was annexed to the empire of Delhi by Alauddin Khilji. On the foundation of the Bahmani kingdom, it fell to that power, and, when that monarchy in turn dissolved, to the Sultans of Ahmadnagar and Bijapur. The conquest of the Deccan by Aurangzeb reunited it to Delhi, till the foundation of Hyderabad State in the early part of the 18th century. It was ceded to the British Government with the Raichur doab under
[p.102]: the treaty of 1853, but was restored to the Nizam in I860,
Most picturesque place in the Deccan: Six places of archaeological interest figure in the district — Naldrug, Owsa, Osmanabad, Parenda, Thair (Ter) and Tuljapur. Naldrug is an outpost town right on the frontier itself. The fort of Naldrug is situated above the ravine of the Bori river, and is one of the best fortified and most picturesque places in the Deccan. Meadows Taylor has given a very interesting and impressive description of the fort in his book The Story of My Life. Before the Muslim invasion in the 14th century it belonged to a local raja, probably a vassal of the Chalukyas. It fell to the Bahmani dynasty who built the stone fortifications. After the division of the Bahmani kingdom in 1482, it was seized by the Adil Shahis of Bijapur, and was a bone of contention between them and the Ahmadnagar Sultans. Ali Adil Shah in 1558 not only added to the fortifications, but also erected a dam across the Bori, which afforded a constant supply of water to the garrison.
Ancient Caves and Shrines: Groups of caves known as the Dabar Lena, Chamar Lena and Lachandar Lena lie around the town of Osmanabad (Dharaseo), the first-mentioned group being Jain and Vaishanava excavations. Roughly the caves may be assigned to the period between A.D. 500 and 650. Hasangaon, 40 miles north-west of Naldrug, contains two large caves in a solitary hill, which were Brahmanical rock shrines. (Detailed information about these caves is given in Dharaseo or Osmanahad Caves obtainable from the Director
of Archaeology, Hyderabad.)
Sacred to Devi Tuljabhvani: Tuljapur, a town 20 miles north-west of Naldrug, is a famous place of Hindu pilgrim- age, In a ravine at the foot of the hill is the temple of Tuljabhavani, which is visited by Hindus from all parts of India, especially on the full moon of the Dassara festival, when a great jatra is held. It was here that the path to Lanka was revealed to Sri Rama by the goddess.
The temple is situated on a hill, but one has to go down into the temple to reach the deity. The original old temple was built nearly 800 years ago. The Maharajas of Kolhapur and Satara, and Ahalya Bai Holkar, are known to have built the huge outer structure of the temple. All Marathas believe in Tuljabhavani as their Kuldevata (family deity). Many costly ornaments given by Shivaji are still used for puja on occasions of celebrations. There is one go-mukh . (cow’s mouth) inside the temple, through which
[p.103]: water falls continuously and ultimately goes to kallol teerth (tank) where pilgrims bathe.
Behind the Bhavani temple there is another temple called Bharatiya Math which is situated in the valley. It is believed that the goddess goes there at night for playing chess with the gods and a chess-board and cowries are religiously kept in the Math. The cowries are worn by the Bhutyas, the Gondhalis and the Aradhis, who are a peculiar tribe of professional worshippers of Bhavani.
Mankesar: Here are Mahadeva temples of 13th and 14th centuries of the Chalukyan type. The group is constructed of fine granite stone richly carved with figures and sculptures. Opposite the main temple, there is a ruined nandi on a pedestal adorned with an elephant frieze executed in high relief.
Naldrug: The fort here is said to have been built originally by a Hindu raja who was a vassal of the Chalukyan kings of Kalyani. It was later included in the possession of the Bahmanis and subsequently was taken over by the Adil Shahi kings of Bijapur. The most interesting building inside the fort is the dam built across the river Bori. The dam and the Pani Mahal ‘ Water-Pavilion ’ which is built underneath in the middle of the dam, were designed by a Persian architect, Mir Md. Imadin, during the reign of Ibrahim Adil Shah II. A Persian inscription on the Mahal, dated 1613 A.D., records these facts. There is another Persian inscription of Ali Adil Shah corresponding to 1560 A.D. fixed on a mosque which mentions the construction of the fortifications and the mosque.
Osmanabad City: The group of Jaina and Brahmanical caves excavated in a low rocky ridge have already been mentioned.
The dargah of Hazrat Shamsuddin is a Muslim shrine of the 14th century. This dargah is much esteemed by both Hindus and Muslims. It is a square structure surmounted by a lofty graceful hemispherical dome and is decorated all round with bands of lotus petals. Over the entrance facing the south is a Persian inscription recording the date of the death of the saint as 730 A.D. Just opposite the doorway is the grave of the saint’s son, Tajuddin.
Owsa Town (Ausa): Here, the fort is square in shape, surrounded by a double wall and a moat all round, and is said to have been built by the Bijapur kings. It contains a large gun; 18 feet long,
[p. 104]: with the name of Nizam Shah engraved on it. Most of the old buildings are in ruins, but an extensive underground building measures 76 by 50 feet, the roof of which forms the bottom of a large cistern. An old mosque was built during Aurangzeb’s viceroyalty of the Deccan, as is apparent from an inscription it bears. The Jami Masjid in the town is built in the Bijapur style of architecture, with a dome and facade of cusped arches.
Parenda: The fort, erected by Mahmud Gawan, the celebrated Bahmani minister, contains several large guns mounted on bastions. Parenda was the capital of the Nizam Shahis for a short time after the capture of Ahmadnagar by the Moghuls in 1605. It was besieged unsuccessfully by Shah Jahan’s general in 1630. It was, however, reduced by Aurangzeb during his viceroyalty of the Deccan. The fortifications are in good order, but the old town is in ruins. Numerous ruins in the neighbourhood testify to the former populousness of the place.
Ter: The village, situated about three miles from the railway station of that name and about 12 miles north-east of Osmanabad, on the Kurdwadi-Latur branch line, is believed by some to have occupied the site of Tagara of Ptolemy. It is even now noteworthy on account of the apsidal temple which it contains. The temple is an interesting replica of the rock-cut Buddhist chaityas of western India and the Pagodas of Mamallapuram as well as the basilicas of the Mediterranean zone. The building is a brick structure consisting of an apsidal shrine covered over with a barrel-shaped ridge-like vault and faced with a square flat-roofed mandapa. The large size of the bricks used in its construction indicates the antiquity of the building, but a modern wooden door fitted in the fore-wall of the mandapa, and some recent images of Vishnu in the shrine, mark the present dedication. Tagara muslin used to be fabricated here.
There is also famous for Saint Gora Kumbhar, the potter around whom many 12th century legends centre. He was a devotee of god Vithal. Once his wife left the baby in his charge. In his devotion he forgot all about the baby, who unfortunately fell into the deep receptacle for clay and was drowned. A tremendous domestic storm arose, in which the wife not only abused the deity but actually threatened to break the murti When Gora approached to her to save the idol she charged him in the name of Vithaldev himself not to touch her — this put an end to marital ties, though the two were reconciled. In despair, the wife got him married to her sister but unfortunately his father-in-law asked him to treat both sisters equally, so that he had to treat even the new wife as a sister !
One night the two sisters conspired and when the saint was asleep they took his
[p.105]: arms around them. When he awoke he was so horrified at the breaking of his oath that he cut off his hands. According to legend his hands were miraculously restored when he tried to raise them for clapping while attending a kirtan held by Saint Namdeo, his contemporary.
Another legend says that on one occasion Namdeo and other devotees came on a visit, but Saint Gora started tapping their heads with his potter’s mallet. They were amazed as well as indignant. He then replied : “ I am only testing which head is pucca and which kuicha, pots and pans being tested in this manner.
उस्मानाबाद
विजयेन्द्र कुमार माथुर[1] ने लेख किया है ...उस्मानाबाद (AS, p.103) गुप्तकालीन गुहाओं के लिए उल्लेखनीय है। (दे. धारसिव)
उस्मानाबाद परिचय
उस्मानाबाद महाराष्ट्र राज्य में स्थित एक नगर है, जो कर्नाटक राज्य की सीमा पर दक्षिण–पश्चिम भारत में स्थित है। यह उस्मानाबाद पठार पर अवस्थित है। पर्यटकों के देखने के लिए यहाँ अनेक दर्शनीय स्थल हैं। देवी तुलजा भवानी के कारण यह स्थान पूरे देश में लोकप्रिय है। 7550 वर्ग कि.मी. में फैले उस्मानाबाद नगर की जलवायु शुष्क है। भजन, कीर्तन और गोंधल यहाँ की लोकप्रिय लोक कलाएँ हैं। नालदुर्ग क़िला, तुलजापुर, परांडा क़िला, कुंतल गिरी, जैन मंदिर, घाट शिला, ग़रीब बाबा मठ आदि यहाँ के लोकप्रिय और प्रसिद्ध दर्शनीय स्थल हैं। इन दर्शनीय स्थलों को देखने के लिए यहाँ देश के अनेक हिस्सों से सैलानियों का आना लगा रहता है।[2]
धारसिव
धारसिव (महाराष्ट्र) (AS, p.466) : धारासिव महाराष्ट्र में स्थित एक ऐतिहासिक स्थान है। यह स्थान अपने प्राचीन शैलकृत गुहा मंदिरों के लिए विशेष रूप से उल्लेखनीय है।[3]