Satara

Satara is a town and district of Maharashtra state of India. The name is derived from the seventeen walls, towers and gates which the town was supposed to possess. The town is 2320 ft. above sea-level, near the confluence of the Krishna River (Kistna) and its tributary the Vena, 56 mi south of Pune.

Contents

1 History 2 Satara District 3 External links 3.1 Maps 3.2 Pictures 3.3 Watercolors 4 Further reading 5 References

History

The city of Satara was the seat of the former Maratha Maharajas, the nominal rulers of the Maratha empire until its conquest by Britain in 1818. Shivaji made Satara the capital of the Maratha state in 1659, when he won independence from the sultanate of Bijapur. His descendants had lost effective control of the Maratha state by the mid-18th century, which had passed to the Peshwas, who moved the capital to Pune in 1749. After their victory in the Third Anglo-Maratha War in 1818, the British annexed most of the Maratha territory to Bombay Presidency, but restored the titular raja, and assigned to him the principality of Satara, with an area much larger than the present district. As a result of political intrigues, he was deposed in 1839, and his brother was placed on the throne. This prince dying without male heirs in 1848, Satara was resumed by the British government, and added to Bombay Presidency. After Indian Independence in 1947 Bombay become a state of India. In 1960 Bombay state was divided into the new states of Gujarat and Maharashtra on linguistic lines.

Satara District

Satara District has an area of 10,480 km², and a population of 2,796,906 (2001). The capital of the district is Satara; other major towns include Karad, Koregaon, Koyananagar, Mahabaleshwar, and Panchgani. It is bounded by Pune district to the north, Solapur district to the east, Sangli district to the south, and Ratnagiri district on the west.

The Sahyadri range, or main range of the Western Ghats, runs north and south along the western edge of the district, separating it from Ratnagiri district. The Mahadeo range starts about 10 m. north of Mahabaleshwar and stretches east and south-east across the whole of the district. The Mahadeo hills are bold, presenting bare scarps of black rock like fortresses. The Satara district is part of two main watersheds. The Bhima River watershed, which is a tributary of the Krishna, includes the north and northeast of the district, north of the Mahadeo hills. The rest of the district is drained by the upper Krishna and its tributaries. The hill forests have a large store of timber and firewood. The whole of Satara district falls within the Deccan Traps area; the hills consist of trap intersected by strata of basalt and topped with laterite, while, of the different soils on the plains, the commonest is the black loamy clay containing carbonate of lime. This soil, when well watered, is capable of yielding heavy crops. Satara contains some important irrigation works, including the Kistna canal. In some of the western parts of the district the average annual rainfall exceeds 200 in.; but on the eastern side water is scanty, the rainfall varying from 40 in. in Satara town to less than 12 in. in some places farther east. The district is traversed from north to south by a railway line, which passes 10 miles east Satara town.

The Mandher Devi temple in Mandhradevi, near Wai, is the Kalubai temple. Located on a hill 4,650 feet above sea level, the temple, some 20 km from Satara, overlooks the picturesque Purandhar fort. Devotees attribute miraculous properties to a grove around the shrine. Lore has it that the temple is more than 400 years old and was built during Shivaji's Maratha rule. However, no definite date on the temple's construction is available. It was the scene of a tragic stampede on 25 January 2005.

External links

• [1] (http://satara.nic.in/) Welcome to Satara.
• [2] (http://tosic.interfree.it/Asia/In-Satara.htm) History.
• [3] (http://www.educationinfoindia.com/medical/m_indexkrishnainsttmedi.html) Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences.

Maps

• [4] (http://www.educationinfoindia.com/maharashtra.gif) Maharashtra.
• [5] (http://satara.nic.in/htmldocs/distmap_roads.htm) Satara District Main Roads and Railways.
• [6] (http://satara.nic.in/images/sat_map_phyi_new2.jpg) Physical Map of Satara District.

Pictures

• [7] (http://www.craveservices.com/photos/index.htm?satara.htm&right) Satara Fort, Shiva Temple, Old Palace.
• [8] (http://www.spanconsult.com/IMGS/pune-satara%20road_1.jpg) Road from Pune to Satara
• [9] (http://geocities.com/ascpoona/sahyadri/satarabutte.jpg) Butte South of Satara (NH-4). Looking west.
• [10] (http://www.michaelmcfadyenscuba.info/articles/satara%20underway.jpg) Cargo Steamer "SS Satara"

Watercolors

• [11] (http://home.comcast.net/~gayatri.vasudevan/images/Road_To_Satara1.jpg) Gayatri Vasudevan: "Road to Satara"
• [12] (http://home.comcast.net/%7Egayatri.vasudevan/images/Home.jpg) Gayatri Vasudevan "Home"
• [13] (http://home.comcast.net/%7Egayatri.vasudevan/images/The_Verandah.jpg) Gayatri Vasudevan "The Verandah"

Further reading

• Valunjkar, T. N. Social Organization, Migration & Change in a Village Community, Deccan College Poona 1966.

• Malik, S.C. Stone Age Industries of the Bombay & Satara Districts, M. Sayajirao University Baroda 1959.

• Selections from the Historical Records of the Hereditary Minister of Baroda. Consisting of letters from Bombay, Baroda, Poona and Satara Governments. Collected by B.A. Gupte. Calcutta 1922.

References

• Paul H. von Tucher: Nationalism: Case and crisis in Missions - German Missions in British India 1939 - 1946. Diss. Erlangen 1980. Author's edition Erlangen/Germany 1980. Contains an account of the Parole Settlement and Internment Camp in Satara 1940-1946.

• Wilhelm Filchner: Life of a Researcher (chapter XXIII). Wilhelm Filchner was interned from September 1941 until November 1946 in the Parole Camp in Satara. Later on he lived in Poona in the Maharashtra state of India.

Districts of Maharashtra

Ahmadnagar | Akola | Amravati | Aurangabad | Bhandara | Bid | Buldana | Chandrapur | Dhule | Gadchiroli | Gondiya | Hingoli | Jalgaon | Jalna | Kolhapur | Latur | Mumbai | Mumbai (suburban) | Nagpur | Nashik | Nanded | Nandurbar | Osmanabad | Parbhani | Pune | Raigarh | Ratnagiri | Sangli | Satara | Sindhudurg | Solapur | Thane | Wardha | Washim | Yavatmal