Shirdi area history of rulers in 2nd millennium (1000 to 2000) AD may be similar to Nashik, Ahmednagar and Aurangabad history
Last updated on 4th Jan. 2023
I am now reading up on history of Shirdi area from 1000 AD to 2000 AD to gain a better perspective of life during times of Shirdi Sai Baba. Note that Shirdi is in Maharashtra state of India and I was born, bred and earned a livelihood in Maharashtra (Mumbai mainly, with residence at Dombivli near Mumbai for some years) from 1962 to 2002 (with few years outside India). So I had studied Maharashtra history in school and even in later life I would read articles & view programs that came in mainstream media about Maharashtra history, besides general conversation with friends about Maharashtra history and public cultural events with focus on Maharashtra history. A lot of this coverage was about Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj, the great Maratha leader, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shivaji (born 1630, died 1680), and the Maratha kingdom he founded.
While I surely remember some aspects of Maharashtra history before Shivaji Maharaj that I had studied in school, it is sketchy in my memory now.
As I began my quest of learning more about Shirdi area history in 2nd millennium AD, the first question was to know which city/fort controlled Shirdi area, as Shirdi itself was a small village before Shirdi Sai Baba made it a prominent place from late 1800s. Note that searching for history of Shirdi in Google returns top ten results almost all, if not all, about Shirdi Sai Baba's life history.
Further note that wikipedia page of Shirdi, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirdi , has no information on its history prior to Shirdi Sai Baba advent. The wiki page provides some info. on important places near Shirdi - "Shirdi (pronunciation (---); also known as Sainagar) is a city in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is located in the Rahata taluka of Ahmednagar District. It is accessible via the Ahmednagar–Malegaon State Highway No.10, approximately 83 km (52 mi) from Ahmednagar and 15 km (9.3 mi) from Kopargaon."
Kopargaon is mentioned in Shirdi Sai literature and is the closest town to Shirdi. Its wiki page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopargaon , also does not provide any history info. Neither does the wiki page of the taluka (like county in USA) that Shirdi falls in, Rahata https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahata_taluka .
Ahmednagar wiki page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmednagar , has some amount of historical info. from the time of its founding in 1490.
But there are two cities with far more ancient history and quite close to Shirdi which are: Nashik, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashik , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Nashik , and Aurangabad (including Paithan & Daulatabad), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurangabad . Google Map says Nashik is around 95 kms by road from Shirdi and Aurangabad is around 106 kms by road from Shirdi.
The Google Map picture below shows how Nashik, Aurangabad and Ahmednagar form a triangle of major cities surrounding Shirdi area. So I think we can presume that history of Shirdi area rulers from 1000 AD to 2000 AD would be very similar to that of Nashik, Aurangabad and Ahmednagar cities, and for these cities some amount of historical information is available on the Internet.
[On PC desktop/laptop, to open pic in larger resolution (if available), right-click on pic followed by open link (NOT image) in new tab/window. In new tab/window you may have to click on pic to zoom in.]
Note that Mumbai to Shirdi by road is around 246 kms. Further, Mumbai and nearby areas like Kalyan and Dombivli are part of Konkan coast and slightly inland plains area, whereas Nashik, Shirdi, Aurangabad and Ahmednagar are on the elevated Deccan Plateau to reach which, mountains (ghats) have to be climbed (by road or train). I have given below another Google map pic which shows the terrain of this part of Maharashtra with the pic showing larger area. One can make out the mountains in the area between Mumbai on one side and Nashik, Shirdi and Pune on the other. This pic even shows Hyderabad (Telangana) towards the right bottom with Hyderabad also being on the Deccan Plateau.
[I thank Wikipedia and Google Maps, and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above extract(s)/screenshots from their website on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]
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