Karli (also Karla) is a town on the highway between

Pune Pune ( ; , ISO 15919, ISO: ), previously spelled in English as Poona (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1978), is a city in the state of Maharashtra in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan plateau in Western ...

and

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

in the Mawal taluka of the Pune district in the southern

Maharashtra Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. It is on a major

trade route A trade route is a logistical network identified as a series of pathways and stoppages used for the commercial transport of cargo. The term can also be used to refer to trade over land or water. Allowing goods to reach distant markets, a singl ...

that runs from the

Arabian Sea The Arabian Sea () is a region of sea in the northern Indian Ocean, bounded on the west by the Arabian Peninsula, Gulf of Aden and Guardafui Channel, on the northwest by Gulf of Oman and Iran, on the north by Pakistan, on the east by India, and ...

eastward, into the

Deccan The Deccan is a plateau extending over an area of and occupies the majority of the Indian peninsula. It stretches from the Satpura and Vindhya Ranges in the north to the northern fringes of Tamil Nadu in the south. It is bound by the mount ...

. Karli's location in

places it in a region that is the division between

North India North India is a geographical region, loosely defined as a cultural region comprising the northern part of India (or historically, the Indian subcontinent) wherein Indo-Aryans (speaking Indo-Aryan languages) form the prominent majority populati ...

and

South India South India, also known as Southern India or Peninsular India, is the southern part of the Deccan Peninsula in India encompassing the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana as well as the union territories of ...

. It encompasses an area of . The small town is most famous for the Karla Caves—a 1st-century BC

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...

complex or ''

chaitya A chaitya, chaitya hall, chaitya-griha, (Sanskrit:''Caitya''; Pāli: ''Cetiya'') refers to a shrine, sanctuary, temple or prayer hall in Indian religions. The term is most common in Buddhism, where it refers to a space with a stupa and a rounded ...

s'' cut out of stone. At long and in height, it is the largest such chaitya in

. The aisle of the temple is flanked by 37 pillars that are topped with kneeling elephants. The outside facade is in bad repair due to stone breakage as well as the erosion of intricate details carved to imitate finished wood. The central motif is a large horseshoe arch. There is a lion column in front, with a closed stone facade and almost ruined ''

torana A ''torana'' (; '' awr-uh-nuh') is a free-standing ornamental or arched gateway for ceremonial purposes in Hindu architecture, Hindu, Buddhist and Jain architecture of the Indian subcontinent. Toranas can also be widely seen in Southeast Asi ...

'' in between. On one side there is a temple of Shree Ekvira devi (Ekveera Aai). Three years later hostilities were resumed. The Bombay government now sent an army to the

Konkan The Konkan is a stretch of land by the western coast of India, bound by the river Daman Ganga at Damaon in the north, to Anjediva Island next to Karwar town in the south; with the Arabian Sea to the west and the Deccan plateau to the eas ...

, with orders to march across the Western Ghauts on Poonah. An advanced party of under Captain Stewart first took possession of the Bhore Ghaut, where they were joined by the main army under Colonel Charles Egerton. Hartley had been offered the post of quartermaster general to the army, but he preferred to take his place at the head of his battalion. On 4 January 1779, during the First Anglo-Maratha War, forces of the

Maratha Empire The Maratha Empire, also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern India, early modern polity in the Indian subcontinent. It comprised the realms of the Peshwa and four major independent List of Maratha dynasties and states, Ma ...

confronted at Karli a force of six companies of grenadier sepoys in the British service, which set out from Bombay with the intention of reaching Puna. In the skirmish, the British commander, Captain Stewart, was killed.

Administration

The village is administrated by a sarpanch, an elected representative who leads a gram panchayat. At the time of the 2011 Census of India, the village was a self-contained gram panchayat, meaning that there were no other constituent villages governed by the body.

Demographics

At the 2011 census, the village comprised 624 households. The population of 2748 was split between 1439 males and 1309 females.

References

Bibliography

*''Lonely Planet India''. Tenth edition pg 771.

External links

Images of Karli
{{Talukas in Pune district Villages in Mawal taluka Gram Panchayats in Pune district

Administration

Demographics

See also

References

Bibliography

External links