Shahada is a town in Nandurbar district of the

Indian state India is a federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories, for a total of 36 subnational entities. The states and union territories are further subdivided into 800 districts and smaller administrative divisions by the respe ...

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 ...

. It is a

Municipal council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, borough cou ...

. It is the second biggest town and the biggest

Tehsil A tehsil (, also known as tahsil, taluk, or taluka () is a local unit of administrative division in India and Pakistan. It is a subdistrict of the area within a Zila (country subdivision), district including the designated populated place that ser ...

in Nandurbar district

History

Under Maharao Jadavrao and Rao Shinde's of Dhanur, Shahada Village became part of West Khandesh in 1500s. 1400s to 1700s Shinde's became Rao of west Khandesh under Jadhavrao Rulers of Khandesh :- The Shinde/Scindia ( Sarpatils) of

Khandesh Khandesh is a geographic region in Maharashtra, India. It was made up of present Jalgaon, Dhule and Nandurbar districts. It also said that Burhanpur District of Madhya Pradesh was also its part. The region have seen many geographical ch ...

. Who came from Amirgarh (Present in

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; Literal translation, lit. 'Land of Kings') is a States and union territories of India, state in northwestern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the List of states and union territories of ...

) as Rao of West Khandesh in and

14th century The 14th century lasted from 1 January 1301 (represented by the Roman numerals MCCCI) to 31 December 1400 (MCD). It is estimated that the century witnessed the death of more than 45 million lives from political and natural disasters in both Euro ...

. In past they are Rai Amirgarh and ancestors of Sindh's Royal Family. They control Khandesh from Laling fort and Dhanur & Dhule Towns. In 1600s Jadhavrao lost ruling power against

Mughal Mughal or Moghul may refer to: Related to the Mughal Empire * Mughal Empire of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries * Mughal dynasty * Mughal emperors * Mughal people, a social group of Central and South Asia * Mughal architecture * Mug ...

but after some time later Rao Shinde recaptured Khandesh with the help of

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 ...

. In end of 1600s they came under

led by

Chhatrapati Sambhaji Sambhaji (Sambhajiraje Shivajiraje Bhonsle, ; 14 May 1657 – 11 March 1689), also known as Shambhuraje, ruled from 1681 to 1689 as the second king (Chhatrapati) of the Maratha Empire, a prominent state in early modern India. He was the eldes ...

and some years later they lost the Administrative and Ruler power against

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an Early modern period, early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to ...

led by

Aurangzeb Alamgir I (Muhi al-Din Muhammad; 3 November 1618 – 3 March 1707), commonly known by the title Aurangzeb, also called Aurangzeb the Conqueror, was the sixth Mughal emperors, Mughal emperor, reigning from 1658 until his death in 1707, becomi ...

in war.

Maratha rule

Maratha raids into Khandesh began in 1670 with Shinde's Rao of West Khandesh and the following century was a period of unrest as Mughals and Marathas competed for control. In 1760, the

Peshwa The Peshwa was the second highest office in the Maratha Empire, next in rank and prestige only to that of the Chhatrapati. Initially serving as the appointed prime minister in the Maratha Kingdom, the office became hereditary when Shahu gave t ...

ousted the Mughal ruler and gained control of Khandesh, following which portions were granted to

Holkar The Holkars (pronunciation: �o(ː)ɭkəɾ were the ruling house of the Indore State of the Maratha Confederacy, and earlier held the rank of Subahdar under Peshwa Baji Rao I of the Maratha Empire. When the Maratha Confederacy began to we ...

and Shinde/Scindia rulers.

Baji Rao II Baji Rao II (10 January 1775 – 28 January 1851) was the 13th and the last Peshwa of the Maratha Confederacy . He governed from 1795 to 1818. He was installed as a puppet ruler by the Maratha nobles, whose growing power prompted him to flee h ...

surrendered to the British in June 1818, but sporadic war continued in Khandesh which was among the last of the Peshwa's former territories to come under complete British control.

Prakasha Prakasha, popularly known as Dakshin Kashiis a village situated on the bank of Tapi River in taluka Shahada in Nandurbar district, Maharashtra, India. Demographics Prakasha has a population of around 20,000, of which 90% is in agriculture a ...

village, which is around 15 km south-west of Shahada, is the second most important excavation site in

. In 1955 B K Thapar on behalf of

Archaeological Survey of India The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is an Indian government agency that is responsible for archaeological research and the conservation and preservation of cultural historical monuments in the country. It was founded in 1861 by Alexander ...

excavated site near confluence of Tapi River and

Gomai River The Gomai River in India is a tributary of the Tapti River. It originates in the Satpura Mountain Range and merges with the Tapti River around 2 km east of Prakasha. The Gomai River itself has many small tributary rivers, including the Sus ...

. Excavation exposed 17 meter deep occupational deposit – hammer stones, restricted use of copper, low grade

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

dating back to 1700 BC. Around 6 km north of Shahada there are several centuries old sculptures complex in Gomai River. The main sculpture is popularly known as

Mahavir Mahavira (Devanagari: महावीर, ), also known as Vardhamana (Devanagari: वर्धमान, ), was the 24th ''Tirthankara'' (Supreme Preacher and Ford Maker) of Jainism. Although the dates and most historical details of his lif ...

sculpture and the entire sculptures complex is popularly known as Pandavleni or 'Panch Pandav'. This evidence suggest that Shahada and area on the banks of Gomai River has been inhabited at least since 1700 BC. Shahada- municipality was established in the British period, in the year 1869. Shahada and bhada are the two locations of this area situated on the river bank Gomai.These names observed in local

gurjar The Gurjar (or Gujjar, Gujar, Gurjara) are an agricultural ethnic community, residing mainly in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, divided internally into various clan groups. They were traditionally involved in agriculture, pastoral and nomadic ...

language meaning saadha bhada means simple. Pujya Sane Guruji Vidya prasarak mandal collage Lonkheda is the biggest educational campus near Shahada. Municipal school in Shahada is the oldest school since British Raj.

Demographics

India census, Shahada had a population of 61,376, being 52% male and 48% female. Shahada has an average literacy rate of 86.62%, higher than the national average of 74.04%: male literacy is 90.67%, and female literacy is 82.40%. In Shahada, 12.95% of the population is under 6 years of age. Languages/dialects spoken in Shahada town and Nandurbar districts are many tribal language bhilu (ladshi, dogari, bayadi, pwari etc....) And other

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India **Marathi people (Uttar Pradesh), the Marathi people in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Mar ...

, and

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...

Geography and climate

File:Sculpture Shahada Gomai River.jpg, Sculpture in Gomai River of a Jain Tirthankar File:Lithosphere In Well Near Shahada.jpg, Dry well showing rock 2 to 3 metres below surface of farms around Shahada town File:Soil Above Lithosphere Shahada Farm.jpg, Black soil in farm near Shahada 2 to 3 metres above rock Shahada is on average 455 feet above sea level. As the

Satpura The Satpura Range, formerly also known as the Seeonee Hills, is a range of hills in central India. The range rises in eastern Gujarat running east through the border of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh and ends in Chhattisgarh. The range paral ...

Mountain Range just 30 km north of Shahada, the

bedrock In geology, bedrock is solid rock that lies under loose material ( regolith) within the crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface material. An exposed portion of bed ...

is on an average 5 metres below the ground level. Due to natural or human-made caves, the ground at Savalde village, 5 km away from Shahada, caved in during heavy rain during August 2006 and caused an earthquake of magnitude 2.8 on

Richter Scale The Richter scale (), also called the Richter magnitude scale, Richter's magnitude scale, and the Gutenberg–Richter scale, is a measure of the strength of earthquakes, developed by Charles Richter in collaboration with Beno Gutenberg, and pr ...

on 10 November 2006. As seismograph stations are installed away from traffic to avoid

false-positive A false positive is an error in binary classification in which a test result incorrectly indicates the presence of a condition (such as a disease when the disease is not present), while a false negative is the opposite error, where the test resu ...

results from ground vibrations, Shahada's

seismograph A seismometer is an instrument that responds to ground displacement and shaking such as caused by quakes, volcanic eruptions, and explosions. They are usually combined with a timing device and a recording device to form a seismograph. The out ...

station of the

Sardar Sarovar Project The Sardar Sarovar Dam is a concrete gravity dam built on the Narmada River near the town of Kevadiya, in Narmada District, in the Indian state of Gujarat. The dam was constructed to provide water and electricity to the Indian states of Guj ...

is installed in the same village. The soil above the

is good for farming except in some areas. Average rainfall is 552 mm = 21.7 inches.
The climate is hot for most of the year. Maximum temperature reaches up to 48 °C in summer and minimum temperature fall up to 9 °C in the winter. The climate of Shahada is on the whole dry except during the south-west

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in Atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annu ...

season and winter months December to February. The year may be divided into four seasons. The cold season from December to February. Hot and dry season from March to June. The south-west monsoon season starts from the last week of June and last up to the end of September.

Medical Facilities

* More than 50 hospitals facilities are there in shahada.

Transport

As Ankleshwar-Burhanpur Highway passes through Shahada, it is well connected with state transport buses & private buses. # Pune to Shahada. From INR 500. 18 bus options. # Vadodara to Shahada. From INR 245. 7 bus options. # Mumbai to Shahada. From INR 577. 10 bus options. # Ahmedabad to Shahada. From INR 333. 4 bus options. # Panvel to Shahada. From INR 577. 3 bus options. Chorriya Town Meditation Center

*Road: One can reach Shahada through

Indore Indore (; ISO 15919, ISO: , ) is the largest and most populous Cities in India, city in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The commercial capital of the state, it has been declared as the List of cleanest cities in India, cleanest city of In ...

(84 km away), which is well connected with the

Dhule Dhule is one of the largest cities in Maharashtra, and central region of India. The city located in the Dhule District in the northwestern part of Maharashtra state, India known as West Khandesh. Situated on the banks of Panzara River, Dhule i ...

–

Nandurbar Nandurbar () is a city and a municipal council in Nandurbar district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. Nandurbar municipal corporation is the first municipal corporation. The District Nandurbar was formed from the district Dhule on July 1, ...

road. From Dhule, one can reach Shahada by going straight on the Mumbai-Agra highway NH-3 (National Highway) to Songir (Dhule) and at Songir turn left and you will be on MSH-1 (Maharashtra State Highway). The distance from Mumbai is approximately 424 km. *Railways: The nearest railway stations are Dondaicha (c. 28.6 km away) and

(c. 35.6 km away). These stations are on

Bhusawal Bhusawal is a city in the Jalgaon district of Maharashtra, India. Situated along the Tapti River, it lies between the Satpura Range and the Ajanta range, Ajanta Hills of the Deccan Plateau, Deccan plateau. The city is a significant hub for the ...

Surat Surat (Gujarati Language, Gujarati: ) is a city in the western Indian States and territories of India, state of Gujarat. The word Surat directly translates to ''face'' in Urdu, Gujarati language, Gujarati and Hindi. Located on the banks of t ...

Railway line. This line is used by people for going to or coming from

Gujarat Gujarat () is a States of India, state along the Western India, western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the List of states and union territories ...

Tourist attractions

* Toranmal is nearby hill station.( Second number hill station after mahabaleshwar in Maharashtra state) * Unapdev is (24.9 km) from Shahada) is a picnic point in Shahada. *【【Shivtirth 】】is best point at shahada *

is a spiritually bounded village and a holy place to visit. It is also known as Dakshin Kashi

References

{{Reflist Cities and towns in Nandurbar district