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About PUNE
Welcome to Pune
Pune has been known by a plethora of
sobriquets. Popular among them: Queen
of the Deccan, cultural capital of
Maharashtra, pensioner's paradise and
Oxford of the East. Pune is one of the
historical cities of India with a
glorious past, an innovative present
and a promising future. The Pune
Municipal Corporation administers the
city. Its boundaries extend over four
hundred square kilometres and it has a
population of close to four million.
Thus, Pune city has been developed
into a Pune metropolitan area, just
equal in area to that of Greater
Mumbai. It is located 192 km (by rail)
and 160 km (by road) from Mumbai and
is 559 metres above the mean sea
level. Being surrounded by beautiful
hills and the Sinhagad fort, it has a
temperate climate. Water, which is
plentiful, is supplied to the city
from Panshet, Khadakvasla and
Varasgaon dams --all located about
thirty kilometres from Pune. Pune is
among the greenest urban areas in the
country with more than 40 per cent of
its area under green cover.
Pre-historic Pune
Human civilisations have prospered on
the banks of rivers; Pune city too has
flowered on the banks of the Mutha
river originating from the Sahyadri
range of mountains. Eminent
archaeologist Dr. H. D. Sankalia and
his colleagues from the Deccan College
carried out excavations of the Mutha
riverbed and banks. These researchers
found evidence of human civilisations
that existed 100,000 years ago along
the Mutha river. Pune finds mention in
some of the Puranas.
What's in a name?
Down the centuries, Pune has been
ruled by several dynasties. The
earliest evidence found (copper plates
of 758 A. D. and of 768 A. D.) reveals
that the Rashtrakootas ruled this
region then. At that time, Pune was
referred to as Punaka Vishaya and
Punya Vishaya. Copper plates of 960 A.
D. and 963 A. D. refer to it as Punaka
Wadi and Punaka Desha. Here Vishaya
means region. Later on, the city has
been mentioned as Kasabe Pune. The
Pune Gazetteer explains the term Pune
as Punya - a holy place. In Hindu
tradition, a confluence (sangama) of
two rivers is sacred. Hence, this
city, where there is a confluence of
two rivers, is Punyanagari. After the
Rashtrakootas, Pune was ruled by the
Yadava dynasty. After the fall of this
dynasty, it came under Muslim
dominance till the middle of the
seventeenth century.
Ancient monuments
Some of the remains of this period can
still be studied. The first is the
Pataleshwar Temple on the Jangli
Maharaj Road. It is a temple of Shiva
in rock-cut caves with over forty
pillars, and a bull (nandi) in front
of Shiva, with sixteen pillars. This
dates back to the Rashtrakoota age and
is close to one thousand years old.
The second monument is the set of
dargahs --Muslim places of worship.
The senior and junior Shaikhsalla on
the banks of the Mutha river, near the
Shaniwarwada, are constructed on the
earlier temples of Puneshwar and
Narayaneshwar.
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