PLACES

DANAPUR

Danapur, is situated in 21° 05' north latitude and 76° 45' east longitude 18 miles west of Akot on the river Wan. According to the Census of 1971 it had a population of 4,154. If has a post office, a middle school and an ayurvedic dispensary. A weekly market is held on every Thursday.

It had a wall, long fallen, and a very large tank which is not known to have held water for the last two and a half centuries. The tank is about half a mile north-east of the village and has at its shallow end a curious isolated hill called Rasatek with a rough brick building on it known as kasbinicha makan, or the prostitute's house. The river has a broad and stony bed, but the water does not last even throughout the cold weather; a good supply is, however, obtained from wells. The following account reproduced from the old Akola District Gazetteer published in 1910 gives some interesting anecdotes about the saint Mastanshahmiya. 'The one striking feature of the village is the dargah of Mastanshahmiya, which is both larger and more pleasing in design than such buildings often are. The saint came to Danapur from the Punjab about 100 years ago and at first used to beg his bread from door to door, but after a time he was attacked by a bulb buffalo and his back was so injured that he could no longer walk. A mad Waghya, devotee of Khandoba, wounded him in several places with a sword, but the wounds miraculously healed in three or four days and the Waghya upon eating a piece of bread given by Mastanshah recovered his sanity and became one of the saint's followers. Mastanshah similarly recovered from the bite of a snake. Though people built a hut for him he not only remained naked but would sleep with only his head inside the hut and his body outside. A Rajput called Bholasingh wished to become his disciple, but Mastanshah first sent him to visit the holy places of Hinduism. Bholasingh returned after a complete tour, which took three years, with the same desire, and the. saint gave him some bread and his name was changed thenceforth to Bholashah. A horse was dedicated to Mastanshah, and when a thief took it both he and the animal were afflicted with blindness, which vanished only when they were brought before the saint, who let the thief go. A wall with four buruj, towers or bastions, round the dargah was built by some ganja dealers who got a good crop after vowing to devote a large sum to the saint. Hasumiya, Kavab of Ellichpur, was summoned to Hyderabad to answer certain charges. On the way he came, sealed on an elephant and asked Mastanshah's help. The latter asked how he would like to exchange his present mount for a donkey, and that degradation was in fact ordered by the Nizam. Shaikh Dalla, a professional dacoit, was to some extent a disciple of Mastanshah. The saint was himself a prophet, and even a parrot of his used to tell what visitors were coming when they were still a kos, two miles, away. Mastanshah died in 1843 in his hundredth year. The present dargah had previously been built by Bholashah, who died three years later. The dargha and various out-buildings are well maintained, partly by a small inam bat chiefly by voluntary subscriptions, and successive inamdars are nominated as boys with the condition that they remain celibate. They sometimes belonged to Hindu deshmukh and patel families but became Muhammedans. The present inamdar is a child of about eight wearing a large silver anklet.'

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