 |
PLACES
|
 |
DONGARGAN
A small village with an area of 5.3 square miles and a population of 1,198 souls as per the Census of 1971, Dongargan has a primary school. Springs form the main source of water-supply. The village has a Government rest-house.
The village has a romantic little ravine called the Happy Valley between two spurs of the Ahmadnagar plateau. A road branching from the Ahmadnagar-Toka road at the sixth mile-stone leads past Dongargan on the east through an opening in the hills to Vambheri. Standing on the outskirts of Dongargan and looking north lies the Happy Valley. A deep flight of rock-cut steps runs past a temple of Mahadev from behind which a spring gushes from the rock and flows into a round cistern about four feet deep. From the first cistern the stream is carried by a channel into a round cistern, and winding round a Muhammedan tomb, now a Government rest-house, tumbles over a rocky ledge about twenty feet and dashes along a rugged bed for a quarter of a mile till it leaps over the edge of the plateau to the plain below. During the hot weather, when the country round is dry, the stream continues to flow and all down the valley the trees give a grateful shade.
'Colonel Meadows Taylor noticed (Noble Queen, III, 165) an old palace and garden built near a pretty cascade in the Happy Valley. Before the valley lies the broad Godavari plain and even the grim rocks of Daulatabad and the tall white minaret of Emperor Muhammad Tughlik were distinctly visible on a clear day.' [ Ahmadnagar District Gazetteer, 1884, p. 716,]
The temple of Mahadeva is a simple structure with the shrine admeasuring 15' x l5'. The shrine contains a linga with nandi in front. The temple is famous for the three cisterns mentioned earlier. It is considered that these cisterns have been created by the arrows hit by Shri Rama and Sita bathed in these cisterns. A fairly big fair is held at Dongargan in honour of Rameshwar on the third Monday of the month of Shravan (July-August). About 8,000 people assemble at the time of the fair.
|
