PLACES

MADGI

Madgi, is a small village of 1731 inhabitants in 1971 in Bhandara tahsil, about 23 miles north of Bhandara and remarkable for a double storeyed temple of Narsimha crowning the top of a rocky formation in the bed of the Wainganga. The shrine is a double storeyed building and is given access by a flight of steps on the eastern face of the island. The bridges, one of iron and the other of cement concrete have been thrown across the Wainganga on the northern and southern sides of the temple, respectively, the former being 250 yards distant from the temple and the latter about three furlongs. Installed in the sanctuary is a fine idol of Narasimha. There is a spacious sabhamandapa and an open terrace above. A fair lasting for 15 days is held in the month of Pausha. The temple affords a picturesque view of the Wainganga. Not far away, to the south of the temple is Devala village. It would be interesting to relate here the cause of the curiously winding and circuitous course of the Wainganga through the Seoni district. The legend relates that once upon a time there lived a certain Raja in the Bhandara district, who had a talisman; and the effect of the talisman was, that daily, when he put it in his mouth, he could be transported to Allahabad to bathe in the Ganga. But after he had done this daily for a long time, the Ganga said to him that it was a great labour to him to come everyday to Allahabad to bathe in its waters; and that if he filled a bottle with its water and laid it down by his house, a new stream would flow whose water would be that of the Ganga, and bathing in which would confer the same religious efficacy. Thanking the river, the Raja joyfully filled up a bottle with the water. But on his homeward journey, while stopping to rest at Partabpur, the present source of the Wainganga, he inadvertently laid the bottle on the ground. Instantly a stream issued forth from it and began to flow. The dismayed Raja then besought the river that this place was far from his home, and he would not be able to come there and bathe. So the river pitying him, changed its course, and flowed north, east and south in a wide half-circle, until it passed through Bhandara by the Raja's house. Madgi has a school giving instructions up to the eighth standard, a Seva Sahakari Society, a gymnasium and a factory known as the Universal Ferro Allied Chemicals Ltd.

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