PLACES

SHIROL

Shirol (16° 40' N; 74° 35-' E; p. 10,131), the head-quarters of Sirol Taluka, lies thirty miles east of Kolhapur and about four miles to the north of the meeting of the Pancaganga and Krsna. It is about six miles from Jaisingpur railway station on the Kolhapur-Miraj metre gauge line. A first class road joins Sirol with Kolhapur. Sirol is sometimes called Ghumat Sirol or Sirol with the dome, because it used to have a large domed tomb of a Bijapur officer named Nurkhan which Parasurama Bhau Patavardhan is said to have destroyed in 1779. Sirol is guarded by a ditch and a wall and is strengthened by an inner citadel. During the wars between Kolhapur and the Patavardhans in the latter part of the eighteenth century Sirol changed hands several times. In 1780 it was finally taken by Sivaji III (1760-1812) and became a part of Kolhapur State. The chief street runs north-south and is lined by good houses. As the water of almost all the wells is brackish, drinking water is brought from the river which is about a mile distant. There is a Government dispensary in the town and also a high school run by a private society. There also a public library. Shirol has two large temples, two mosques, and a tower. Of the two temples Kalesvar's is the oldest though of no great age as it is built of stone and mortar. It is thirty-five feet long, twenty-five feet broad, and twenty-eight feet high. The other temple, which is dedicated to Dattatreya is held specially sacred. The only object of worship in the temple is a slab of stone on which an open hand is carved. It is called the temple of Bhojanapatra or the dinner plate, and a stone vessel or patra is still preserved in which, according to tradition, the god Dattatreya once took a meal or bhojan with a holy Brahman of Sirol. Of the two mosques which are said to have been built by Surkhan of Bijapur, one is thirty-two by twenty-two feet and the other thirty-five by twenty-seven feet. The ruined tower which stands in the centre of the town is said to have been built by the Kolhapur State in 1833 A. D. It is thirty-five feet high and 150 feet round.

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