Heritage

The pre- 18 history of western India begins with the first appearance of the early man on the banks of River Sabarmati, Mahi, Narmada, Bhadar, Tapti, etc. The holy literature for Hindusim like Vedas, Puranas, Buddhist and Jain literature suggest, Lord Krishna had established dynastic rule of Yadavas at Dwarka around 1000 B.C.E their rule was instrumental in spreading the Aryan culture in Gujarat. Parts of Gujarat were some of the major sites of Indus Valley civilization, making it one of the earliest places to exits in India and the world. Located on the banks of Holy Hindu Rivers like Saraswati also known as Gagghar Hakra provided to be the basis of survival of existence for people in that area, water being one of the most fundamental necessities for human being was well taken care of apart from that the rivers also provided to be a source of connect to the outer world, it patronised trade and linked routes to the far off countries.

The Pre-Mauryan history of Gujarat region is sapped from the great epics and the Puranas with very limited significant archaeological evidences. During the third and fourth century BCE, the region up to Konkan came under the domination of the great Mauryan Empire, the policies led to great growth in the fields of trade and religion namely; Buddhism. Soon after the disintegration of the Mauryan Empire, the Satvahanas came to rule this region.

It was after a few centuries that one sees the evolution and the state what we know as Gujarat been ruled by several dynasties from circa 300 BCE till the advent of Muslim rulers in the region. All of these dynasties contributed to the coming up of different art activities in the region. The prolific and elaborate architectural monuments and archaeological findings available from different regions of West India namely; Nasik, Junagadh, Vadnagar, Bhavnagar, Kanheri etc. are the evidences of their patronages and grants. They helped western India to become the treasure of wonderful rock-cut cave art and sculpture making them one of the earliest existing rock cut architectural marvels in the country.

There is no apprehension that the single most important power to emerge in the long twilight of the Mughal dynasty was the Maratha confederacy. Initially deriving from the western Deccan, the Marathas were a peasant warrior group that rose to prominence during the rule in that region of the sultans of Bijapur and Ahmednagar. The most important Maratha warrior clan, the Bhonsles, had held extensive jāgīrs (land-tax entitlements) under the ʿĀdil Shāhī rulers, and these were consolidated in the course of the 1630s and ’40s, as Bijapur expanded to the south and southwest. Shahji Bhonsle, the first prominent member of the clan, drew substantial revenues from the Karnataka region, in territories that had once been controlled by the rulers of Mysore and other chiefs who derived from the collapsing Vijayanagar kingdom. One of his children, Shivaji Bhonsle, emerged as the most powerful figure in the clan to the west, while Vyamkoji, half-brother of Shivaji, was able to gain control over the Kaveri (Cauvery) River delta and the kingdom of Thanjavur in the 1670s.