Khandesh · Deccan Inland Plateau
Khandesh is one of the few regions in Maharashtra whose medieval period has a precise beginning and a precise end, because it had a state of its own and nobody else's. The Faruqi sultanate was founded in 1382 and ended on 17 January 1601 when Asirgarh surrendered to Akbar, and the region's name comes from that dynasty's title rather than from any older geography. Before it the Tapi trough was a corridor that everyone crossed and nobody ruled from, appearing in the record as Abhiradesa and then as part of the Yadava Seunadesha; after it the valley was a Mughal subah governed from Burhanpur, then Maratha, then a British district. The modern period accordingly starts in 1601 rather than in 1818, because the thing that ended in 1601 was the valley's political independence and nothing after that restored it. One further boundary matters for reading the dates below: until 1869 the talukas around Malegaon, Satana, Kalwan, Deola and Nandgaon were part of Khandesh district, and in 1906 the district was split into East and West Khandesh.
Periodisation is regional, not national — the medieval period does not begin in the same century here as it does elsewhere in India.
The Tapi trough is a road, and its early history is the history of everyone who used it. It carried the traffic between Gujarat and Malwa on one side and the Deccan plateau on the other, which is why Mauryan and then Satavahana authority reached here without any Mauryan or Satavahana capital being near. After the Satavahanas the region appears in early medieval sources as Abhiradesa, the country associated with the Abhiras, and that name survives in Ahirani, the language spoken here now, which is the region's oldest continuous inheritance. Traikutaka copper plates and silver coins, Rashtrakuta evidence at Thalner and Yadava grants naming villages in what are now Jalgaon, Dhule and Nandurbar show the same pattern repeating: the valley is administered, taxed and crossed, but never ruled from.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| c. 3rd century BCE | The valley lies on the route between Sopara on the coast and Girnar in Saurashtra and falls within Mauryan administration, though no Mauryan inscription has been found within Khandesh itself. |
| c. 1st century BCE – 3rd century CE | Satavahana authority is attested by inscriptions and coins; land grants are made to Brahmana settlements and to Buddhist monasteries. |
| 3rd–4th century CE | The region appears in early medieval sources as part of Abhiradesa, the country associated with the Abhiras, from which the name Ahirani descends. |
| 5th century CE | The Traikutakas, named from the Trikuta hill towards Nandurbar, hold parts of the Tapi valley; their copper plates and silver coins are the main evidence. |
| 8th–10th century | Rashtrakuta authority extends over the valley, with evidence from Thalner and from sites near the southern escarpment. |
| 12th–13th century | The Seuna Yadavas of Devagiri hold the valley as part of Seunadesha; copper plates and stone inscriptions name villages in the present Jalgaon, Dhule and Nandurbar districts. |
When Delhi's hold on the northern Deccan loosened in the early fourteenth century, the Tapi valley produced the only state it has ever had. Malik Raja Faruqi, holding fiefs granted in 1370, made himself independent in 1382, and the country became Khandesh, the land of the Khans, after the title its rulers used. The dynasty ruled for two hundred and nineteen years from Thalner, then from Burhanpur, which Nasir Khan founded on the Tapi at the end of the fourteenth century and named after the Sufi Burhan-ud-Din; the dates given for the founding differ between 1388 and 1399. Under Miran Adil Khan II the valley became a textile and trade region rather than merely a strategic one, with Asirgarh above it holding the road into the Deccan. The end came in a siege: Akbar arrived in 1599, Bahadur Shah Faruqi surrendered in December 1600, and the fort held out until 17 January 1601.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1370 | Malik Raja Faruqi receives fiefs in the Tapi valley from Firuz Shah Tughluq and settles at Thalner. |
| 1382 | Malik Raja establishes independent rule; the region takes the name Khandesh from the title of its rulers. |
| c. 1388–1399 | Nasir Khan founds Burhanpur on the Tapi and names it for the Sufi Burhan-ud-Din; the sources differ on the year. He also fortifies Asirgarh, which controls the pass into the Deccan. |
| 1457–1501 | Under Miran Adil Khan II the valley becomes a commercial and textile region, and Burhanpur a market of more than local importance. |
| 8 April 1599 | Akbar arrives before Asirgarh; Bahadur Shah Faruqi has withdrawn into the fort, and the siege is conducted by Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan. |
| 10 December 1600 and 17 January 1601 | Bahadur Shah surrenders and the fort falls; Khandesh becomes a Mughal subah and the Faruqi state ends. |
As a Mughal subah, Khandesh was the empire's forward base for the Deccan wars, and Burhanpur was the administrative capital of that effort for most of the seventeenth century, with a prince of the house normally resident. Maratha authority replaced Mughal in the first half of the eighteenth century, shared between the Peshwa's government and the Holkar and Shinde houses, and the British took the whole valley in 1818. What the British period actually did to the region was economic. Cotton on the black soil paid for ginning presses and a railway junction at Bhusawal; the district was cut about administratively in 1869 and again in 1906; and in December 1936 the Congress held its annual session at Faizpur, a village in Yawal taluka, the first time it had met anywhere but a city. The hill half of the region has a separate and much thinner record. The Satpura slope was not effectively administered for a decade or more after 1818, and the Bhil and Pawra communities there were dealt with through a mixture of amnesty, grain allowance and locally recruited police rather than through the ordinary revenue system.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1609 | Prince Parviz makes Burhanpur his residence and the headquarters for Mughal operations in the Deccan. |
| 1631 | Mumtaz Mahal dies at Burhanpur and is buried there in the Ahukhana garden for some months before her remains are moved to Agra. |
| 1720s–1750s | Maratha forces take Burhanpur, Asirgarh and Thalner; the valley is administered between the Peshwa's government and the Holkar and Shinde houses. |
| 1818 | The valley is annexed to the Bombay Presidency after the Third Anglo-Maratha War and administered as a single Khandesh district from Dhule. |
| 1869 | The southern talukas of Khandesh district, including Malegaon, Satana, Kalwan, Deola and Nandgaon, are transferred to the new Nasik district. |
| 1906 | Khandesh district is divided into East Khandesh, with headquarters at Jalgaon, and West Khandesh, with headquarters at Dhule. |
| 27–28 December 1936 | The Indian National Congress holds its fiftieth annual session at Faizpur in Yawal taluka, presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru; it is the first Congress session held in a village rather than a city. |
| 9 September 1942 | Police fire on a flag procession at Mangal Bazar in Nandurbar during the Quit India movement, killing five, among them the schoolboy Shirishkumar Mehta. |
Rulers and commanders
Received fiefs in the Tapi valley in 1370 and made himself independent in 1382, founding the only state the valley has ever had. The name Khandesh is taken from the title his line used.
Dynasty: Faruqi. Seat: Thalner
Founded Burhanpur on the Tapi, naming it for the Sufi Burhan-ud-Din, and fortified Asirgarh above the pass into the Deccan. The two together fixed the valley's political geography for the next two centuries.
Dynasty: Faruqi. Seat: Burhanpur
The longest reign of the dynasty, under which Burhanpur became a textile and trading centre rather than merely a garrison town on a road.
Dynasty: Faruqi. Seat: Burhanpur
Refused Mughal suzerainty and withdrew into Asirgarh; surrendered on 10 December 1600, and the fort fell on 17 January 1601. He was held at Agra, where he died in 1624, and Khandesh became a Mughal subah.
Dynasty: Faruqi. Seat: Asirgarh
Conducted the siege of Asirgarh for Akbar and then governed the new subah from Burhanpur, where he built water works and gardens. He is also the poet Rahim, whose Hindi couplets are still recited.
Dynasty: Mughal service nobility. Seat: Burhanpur
Made Burhanpur his residence and the administrative headquarters for the Mughal Deccan campaigns, which is why a Tapi valley town carries seventeenth-century imperial architecture at all.
Dynasty: Mughal (Timurid). Seat: Burhanpur
The hill half of the region was never held by any of the valley's states in the way the valley floor was. Authority there rested with naiks, heads of clan territories covering a few hamlets each, who dealt with the sultanate, the Marathas and then the British as separate parties. The British response after 1818 was to combine amnesty and grain allowances with a police corps recruited from the same communities. Individual names from this record are preserved mainly in administrative reports and few of them can be securely dated, so none is entered here.
Dynasty: Clan headships, not a dynasty. Seat: The Satpura slope above the Tapi
The history of Khandesh from ancient through medieval to modern times, and the rulers, commanders and administrators who shaped it. (7)