हिंदीOn this day
Standing

Pataleshwar Cave Temple, Pune

A Shiva temple cut down into a single outcrop of basalt in the middle of Pune, with a round Nandi pavilion carved free in its courtyard. It is of the same age and school as the rock-cut work at Ellora.

Built: 8th century, Rashtrakuta periodWhere: Maharashtra (Pune)Deity: Bhagwan Shiva as Pataleshwar18.53° N, 73.85° E
  1. 8th century
Photo: Karthik Easvur · CC BY-SA 4.0

01Cut into the ground

Pataleshwar, the lord of the underworld, takes its name from the way it was made. The craftsmen cut a pit into the flat rock of Bhamburde, as this part of Pune was once called, leaving a courtyard open to the sky and carving a pillared hall and three shrines into its far wall. In the courtyard they left a block of rock standing and shaped it into a circular mandapa on pillars for Nandi, an unusual form. The work was never fully finished; some pillars stand rough. It belongs to the 8th century, when the Rashtrakutas ruled the Deccan and were cutting the Kailasa temple at Ellora.

02Still in worship

The central shrine holds a Shiva linga in daily worship; the side shrines now hold Parvati and Ganesh. The site lies beside Jangli Maharaj Road, behind a garden wall, and many in Pune pass it daily without knowing it is twelve centuries old. It is a protected monument. On Mahashivratri the lane fills with devotees.

The life of this place

  1. 8th centuryThe rock-cut temple is excavated in the Rashtrakuta period.
Visiting

On Jangli Maharaj Road, Shivajinagar; open daily, entry free.

Nearby

PuneStanding
Maratha ascendancy and the Sikh empire

Pune

The town where Shivaji grew up under Jijabai’s eye, and for nearly a century the seat of the Peshwas, from which Maratha armies rode to Attock and Bengal. Later it became the workshop of Tilak, Agarkar and the Deccan Education Society.

Shaniwar Wada, PuneRuined
Maratha ascendancy and the Sikh empire

Shaniwar Wada, Pune

The palace-fort of the Peshwas, from which the Maratha confederacy was run for nearly ninety years. A fire in 1828 left only the walls and gates.

Kasba Ganpati, PuneStanding
The Mughal era and the resistance

Kasba Ganpati, Pune

The guardian Ganapati of Pune, whose temple Jijabai built when she came to resettle the ruined town with the boy Shivaji. In the immersion procession of Ganeshotsav he always goes first.

Lal Mahal, PuneRebuilt
The Mughal era and the resistance

Lal Mahal, Pune

The red house Shahaji built in Pune for Jijabai and the boy Shivaji, where Shivaji grew up and where, on the night of 5 April 1663, he fell upon the Mughal general Shaista Khan in his own bedchamber.