01The confluence and the temple
Sangameshwar takes its name from the sangam, the meeting of rivers, and from the Shiva who presides over it. The Karneshwar temple in Kasba Sangameshwar is an old stone temple with a carved mandapa and doorway, one of the few early stone temples left on this wet coast, where most shrines were built of laterite and wood. The town lay on the route from the Konkan ports up the ghats to Kolhapur, and the Maratha kings and their officers passed through it often.
021 February 1689
Sambhaji had held the Maratha state for nine years against Aurangzeb’s whole army. In early 1689 he came down to Sangameshwar with a small escort, on his way from Panhala to Raigad, and stayed in the wada of the local Sardesai. Muqarrab Khan, the Mughal commander at Kolhapur, learned of it through informers and made a forced march through the hills. On 1 February his men surprised the camp; after a brief fight Sambhaji and Kavi Kalash were taken and carried to Aurangzeb’s camp at Bahadurgad. Refusing to give up his forts, his treasure or his faith, Sambhaji was tortured for weeks and put to death at Tulapur on 11 March 1689. A memorial now marks the place of his capture at Kasba Sangameshwar.
The life of this place
- 1 February 1689Muqarrab Khan’s troops capture Sambhaji and Kavi Kalash at Sangameshwar.
- 11 March 1689Sambhaji is put to death at Tulapur.
On the Mumbai–Goa highway about 45 km north-east of Ratnagiri; the Karneshwar temple is in Kasba, across the river from the highway town.
