Kalyan is a city in the part of the Konkan (or "Kokan")
region included in Maharashtra state, and a major railway junction in
the vicinity of Mumbai, India.
The city has been combined with its neighbor township of Dombivli to
form the City Corporation of Kalyan-Dombivli.
It is considered a part of the Greater Mumbai metropolitan agglomeration,
along with New Mumbai and the cities of Bhiwandi, Thane, Ulhasnagar,Ambarnath,Badlapur,
Karjat and the Vasai-Virar region.
Geography of Kalyan
Kalyan city is located on the lower course of the Ulhas River with
access to the Arabian Sea, via its two estuaries or creeks, the Thane
Creek and the Vasai Creek. Kalyan is 48 km (30 mi) north-east of Mumbai.
Overcrowding in Mumbai and incentives from the government to develop
areas outside of Mumbai have attracted industrial business as well as
industrial employees to Kalyan.
Kalyan was also considered at one time as one of the best places to
live in the neighborhood of Mumbai, as it is far away from the pollution
of the main city.
Kalyan Junction is a very important railway station for suburban travel
as well as for long distance trains. The suburban or metropolitan railway
passenger transport line coming in from Mumbai splits into two at Kalyan
Junction, one heads south-east for Karjat and Khopoli towards Lonavla,
Mahabaleshwar and Pune, the other heads north-east for Kasara towards
Nashik.
On the eastern side of the city is a large industrial complex where
electrical equipment, rayon, and dyes and other chemicals are manufactured.
There are also a large number of textile-based cottage industries.
History
Kalyan was a port for more than two millennia until siltation and the
rise of Mumbai eclipsed it and its sister ports, Sopara, Thane, Vasai,
etc. The port was ruled by the Maurya and Gupta Empires of North India
and later was part of a petty Konkan principality vassal to the Yadava
Empire of Deogiri. Extensive ruins in Kalyan indicate the city's former
magnificence. Kalyan Creek Image:170440263 bbd46361ee o..jpg After the
Khilji sack of Deogiri, the Yadavas fled into the Konkan region and
set up their base at Mahikawati, modern Mahim; Kalyan was a part of
the brief Yadava state of Mahikawati. Mahikawati was conquered by the
Muslims who set up petty coastal principalities.
As a major entrepot, Kalyan soon became, by 530-535 A.D. the seat of
a Nestorian bishop ([1]). The Churches of South Asia which were ecclesiastically
dependent on the Church of Assyria and Chaldea in Mesopotamia or modern
Iraq, lands then subject to the Persian Empire (Sassanians), early fell
with it into the Nestorian Schism and used Pahlavi as the liturgical
language. The Konkan, Tulunad and Malabar Coasts of South Asia are marked
by stone crosses with Pahlavi inscriptions.
During the Middle Ages, Pope John XX, headquartered at Avignon, sent
a group of five missionaries to the Mongol Emperor at Khanbalik, modern
Beijing in China, under the Dominican Fray Giordano or Jordanus. On
their way, they picked up a novice, Demetrius, from West Asia and then
travelled through South Asia, succoring the Nestorian Christians there,
who were hard pressed by the Muslims. Giordano left his colleagues at
Kalyan and travelled back north to Gujarat. During his absence, the
Muslim governor and qazi of Thane summoned the missionaries and demanded
submission to Islam; when they refused, they were murdered (1321). The
local Nestorians collected their remains and buried them; Giordano,
on his return, took them to Sopara and buried them there. The Muslim
Arab sultan of Gujarat, when informed of this development, summoned
his governor of Thane and the Qazi; the Qazi fled but the governor was
executed for his actions that militated against international commerce.
When a later missionary, Oderic of Pordenone ([2]), visited Thane in
1324-1325, he collected their remains and moved on to China.
The Martyrs of Thane were canonized by Pope Leo XIII and are Saints
Thomas of Tolentino, James of Padua, Peter of Siena and Demetrius of
Tiflis.
In the later Middle Ages, Kalyan was occupied by the Ahmednagar Sultanate,
an indigenous dynasty founded by a man forcibly converted from a Hindu
Brahmin family as a child, and then by the Bijapur Sultanate, an Indo-Turkish
state in the Deccan in the 1500s, and later by the Mughals under the
Emperor Shah Jahan, who fortified the city in the mid-1600s. It came
under Portuguese sway for a brief time before being re-conquered by
the Muslim allies of the Mughals, and was later conquered by the Marathas,
who made it one of their strategic centers because it guarded the entrance
to Mumbai and the western coast of India. Kashibai, wife of the Peshwa
Bajirao was born in Kalyan. About eighty years after the Maratha conquest,
the Maratha Empire was forced to cede it to the British and Kalyan became
part of the Bombay Presidency, a British India province that became
Bombay state after India's independence in 1947. In the Middle Ages,
when kalyan was occupied by the Ahmednagar Sultanate, they gave name
as Gulshanabad and in the time of Maratha it was changed to Kalyan.
Kaali Masjid : It was founded by Mughal emporer Akbar the great.
It is located to on the bank of the lake called as "Kaala Talav".
Durgadi Fort : It is not known as to when the Durgadi fort was
constructed. The wall of the fort along the top of the inner bank of
the ditch, and, near the north end, had a gateway known as the Delhi
or Killyacha Darwaja, which was entered by a path along the top of the
north side of the town wall. Inside the fort there was a low belt of
ground, about the same level, as the top of the ditch, with a shallow
pond not far from the Delhi gate. The remains of the pond are still
visible, in the north-west corner the fort rose in a small flat-topped
mound about thirty feet high. On the top of the mound, on the west crest
which overhangs and is about 100 feet above the river, is the prayer
wall or idgah, sixty-four feet long, thirteen high and seven thick,
which is now in a dilapidated condition. This doubtful wall is said
to be of the old Durga temple wall and is thickly plastered. It is said
that near the east crest of the mound there was a mosque, but no remains
of it can be traced. About thirty to forty yards of the idgah was a
round cut stone wall of great depth, eleven feet in diameter with a
wall two feet eleven inches thick at the top, which has now completely,
collapsed except the basement of the wall. Under the Marathas (1760-72),
a new gate about 150 feet to the south of the Ganesh gate was opened
near the mansion of Ramji Mahadeo Biwalkar, the Peshwa s Governor. In
the citadel of the fort Marathas built a small wooden temple of Durgadevi
behind the mosque, and called the fort Durgadi Killa in honour of the
goddess, a name which it still bears. They also converted the mosque
into Ramji s temple. The fort measures 220 feet in length and somewhat
less in breadth. Under the English the fort wall was dismantled and
stones carried to build the Kalyan and Thane piers and a dwelling for
the customs inspector in the west of the Kalyan fort. The gate to the
north-west is almost the only trace of the fort wall, which is of rough
stone masonry. During 1876 the original idol of the goddess Durga was
stolen. The other idol was placed during the last decade of the 19th
century. The present fort as well as the present Durga temple was renovated
(jitnoddhar), by the Kalyan municipality on 15 December 1974. A new
idol of goddess Durga made if Panchadhatu (five sacred metals) was installed
by Shri Gajanan Maharaj and Shri Annasaheb Pattekar of Thane on the
same date. The idol is four-armed, three and half feet in height, with
a lion resting at its back. To the right of idol is the old idol. The
municipality has constructed a new gate 35 feet high and with four towers.
There has also been laid a beautiful garden which surrounds the fort.
The fort which has now more or less become a picnic spot gives an excellent
view of Retibunder, the creek, the Bhiwandi bridge, the groves near
and afar and the hills to the north of the fort.
In and before July 1946 there was a large military transit camp near
Kalyan.
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