Maharashtra
Discover Maharashtra
Introduction
Maharashtra is the third-largest state in India and holds its financial capital. Mumbai sits on what were seven islands, joined by reclamation over two centuries, and is the centre of Indian banking, of the Hindi film industry, and of a great deal of the country’s ambition. Its Victorian Gothic and Art Deco waterfront is UNESCO-listed, as is the railway terminus at Chhatrapati Shivaji, and the rock-cut temples on Elephanta Island are a short boat ride away.
The state’s greatest sites are inland. Ajanta holds thirty Buddhist cave monasteries cut into a river gorge between the second century BC and the sixth AD, with wall paintings that are the finest surviving from ancient India. Ellora, not far off, has thirty-four Buddhist, Hindu and Jain caves side by side, including the Kailasa temple — a full-size temple carved downwards out of a single rock face, removing two hundred thousand tonnes of stone. Both are UNESCO sites.
Between the coast and the plateau run the Western Ghats, with hill stations at Matheran and Mahabaleshwar and a chain of hill forts associated with Shivaji and the Maratha empire. Pune is the university and manufacturing city, Nashik grows most of India’s wine grapes, and the state’s biggest festival, Ganesh Chaturthi, ends with idols carried into the sea. The monsoon here is heavy and reliable from June to September.