The centre has approved the renaming of Maharashtra’s Aurangabad city as
Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar' and the Osmanabad city as
Dharashiv’.
- Aurangabad derives its name from Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, while Osmanabad was named for a 20th century ruler of the princely state of Hyderabad.
Chhatrapati Sambhaji
- Chhatrapati Sambhaji was the eldest son of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
- Sambhaji Maharaj was executed on Aurangzeb’s orders in 1689.
Dharashiv
- Dharashiv, the name of a cave complex near Osmanabad, dates back to the 8th century as per some scholars.
- The dharashiv caves are situated 8 Kms away from the city in Balaghat Mountains.
- There are total 7 caves in the Balaghat Mountain lane. The first cave is without any statue with small open space .The second cave consists of a statue with Artistic work on right side of statue. The art work is of gandharva era. The fourth cave is with open space without any statue inside. The statue in the sixth cave is damaged while the seventh cave has no statue. That this is an ancient place is shown by the caves excavated in the hill at a distance of about eight miles.
- These caves were originally Buddhist, but were later converted into monuments of the Jain religion and fresh caves were also excavated nearby.
