Born on 31st May, 1725, and hailing from Dhangar caste, Ahilyabai lived in a village near Ahmad nagar of Maharashtra before marriage . Her father was simply a marginal farmer with small stretch of a land to grow the crop . Once subedar Malharrao had an occasion to have brief stay at her village. And when his eyes fell upon Ahiliyabai , then a little girl of 12 years old, immersed in deep devotion of god Shiva very next moment it occurred to him to have her for the bride to his son. Thus, she got married with Khanderao, the son of Malharrao.
Seeing Ahiliyabai’s devotional bend of a heart , Malharrao sent her for the pilgrimage around the country. Harrowing scene of temples badly desecrated by the Mughals left her in deep agony . Upon Jagannath puri temple first it was Fateh Khan who made invasion, and later in 1692 Ikram Khan followed the suit; upon Rameshwaram in Tamilnadu, Malik Kafur; upon Mathura-Kashi , Aurangzeb himself. Then, upon entire south it was Tipu Sultan who broke loose his terror. He said: ‘ If Hindus would go to have surrendered all their heft of wealth before my feet , even then I will not stop the destruction of their temples.’ This is not all, as the trail of destruction was to go beyond the fold of Hinduism. It was Harimandir sahab gurudwara of Amritsar which was once burnt down by Ahmad Shah Abdali, the invader from Afghanistan . However , it was later renovated and as well as embedded with the gold, giving it the form of ‘Swaran Mandir ’by Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
The pilgrimage, thankfully, culminated into a new dawn for the Hindu religious places. With the firm resolve of renovating temples and their premises she came back to the capital, Indore . In her entire span of life she either renovated or made from the foundation over 100 temples and dharmshalas , and separate ghats for the women as also. She was the one to lay first brick in the renovation of Somnath temple, stood dilapidated for 800 years. So was her coffer always left open for the shrines of Rameshwaram and Jagannathpuri . In the premises of the temple renovated were built Arogyshalas(medical dispensaries) Yogshalas, schools and centres for higher learning lying composed in Sanskrut scriptures, more prominently. Notably, a rest house in the premise of Trayambakeshwar Jyotirlinga was built by none other than her. The road to make Kolkota having assess with the centre for many religious-spiritual legends i.e. Kashi (Vanaras) was first came into existence with the initiative of Queen Ahiliyabai.
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