Bageshwar (Viewers: Bāgshyār) is a town and municipal board in the Bageshwar region of Uttarakhand province, India. It is located 470 km from National Capital New Delhi and 332 km from State Capital Dehradun. Bageshwar is known for its majestic nature, glaciers, rivers, and temples. It is also the administrative capital of Bageshwar district. Located at the confluence of the Saryu and Gomati rivers, Bageshwar is surrounded by the Bhileshwar and Nileshwar mountains to the east and west and Suraj Kund to the north and Agni Kund to the south. Bageshwar was a major trading post between Tibet and Kumaun, and was frequently traded with Botia traders, who traded Tibetan goods, wool, salt, and Borax in exchange for Carpet and other local products in Bageshwar. Trade routes, however, were closed after the 1962 Indo-China war. The city is of great religious, historical, and political significance. Bageshwar finds that reference is made to various purana, which, in turn, is associated with King Shiva. The annual Uttrayani exhibition held in Bageshwar was frequently visited by about 15,000 people in the early twentieth century, and was the largest exhibition of the Kumaon division. The exhibition became the site of the Coolie Begar Movement in January 1921. The town of Bageshwar is called the Bagnath Temple. Hindi and Sanskrit are the official languages but Kumaoni is spoken by many people. The town and Bagnath Temple are found in the Manvakhand of Shiva Purana, where it is stated that the temple and the surrounding town were built by Chandeesh, a servant of the Hindu god Shiva. [10] [11] According to another Hindu Legend, Sage Markandeya worshiped Lord Shiva here. [12] [13] Lord Shiva blessed the scholar Markandeya with a visit here in the state of Tiger. [12] [13] Bageshwar has historically been part of the Kumaon State. Bageshwar was near Kartikeypura, then the capital of the Katyuri Kings, who ruled Kumaon in the seventh century. [14] After the death of Birdeo the last king of the tyrannical empire. the empire disintegrated in the 13th century giving it eight different provinces. The Bageshwar region remained under the rule of the Baijnath Katyurs descendants of the Katyuri kings, until 1565 until King Balo Kalyan Chand of Almora attached the region to Kumaon [15] [16] In the 10th century, the Chand dynasty was founded by Som Chand. He left the kings in Katyuri, called his country Kurmanchal and established its capital at Champawat in Kali Kumaon. [17] [18] [19] In 1568, Kalyan Chand founded the permanent capital of Khagmara [21] and named it Almora. [22] [23] [24] In 1791, the Gorkhas of Nepal while expanding their empire west west of the Kali River, invaded and conquered Almora, [25] the seat of the Kumaon Empire and other parts of Kumaon including Bageshwar. The warriors were defeated by the East India Company [26] in the Anglo-Nepalese War in 1814 [27] [28] [29] and were forced to cross Kumaon to the British as part of the Sugauli Treaty in 1816. [30]: 594 [31] Kumaon County is connected to the eastern part of Garhwal district and was governed as a high commissioner, also known as Kumaon Province, in a non-regulatory system. [32] According to Atkinson's The Himalayan Gazetteer, Bagshwar had a population of 500 in 1886. [33] In 1891, this division was made up of three Kumaon districts, Garhwal and Tarai; but the two provinces of Kumaon and Tarai were later distributed and renamed after their headquarters, Nainital and Almora. Prior to the First World War, the British Government conducted a Survey of railway linking Bageshwar and Takanpur in 1902. [34] [35] However, the work was stopped by the British because of World War II. The study resumed in the 1980s after Indira Gandhi visited Bageshwar. The first carriageway came to Bageshwar in 1952 from Almora via Garur. Bus services began operating on the Bageshwar-Kapkot highway in 1955-56. After the 1962 India-China war, an important road linking Bageshwar and Pithoragarh was completed in 1965. In the first phase of its urban development, the township of central Bageshwar was a group of nine combined villages with three unoccupied villages and six. The village of Bageshwar State was built in 1948 by joining these areas. Bageshwar was declared a city in 1955, under the UP Town Area Act of 1914, and the city's first local committee was formed in 1957. [36] Bageshwar secured the position of informed local committee in 1962 and municipal council in 1968. A piped water supply system was launched in the town of Bageshwar in 1975. [36] The water supply rate was adjusted in 1968-69 with a built population of 6000 people in 1997. At the beginning of the 20th century (1906) and the Post Office (1909) was established in Bageshwar. The public school began in 1926, and it was transformed into a high school in 1933. After gaining independence through several efforts from local residents, an independent school was opened in 1949 in memory of Victor Mohan Joshi, who became Inter College in 1967. The first women's primary school started in the 1950s and the women's high school started in 1975. A new Government College was opened in 1974 by the then Prime Minister Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna.After the Independence of India in 1947, Bageshwar was part of the Almora region. [37] Bageshwar had a population of 1740 according to the 1951 census. It was part of the Kanda development block, which was later converted into the Bageshwar development center. On 15 September 1997 the Bageshwar region was recorded in the Almora region [9] at the time by Uttar Pradesh Prime Minister Mayawati and Bageshwar became its headquarters. On November 9, 2000, Bageshwar reached Uttarakhand State, which was formed from the Himalayas and connects the northwestern states of Uttar Pradesh. [38]
