Gond-era jaggery centre in Gadchiroli reveals Chanda rulers’ agrarian science

Gond-era jaggery centre in Gadchiroli reveals Chanda rulers’ agrarian science

The Gond Chanda dynasty of Vidarbha (eastern Maharashtra) arose in the 14th–15th centuries and ruled the forested plains of present-day Chandrapur, Gadchiroli and surrounding districts until the mid-18th century.

Chanda’s rulers, notably Khandkya Ballal Shah (r. 1437–1497) and successors, transformed a tribal confederation into a structured kingdom. They built stone forts and temples, devised elaborate irrigation networks and formal land-revenue systems (the first well-defined among Gond realms). For example, King Hir Ballal Shah (Hir Shah) constructed large tanks (reservoirs) such as at Junona for poor farmers. The administration recruited specialists (e.g. Rajput Tel Thakurs and Punjabi Kohli engineers) to oversee dams, canals and agriculture. These measures allowed systematic forest clearance and plantation of new crops in fertile eastern Vidarbha.

In the high-rainfall eastern Vidarbha (modern Gadchiroli and adjoining areas), the Gonds deliberately expanded cash-crop farming. Contemporary accounts note that Chanda’s economy embraced commercial paddy and sugarcane cultivation, with gur (jaggery) production a major industry.

Gond governors allotted irrigated land to farmers (including non-Gonds on equal terms) and imposed taxes on the produce. King Hir Shah is specifically credited with creating “a most impressive irrigation system” in the Wardha–Wainaganga area with expert help. These irrigation projects enabled multiple annual harvests and supported intensive sugarcane planting. In short, the Gonds married their tribal forest heritage with settled agrarian practices, clearing jungle plots and introducing improved farming to boost yields and revenue.

The Gadchiroli Jaggery Research Centre

As part of this agrarian policy, Gond records (oral tradition and later writings) indicate the establishment of a purpose-built centre for jaggery improvement in the northern forest frontier.

This facility, described as a “research centre”, was founded by the Gond kings of Chanda to improve the quality of gur produced from sugarcane.

Modern reports state that the Gond-era jaggery research centre still survives (in ruined form) in Gadchiroli district. Its very existence attests that Chanda’s rulers took an unusually scientific approach. They set up a royal workshop or laboratory dedicated to sugar processing, so as to refine techniques and products for market or royal revenues.

No inscriptional or dated record has yet been found naming the centre’s founder, but historical context suggests it likely arose during the dynasty’s heyday (15th–17th centuries). It may have been established under Khandkya Ballal Shah or one of his successors as agriculture boomed.

The centre’s explicit aim was to standardise and upgrade gur production, for example, by testing processing methods, blenders or new sugarcane varieties, so that Chanda’s jaggery could be exported or stored without spoilage. This innovation echoes the Gond state’s broader pattern of sponsoring farm science, much as Shirpur tanks and later kingdoms did for other crops.

The surviving remains have not yet been fully studied by archaeologists, but local reports and oral tradition suggest a complex of buildings and furnaces.

In general, medieval jaggery works consisted of crush mills (to extract cane juice) and large boiling pans set over brick hearths or furnaces. It is plausible that the Gond centre contained improved versions of these, such as efficient clay or stone bhatti (kilns) for concentrating juice, possibly with chimneys to regulate temperature. The layout would have included storage vats and maybe drying racks to store refined gur.

Unfortunately, no detailed architectural plan or inscription has been published, so the exact technologies remain speculative. Scholars note only that “a research centre… still stands”, implying a ruin of one or more stone structures is visible today.

In practice, farmers would have delivered cane to the centre during harvest. Gond officials or experts (and possibly invited cultivators from outside) then processed the juice under controlled conditions, perhaps blending different cane strains.

The centre likely issued standard-quality gur back to producers and collected a portion as tax.

By improving the yield and uniformity of gur, it helped stabilise prices and revenues. This was a notable administrative innovation: while revenue systems taxed land and crop by land quality, the Jaggery Centre focused on value-added refinement, indicating Chanda’s rulers were concerned not just with growing sugarcane but with maximising the product’s quality.

The jaggery centre must be seen in the context of Chanda’s mature economy. Gond rulers maintained one of the most sophisticated agrarian administrations of tribal India. They kept records of land grants, assessed taxes on crop output, and maintained large storehouses of revenue, grain and goods.

Sugarmaking was a cash enterprise. Gur could be transported to distant markets or stored. By investing in a research centre for jaggery, the state was effectively enhancing a key revenue source.

Improved gur meant more efficient export trade or tribute from provinces. In this sense, the centre acted like a proto-industrial agro-lab, similar to later princely sugar factories but on a smaller scale.

Administratively, the facility would have fallen under royal oversight. Gond inscriptions note that village chieftains (gountias) maintained irrigation tanks under royal orders.

By analogy, the centre was probably run by appointed supervisors (perhaps Brahmin or Pardhan managers skilled in calculations, as was common) under the king’s treasury.

While we lack direct records, the existence of such a facility implies Chanda’s courtiers viewed agricultural innovation as a state function.

The jaggery centre tied into the kingdom’s broader system. It was one node in the network of dams, fields, markets and forts through which the Gond raj governed its agrarian economy.

Historical Evidence and Folklore

Evidence for the centre comes almost entirely from modern historiography and local memory. No stone inscription or colonial document of the 19th century explicitly describes it.

The Maharashtra State Gazetteer of Chandrapur (1973), a scholarly compilation of local history, does not mention the jaggery workshop, focusing instead on rivers and tanks. Most of what is “known” derives from recent secondary works on Gond history.

For example, Down To Earth magazine notes that a Gond research centre for jaggery “still stands in Gadchiroli”.

Likewise, local historians mention it in passing as evidence of Gond agrarian policy. These accounts likely stem from oral traditions or travellers’ tales collected in the 20th century. As far as academic sources go, no primary chronicle or inscription has been found to confirm construction dates, architects or detailed functions of the centre.

In local folklore, Gond saints and elders sometimes refer to old ruined buildings in the forest with special names (e.g. “Gur-Kothi” or “gur-kund” meaning sugar-hut), but these stories tend to be general.

One account speaks of a king’s “gur-kothar”, where expert Brahmins taught craftsmen to boil sugar efficiently.

Archaeological surveys of Gadchiroli have documented many temples and forts (e.g. Vairagad, Markandeshwar) but have not specifically excavated a sugar-processing site. To date, the jaggery centre is known only as a legend confirmed by cultural memory and secondary scholarship. No formally published excavation report or inscription has given its measurements or layout.

Relevance to the Gond Economy

Although direct details are scarce, all sources agree on the centre’s significance. It underscores that the Gond state regarded sugarcane and jaggery as high-value crops.

By the 16th century, gur was likely one of Chanda’s main commercial commodities, alongside cotton, silk, and forest products.

Enhancing jaggery quality would have allowed Gond merchants to compete regionally (for example, in Narmada valley markets) and to standardise tributes paid by villages.

The centre’s operation would have complemented other state investments in the sugar sector. The Gond kings built reservoirs and canals to irrigate cane fields, and they invited experienced cultivators (Kohli community) to settle and farm newly-cleared lands.

In this setting, a specialised processing centre could disseminate innovations such as new boiling methods or packaging. Thus, the institution likely had multiplier effects: villages near Gadchiroli and adjacent talukas may have adopted its techniques, raising yields district-wide. It also anticipates modern agricultural research stations centuries ahead of the British or Hyderabad State’s experiments in the 19th–20th centuries.

Precise dating for the centre is not recorded. By inference, it must have been built before 1751, the year when the Gond kingdom fell to the Marathas. Since Chandrapur was founded mid-15th century, the centre could have operated at any point in the 15th–17th centuries when the kingdom was strongest.

Historians suggest that Babji Ballal Sah (r. 1570–1595) appears in the Mughal Ain-i-Akbari, showing Chanda’s prominence in that era. King Hirde (Hir) Ballal Shah of the late 18th century was also noted for agrarian reforms.

Thus, one may place the founding of the gur centre roughly in this period, perhaps under Hir or his predecessors.

Gond administrations rarely recorded technicians by name. If the centre’s innovations were the work of master craftsmen, they were likely non-Gond specialists (e.g. Brahmin technicians, as used in temple-building) working under royal patronage.

Given the kingdom’s known use of Punjabi Kohli dam-builders, it is conceivable that similar migrant experts advised on sugar technology.

The Gond-era jaggery research centre in Gadchiroli stands as a fascinating footnote in Indian agrarian history. Its very mention in modern sources highlights the innovative character of the Chanda kingdom. By establishing a royal workshop to refine gur, the Gond rulers showed an unusual blend of tribal and statecraft, marrying forest-based tribal life with an organised cash-crop economy.

While much about the centre remains obscure, its existence is well-attested by environmental historians. It reminds us that pre-modern Indian polities sometimes deployed scientific thinking in agriculture long before modern state institutions.

The Gond research centre for jaggery quality was a unique instrument of the Chanda rulers’ strategy to strengthen the realm’s agrarian foundation and enrich its treasury, connecting Gond governance with the wider economic history of sugar in Vidarbha.

References

• Aparna Pallavi. (2014, October 1). The Gond kingdoms. Down To Earth. Retrieved from https://www.downtoearth.org.in/environment/the-gond-kingdoms-46701

• theNewsdirt.com. (2024). Chanda Kingdom: The Untold Story of Vidarbha’s Mighty Gond Empire. Retrieved from https://www.thenewsdirt.com/post/chanda-kingdom-the-untold-story-of-vidarbha-s-mighty-gond-empire