Pune district

Pune district (Marathi pronunciation: [puɳeː]) is a district in Western Maharashtra with Administrative Headquarters in Pune city. Pune district is the most populous district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is one of the most industrialized districts in India. According to archaeological discoveries of the Jorwe culture in Chandoli and Inamgaon, portions of the district have been occupied by humans since the Chalcolithic (the Copper Age, 5th–4th millennium BCE). Many ancient trade routes linking ports in western India (particularly those of coastal Konkan) with the Deccan Plateau pass through the district. The town of Junnar has been an important trading and political center for the last two thousand years, and it was first mentioned by Greco-Roman travellers in the early first millennium CE. The Karla Caves in Karli, near Lonavala, are near the Western Ghats and a major ancient trade route running eastward from the Arabian Sea to the Deccan Plateau. The caves are a complex of ancient Indian Buddhist rock-cut shrines which were developed from the second century BCE to the fifth century CE; the oldest of the shrines is believed to date to 160 BCE. Traders and Satavahana rulers financed construction of the caves. Buddhists, identified with commerce and manufacturing through their early association with traders, tended to locate their monasteries in natural formations near major trade routes to provide lodging for travelling traders.