Santi Bastwad Landmark

Note on identification: no landmark named “Santi Bastwad” could be independently verified in Davanagere district — a village of that name exists instead near Belagavi, several hundred kilometres away, which is almost certainly a distinct place. Given the district assignment in the booklet, this entry most likely refers to Shanti Sagara, also called Sulekere, a vast irrigation tank near Kerebilachi in Channagiri taluk, roughly 50 km southeast of Davanagere city. This identification should be treated as provisional pending confirmation against the physical booklet.

Built around 1128 CE on the orders of a Hoysala-era princess named Shantavva (from whom the tank takes its name — “Shanti” plus “Sagara,” ocean), the tank was formed by damming a valley with a long earthen embankment fitted with sluice outlets. With a shoreline of roughly 30 km and a water spread of over 6,500 acres, it is often cited as the second largest man-made lake in Asia after the Veeranam tank, and it still irrigates thousands of acres across more than a thousand villages, as well as supplying piped water to Chitradurga city.

The tank is as much a feat of medieval hydraulic engineering as a monument, and it remains central to the agrarian economy of central Karnataka eight centuries after it was built.

Getting there: Sulekere/Shanti Sagara lies off the Davanagere– Channagiri–Honnali road network; the Davanagere Head Post Office in the district headquarters town is the nearest post office named in the booklet’s listing.