Soshte

sections|date=January 2008

Soshte is a Maharashtrian surname belonging to the Twashta Kansar community hailing from the Shilaharas Old destroyed Salsette (साष्टी) island in Maharashtra state on India's west coast. The metropolis of Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and the city of Thane lie on this island, making it the 14th most populous island in the world.The name Sashti means "sixty-six villages." Present-day Sashti Island was formerly several separate islands. Most of the northern and middle part of the present island were part of historic Sashti island, while the southern part of the island, which includes Mumbai City, was originally seven small islands (Mahim, Bombay, Mazagaon, Parel, Colaba, Little Colaba, and Sion), extending south from Sashti. The island of Trombay lay to the southeast of Sashti.

109 Buddhist caves, including those at Kanheri, can be found on the island, and date from the end of the 2nd century. The island was ruled by a succession of Hindu kingdoms, the last of which to rule the islands were the Silharas. As stated before, north Konkan was ruled by the Mauryas, who were probably feudatories of the Kalachuris. Their capital was Puri, which has not yet been satisfactorily identified. Various places have been mentioned as possible sites of this capital, viz. Thane, Kalyan, Sopara, Chaul, Mangalapuri (Magathan,Nagothane), Elephanta and Rajapuri in the former Janjira State In 1343 the islands were annexed by the Muslim Sultanate of Gujarat. In 1534 the Portuguese took the islands from Sultan Bahadur Shah of Gujarat. Sashti was part of the northern province of Portuguese India, which was governed from Baçaím (present-day Vasai) on the north shore of Vasai Creek. In 1661 the seven Bombay islets were ceded to Britain as part of the dowry of Catherine of Bragança to King Charles II of England. Sashti remained in Portuguese hands. King Charles in turn leased the Bombay islets to the British East India Company in 1668 for £10 per year. The company found the deep harbour at Bombay eminently apposite, and the population rose from 10,000 in 1661 to 60,000 by 1675. In 1687, the East India Company transferred their headquarters there from Surat.

In 1737 Sashti was captured by the Marathas, and most of the Portuguese northern province was ceded to the Marathas in 1739. The British occupied Sashti in 1774, which was formally ceded to the East India Company in the 1782 Treaty of Salbai.

In 1782 William Hornby, then Governor of Bombay Presidency, initiated the project of connecting the isles. The Hornby Vellard was the first of the engineering projects, started in 1784, despite opposition from the directors of the East India Company. The cost of the vellard was estimated at Rs. 100,000. The project gained momentum in 1817, and by 1845 the seven southern islands had been connected to form Old Bombay, with an area of 435 km². Railway viaducts and road bridges were built in the 19th century to connect Bombay island to Sashti, and Sashti to the mainland. These railway lines encouraged wealthier merchants to build villas on Sashti, and by 1901 the population of Sashti was 146,993, and became known as Greater Bombay. The channels separating Bombay and Trombay islands from Sashti Island were filled in the early 20th century.

In 1429, a force was marched to the sea and is said to have reduced the whole Konkan to obedience. In 1436, a second army was sent and the chief of Redi or Rayagad was made tributary [Briggs' Ferishta, II, 424.] and in 1451 by the establishment of Junnar as a leading Musalman centre the connection with the Konkan was strengthened [Briggs' Ferishta, II, 484.] . But these steps did not succeed in establishing a complete hold of the Bahamanis over Konkan; for, the Bahamani kingdom was ever a hot-bed of rivalry between the Deccani and paradesi groups. Indeed the signs of this rivalry were noted as early as the Konkan campaign of 1429 referred to above. The Bahamani general Khalaf Hasan Basri planned to capture Sasti which was then held by the Sultans of Gujarat. The army of Khalaf Hasan encamped on the Mahim creek but his attempt to occupy Sasti proved futile because the Deccani officers under Khalaf Hasan treacherously quitted his camp, with the result that the Gujaratis were able to gain an easy victory over Khalaf Hasan [Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Vol. VI, p. 359.] . During 1430-31, the Bahamani army was defeated on three successive occasions by Gujaratis. Khalaf Hasan, the paradesi minister attributed these reverses to the treachery and cowardice of the Deccanis. But the latter seem to have convinced the king of the incompetence of his paradesi adviser. The result was that the Deccanis were raised to power. Now they openly manifested their desire to suppress the foreigners and in 1446, treacherously massacred a large number of them. In that year an army of the Deccanis and paradesis was sent against Raja Sankarrav Sirke, a chieftain with his headquarters at Khelna (Visalgad) in South Konkan. The Raja of Sangamesvar who earlier had professed submission to the Bahamani Sultan made common cause with the Sirke. These two stalwarts once again showed that the spirit of the Konkan was yet unsubdued. The invaders, who were lured by them into the fastnesses of the hilly tracts of this region, suffered a crushing defeat with the result that the survivors retreated to the fort of Cakan. Taking advantage of this, the Deccanis misrepresented this affair to the Sultan and ascribed the defeat to the treacherous and inefficient conduct of the Konkan campaign by Khalaf Hasan and his paradesi colleagues. The Sultan concurred with the Deccani's view and brought about a severe massacre of the foreigners. After the incident a few surviving foreigners represented to the Sultan the deception practised on him and gave him the correct version of what had taken place. The duplicity of the Deccanis was exposed with the result that they were degraded in the court and the foreigners regained their ascendancy. [Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, VI, 265-266.] The feud between the two parties, howeyer, never actually died out.Towards the close of the fifteenth century (1489) the inland parts of Kolaba passed from the Bahamani to the Ahmadnagar kings. The seacoast, including at least Nagothana and Ceul, remained in the hands of the Gujarat kings, [In 1502 the Italian traveller Varthema (Badger, 114) placed Chaul in Gujarat; and in 1508 according to Mirat-i-Ahmadi (Bird, 214) Mahmud Begada established a garrison at Nagothana and sent an army to Chaul.] till, in 1509, the overlordship of Ceul passed from Gujarat to the Portuguese [Faria in Kerr, VI, 120.] . After this, though the coast boundary of Gujarat shrank from Ceul to Bombay, [Stanley's Barbosa, 68-69.] the Gujarat kings continued to hold the fort of Sangaza or Sahksi in Pen till 1540 when it was made over to Ahmadnagar [Faria in Kerr, VI, 368.] .But to turn to the main incidents of history, in 1521, on the promise that he would be allowed to import horses through Ceul, Burhan Nizam Shah (1508-1553), the Ahmadnagar king allowed the Portuguese to build a fort at Revdanda about two miles below the Musalman town. In 1524 the fort was completed. In 1528 a Gujarat fleet of eighty barks appeared at the mouth of the Ceul river and did much damage to Ahmadnagar territory and to Portuguese trade. Thereupon a Portuguese fleet was sent to act against the Gujarat fleet, which took several Gujarat vessels, and passing up the Nagothana or Amba river burnt about six Gujarat towns. On his way back to his boats the Portuguese General was attacked by the commandant of Nagothana, but beat him off with loss.soshte Families continued the work of making cannons, Coins & Weapons during the Period of Shivaji & Peshwas they had a Factory of Cannon near Kadsure and Factory of Coins in Nagothane where you can see Destroyed Landmarks of that Factory!Other Branches of the family situated at Surat & Mumbai.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Gotra - Soshte Surnames Gotra is Bhrugu (The word "gotra" means "lineage" in the Sanskrit language. Among those of the Hindu caste, gotras are reckoned patrilineally. Each gotra takes the name of a famous Rishi or sage who was the patrilineal forebearer of that clan. And each Gotra is addressed by the suffix 'sa' or 'asa' as relevant)