KHANDWA, or Cundwah, the chief town and headquarters station of Nimâr district, Central Provinces, India, 21° 50' N. lat., 76° 23' E. long. Population (1877), 14,119. Khandwa is perhaps the most rising, town in the Central Provinces. It is the station on the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, where the whole traffic of Central India towards Bombay meets the line. It has entirely superseded Burhanpur, the ancient centre of trade between Mâlwâ, the Nerbudda valley, and the Deccan. Extensive barracks have been built for the relays of troops which pass through in the cold season, and there is also a good travellers’ bungalow with a spacious sardi or native resthouse.

The Arabian geographer, Al Biπini (circa 1000 a.d.), mentions Khandwa; and a century later, it was a great seat of Jain worship. The mound on which the town stands has supplied many finely carved pillars, cornices, and other remains of the old Jain buildings, which have been built into Brâhmanical temples, the walls of the Marhatta fort, and other structures It also formed a quarry for the Sιvaite temples surrounding the four founds or water reservoirs, one of which is on each side of the town, that on the west side bearing the date 1132 a.d.