page_title: Chaugaon
section_title: Culture and tourism
hierarchical_section_title: Chaugaon / Culture and tourism
caption_attribution_description: English: The Shimpi community’s temple of Sant Namdev in Chaugaon village where social and cultural functions by the community are organised.
context_page_description: Chaugaon is a small village in the state of Maharashtra, India. It is located in Dhule taluka of Dhule district on Maharashtra State Highway 10.
  It is located 98 km towards North from District headquarters Nashik.Ajmer Soundane, Bhakshi, Mulane, Morenagar, Arai are the nearby Villages to Chaugaon
context_section_description: During the Diwali festival, villagers have a custom of gathering on the river banks to watch Helyachi Takkar (male bulls' head fights). The farmers raise male buffaloes to enter these fights.
  
  The population of Chaugaon is made of various communities: Kunabi, Mali, Gawali, Bhil, Koli, Sutar, Shimpi, and Harijan. Each individual community has constructed a separate temple for its own faith or deity in or around the village settlement. The communities hold festivals that take place almost every year. Most of the other communities and sometimes other villages attend each of these festivals. These gatherings last between one day and a whole week. They include Bhajan (devotional songs), Kirtan (saint-led religious discourse), and Bhandara (community-sponsored lunch). 
  Chaugaon has an annual two-day fair in the month of Chaitra (March/April) of the Hindu calendar in reverence to the goddess Bhavani maata. Festivities include a tagatrao (country-made chariot), which is pulled by a pair of bulls to the temple of the goddess. Wrestling competitions are also held. On the second day there is a Tamasha, a local countryside performance of folk dance and drama.
  There is also an annual community stand-alone drama performance.
caption: The Shimpi community's temple of Sant Namdev in Chaugaon
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