It is said that when Lord Shiva was carrying the body of the dead Mother Goddess (Mai in Hindi) Sati, her necklace (Har in Hindi) fell at this place and hence the name “Maihar” (Maihar = Mai + Har, meaning “Maa necklace”). According to the locals of Maihar, the warriors Alha and Udal, who fought with Prithvi Raj Chauhan during the rule of King Parmardidev Chandel, were great followers of Sharda Devi.
It is said that they were the first to have the darshan of the Goddess in this remote forest. They called the Mother Goddess by the name of “Sharda Mai”, and since then she became popular as “Mata Sharda Mai” Maihar has a history dating back to the Paleolithic period. The town was earlier the capital of the Maihar princely state. The state was founded in 1778 by the Jogi dynasty, who were granted the land by the ruler of the nearby Orchha state. (The Maihar Raja developed another state, Vijayraghavgarh). The state became a princely state of British India in the early 19th century and was administered as part of the Bundelkhand Agency in the Central India Agency. In 1871 the eastern states of the Bundelkhand Agency, including Maihar, were separated to form the new agency of Baghelkhand in Central India. In 1933 Maihar, along with ten other states of western Baghelkhand, was transferred back to the Bundelkhand Agency. The title of the ruler is “Raja” and the present ruler is HH Raja Shrimant Saheb Akshay Raj Singh Ju Dev Bahadur. The area of the state was 407 square miles (1040 km2), and its population in 1901 was 63702. The state, which was irrigated by the Tamas River, consists chiefly of alluvial soil covering sandstone, and is fertile except in the hilly district of the south. A large area was under forest, the produce of which supplied a small export trade. The state suffered severely from famine in 1896-1897. There are extensive ruins of temples and other buildings around the city.