Daulatabad Fort

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It is not just another fort in ruins - this fort was the centre of power in medieval times and no ordinary one. Some ruins themselves are so magnificent today that one can’t help wondering what the fort was like in its glory days. The story of this fort is long one riddled with treachery, greed, religious prejudice and plunder. Obviously, few succeeded in keeping it for long: it changed hands often.

Huge tank for elephants, replica of Qutb minar(tower), temples, mosques, fortresses, moats, palaces, caves, canons, dudgeons you have them all in here. With backdrop of clear sky the fort shines despite being in ruins and its mossy walls. Gaudily painted tower (Chand Minar) is no comparison to Qutb minar in carved and engraved red sandstone, but had its utility and historic significance.

Complicated design of the fort and fortress within it catches your imagination. A guide with a torch (old fashioned one with flame) takes tourists through a spiralling fortress that has many surprises. Invading soldiers could get bludgeoned, have hot oil dumped on them, get a spear through their chest and in the end pushed through a hole into a moat full of hungry crocs. Imagine the insecurity people who designed it had. Lot of blood would have flown through its sloping dirt pavements...

Sweating, tourists hold each others’ wet hands...you wouldn’t know where you are going, it is pitch dark all around and you can’t wait to see some light. The experience is chilling, even for tourists, enemy soldiers who managed to have entered this fortress must have prayed for release, release to quick death.

It is a worthy visit to this unforgettable fort. If you are in India, make sure you visit Daulatabad (meaning abode of wealth), it is a wealth of experience. To know the history of Daulatabad Fort, visit Archeological Survey of Inida

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Photos

Chand Minar
a replica of Qutub Minar. It is more than just a replica.

Collonaded Courtyad
this is near Chand Minar just as there is a courtyard near Qutb Minar

Nizamshahi Mahal
I am not sure if this is Chini Mahal or Nizamshahi mahal. But this has a quaint grandeur to it.

Fortress
Light, at last!

Fortress
The place where you see the light from the torch is where you could get pushed into the moat - if you were an enemy soldier and that's where the exit will be (for the fortress as well).

Comments

[Nick Pile]

awe inspiring
No blog can do Daulatabad justice: get there by dawn, look out across the plain, watch the countryside come alive, and feel the history trapped in those stones. Think of the insane wishes of successive tyrants who took Daulatabad and shaped it to be more and more impregnable - a cocoon for their own insecurity. Nobody could get in, but could they get out? Think of the hundreds of thousands who were torn away from Delhi, and forcibly marched the thousand and more miles to their new home. The few that survived were marched back a generation later... But magnificent, oh yes, yet to many guides it is a stopover of the road to Ellora. And to some it is a place to scratch and daub graffiti. Daulatabad isn't a theme park. Like so many heritage sites it's a magnificent monument to human folly. Visit it, value it, learn from it, preserve it at all costs.

[Anuj kr saboo]

Famesh Fortress
V.V. Good Fortress....