Daulatabad Fort

IN the heart of Maharashtra, 15 km away from Aurangabad, lies a formidable citadel long considered a gateway to the Deccan. Once known as Devagiri, the capital of the Yadavas, the impregnable for tress was built in the 12th century. It was later renamed as Daulatabad (City of Fortune) by Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq, the eccentric Sultan who had shifted his capital here from Delhi for two years.

The fort changed hands many times after the Yadavas were defeated by Alauddin Khilji in 1294. Tughlaq, the Bahmanis of the Deccan, Nizamshahs of Ahmednagar, Mughals, Marathas and finally, the Nizams of Hyderabad held it until independence.

Daulatabad For t is renowned for its complex defence system. It is perched on a 200m high conical hillock that has been manually chiselled to make its granite cliffs vir tually impossible to scale. It is encircled by three concentric walls of for tifications and deep moats.

Even if enemy soldiers managed to get past the outer walls, they would have to access the for t through a treacherous ascending tunnel hewn into the rock. The confused soldiers would have to grope their way along the zigzag passage in pitch darkness.

At a point midway, the tunnel could be filled up with smoke through a small opening, turning it into the deathly gas chamber. It also had fake entrances to mislead and entrap intruders. The tunnel ended at the foot of a long flight of steps, leading to the main fort at the summit. Little wonder then, that the for t could be won only by deceit, never in a frontal assault.

Today, the for t complex has the ruins of temples, mosques and palaces like the Baradari, a summer house built for Shah Jahan, and the Chini Mahal, where the last king of Golconda was imprisoned by Aurangzeb in 1687. A 64m high minaret, Chand Minar, stands as a proud reminder of 150 years of Bahmani rule.