I am going to write about a fort which is one of the most powerful forts of the medieval Deccan and that is Daulatabad fort. Daulatabad fort is located at the outskirt of the city Aurangabad. It is approx 15km from the city. This fort is one of the few invincible forts in Maharashtra because of its architecture. This fort is designed in such a way that it has only one entrance/exit, no separate exit from the fort, to confuse the enemies to drive deep into the fort in search of an exit, at their own peril. Also there are some special features that make the fort famous; those are series of trick defense, secret escapes routes, No parallel gates, complex arrangement of entryways, curved walls, and false doors. The flag mast is on the left hill and enemies turns to left to capture that, but the real gates are on the right.
Let me tell you some history about the fort before writing my experience.
Originally the fort was of the Yadavas of Deogiri. Yadav King Bhillama 5 founded the fort in 11th Century AD. And originally it was known as Deogiri, as it is surrounded by Deogiri hill. It is believed that Lord Shiva had stayed on those hills and therefore named Deogiri hills, (hills of God). Yadavas continued to have their capital here until A.D. 1296. Then Ramachandradeva, son of Krishna got defeated by Alaud-din Khilji and thus Khilji captured the fort. Later Muhammad-bin-Tughlug succeeded the Khiljis at Delhi and He renamed the fort as Daulatabad (City of prosperity) and got shifted from Delhi to Daulatabad in A.D. 1328. The subsequent periods witnessed the war between the Deccan Sultans and Mughals and Mughal King Aurangzeb got the victory of Deccan. Later the fort was under the control of Marathas for a short period of time. And then Nizams of Hyderabad took control in 1724 AD.
Daulatabad fort has some important and notable monuments. The Chand minar is a tower 210 ft high and is the second tallest minar in India, originally covered with beautiful Persian tiles. This was erected by Ala-ud-din Bahmani in 1445. Chini Mahel, in which Abul Hasan Tana Shah, last Qutb Shahi king was imprisoned by Aurangzeb in 1687. Apart from these, Jama Masjid, Bharatmata mandir and Elephant tank are the famous monuments inside fort.
Chand Minar
Chini Mahal
So that was a brief of the history. Let’s come to my trip.
We were four friends who decided to go to Aurangabad to explore the historical sites. Daulatabad is one of them. We had booked a car, as all the places that we had planned to visit didn’t fall on the same route. Aurangabad is well connected city and their are buses that connect city to these places, but It can be time consuming as they are public transports and they have fixed time table. It was a two days trip in which we covered three places, but I would suggest, plan at least for three days otherwise it would become a tiring trip. No doubt, we enjoyed our short trip. We started at 1am from Pune and it took 5 hours to reach the city and approx 6 hours to reach to our hotel, which was a little outside of the city. We reached hotel at approx 7 in the morning, took a quick nap, freshened up and started our day. First we went to Ellora caves and after that in the evening, at 4.30pm we went to the Daulatabad fort. As we all were already tired and now we had to climb the stairs to reach to the top. And also the fort gets closed at 6pm, so we had to hurry. It took approx 1 hr to reach to the top, but the view was panoramic from the top. We clicked many pictured. It has some confusing routes, called Bhul Bhulaiya.
The most attractive thing in the fort, that I liked most is the Mendha Tope(Cannon). It is the biggest tope in the fort, and has the capacity to hit surrounding hills. This cannon is mounted in such a way that it could move in the semi circle only and not pointed to the mother fortress, in case the enemy reaches the cannon and use it.
We couldn’t explore much as we were short of the time, So our main target was to reach the top before it is closed. Guards were already started asking the people to exit.
We ended the day at 6pm, as the fort was closed and we all were tired but satisfied. I enjoyed the day and now Hungry. There are many small dabas and juice shops in front of the fort, so no need to worry about the hunger.
So here are some tips: Have separate day to visit the fort only and reach the fort by 2pm so that you can have enough time to explore, wear comfortable clothes and shoes as there are lots of stairs to climb and also it is on hill, so don’t expect a smooth climb. If you love to click, then get a good camera, as the surrounding view is beautiful.
Here are some pictures that I had clicked:
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