Daulatabad Fort

Saturday, 13 September 2014

Between Ellora and Aurangabad is the impressive Daulatabad Fort. Built as a strategic fortress, it lacked many of the creature comforts of the palace-forts (e.g. Golconda). And it does have an impressive collection of defenses -- both military and psychological.

The tower in the middle is part of the outer wall. The "minor" on the left is a "victory" monument. The fortress itself is the hill in the background. The bottom of the hill has been sheared off to present a vertical face.

The road from Aurangabad to Ellora goes through the "Delhi Gate" in the outer-most wall.

The psychological tricks start from the very first gate -- the larger, more impressive door leads to a dead-end. The smaller door that looks like a service door is really the main entrance. Of course, there are zig-zags so that elephants cannot get up good momentum, and a number of narrow spots where attackers have to come through single-file, and turn to the right, so that the weapons in their right hands are less effective.

The main path between the outer wall and the inner defenses. Across from the minaret-like victory monument was a mosque. The creature in the foreground is a langur -- a type of monkey.

The mosque with the top pavilion in the background.

More psy-ops: The stairs after this gate are deliberately uneven, so that attackers had to keep on looking at the ground rather than ahead.

This is probably the most devious defense of the fortress. Originally, this part was covered with a roof -- the stairs on the right have been added to make it easier for visitors to navigate the fort. The room was entered through the small entrance (about 1 meter square) near the middle of the photo. The next few chambers are in total darkness, and feature uneven and missing steps, blind curves, and ways to fill the chamber with poisonous gases or drop hot oil on attackers. There are chutes that send disabled attackers straight to the crocodile infested moat below. Guides take visitors through remaining totally-dark passages that are very difficult to navigate with a flashlight, and would be impossible without some illumination.

The fort is very popular with the local population. As a rare "western" visitor, I was constantly asked to have my picture taken with families. Here one returned the favor.

One family brought a picnic lunch and had their meal in the pavilion near the top.

From below, it looks like the pavilion is near the top of the mountain -- well, not quite. You have another 100 ft climb to get to the real top. All-in-all, it's nearly 600 feet from the bottom of the hill to the top of the last structure.

A view of the outer wall from near the top.

In the distance is another fort and temple at the top of a hillock. The name of this structure is Bhangsi Mata Gadh, and the temple appears to be modern and in use. There is no information about this structure in any of my guidebooks. The Internet has a few pictures, but no information.

The tower in the fort above is clearly a temple tower. It looks to be fairly new, and the flagpole atop the tower suggests that it is an active temple.