PART I.—DESCRIPTION.
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Appendix II. The Hill Fort of Mándu. Description. Mándu, about twenty-three miles south of Dhár in Central India, is a wide waving hill-top, part of the great wall of the Vindhyan range. The hill-top is three to four miles from north to south and four to five miles from east to west. On the north, the east, and the west, Mándu is islanded from the main plateau of Málwa by valleys and ravines that circle round to its southern face, which stands 1200 feet out of the Nímár plain. The area of the hill-top is over 12,000 English acres, and, so broken is its outline, that the encircling wall is said to have a length of between thirty-seven and thirty-eight miles. Its height, 1950 feet above the sea, secures for the hill-top at all seasons the boon of fresh and cool air.
Close inside of the Dehli gate, on the right or west, stands the handsome Hindola Palace. The name Hindola, which is probably the title of the builder, is explained by the people as the Swingcot palace, because, like the sides of the cage of a swinging cot, the walls of the hall bulge Appendix II. The Hill Fort of Mándu. Description. below and narrow towards the top. Its great baronial hall and hanging windows give the Hindola palace a special merit and interest, and an air of lordly wealth and luxury still clings to the tree-covered ruins which stretch west to large underground cisterns and hot weather retreats. About a quarter of a mile south stand the notable group of the Jaház Mehel or Ship palace on the west, and the Tapela Mehel or Caldron palace on the south, with their rows of lofty pointed arches below deep stone caves, their heavy windowless upper stories, and their massive arched and domed roof chambers. These palaces are not more handsomely built than finely set. The massive ship-like length of the Jaház Mehel lies between two large tree-girt ponds, and the Tapela, across a beautiful foreground of water and ruin, looks east into the mass of tangled bush and tree which once formed part of the 130 acres of the Lál Bágh or Royal Gardens.
The flat palace roofs command the whole 12,000 acres of Mándu hill, north to the knolls and broken uplands beyond the great ravine-moat and south across the waving hill-top with its miles of glades and ridges, its scattered villages hamlets and tombs, and its gleaming groves of mangoes, khirnis, banyans, mhowras, and pipals. In the middle distance, out from the tree-tops, stand the lofty domes of Hoshang’s tomb and of the great Jámá mosque. Further south lies the tree-girt hollow of the Ságar Taláv or Sea Lake, and beyond the Ságar lake a woody plateau rises about 200 feet to the southern crest, where, clear against the sky, stand the airy cupolas of the pavilion of Rúp Mati, the beautiful wife of Báz Bahádur (a.d. 1551–1561), the last Sultán of Málwa. Finally to the west, from the end of the Rúp Mati heights, rises even higher the bare nearly isolated shoulder of Songad, the citadel or inner fort of Mándu, the scene of the Gujarát Bahádur’s (a.d. 1531) daring and successful surprise. This fair hill-top, beautiful from its tangled wildness and scattered ruins, is a strange contrast to Mándu, the capital of a warlike independent dynasty. During the palmy days of the fifteenth century, of the 12,000 acres of the Mándu hill-top, 560 were fields, 370 were gardens, 200 were wells, 780 were lakes and ponds, 100 were bazár roads, 1500 were dwellings, 200 were rest-houses, 260 were baths, 470 were mosques, and 334 were palaces. These allotments crowded out the wild to a narrow pittance of 1560 acres of knolls and ridges.
Appendix II. The Hill Fort of Mándu. Description. To the south of Báz Bahádur’s Palace a winding path climbs the steep slope of the southern rim of Mándu to the massive pillared cupolas of Rúp Mati’s palace, which, clear against the sky, are the most notable ornament of the hill-top. From a ground floor of heavy masonry walls and arched gateways stairs lead to a flat masonry terrace. At the north and south ends of the terrace stand massive heavy-eaved pavilions, whose square pillars and pointed arches support lofty deep-grooved domes. The south pavilion on the crest of the Vindhyan cliff commands a long stretch of the south face of Mándu with its guardian wall crowning the heights and hollows of the hill-top. Twelve hundred feet below spreads the dim hazy Nímár plain brightened eastwards by the gleaming coil of the Narbada. The north pavilion, through the clear fresh air of the hill-top, looks over the entire stretch of Mándu from the high shoulder of Songad in the extreme south-west across rolling tree-brightened fields, past the domes, the tangled bush, and the broad gray of the Sea Lake, to the five-domed cluster of Hoshang’s mosque and tomb, on, across a sea of green tree tops, to the domed roof-chambers of the Jaház and Tapela palaces, through the Dehli gateway, and, beyond the deep cleft of the northern ravine, to the bare level and the low ranges of the Málwa plain.
HISTORYThe history of Mándu belongs to two main sections, before and after the overthrow by the emperor Akbar in a.d. 1563 of the independent power of the Sultáns of Málwa.
Section I.—The Málwa Sultáns, a.d. 1400–1570.
The inscription on the small north arch of Nílkanth, dated a.d. 1574, runs:
(Call it not waste) to spend your life in water and earth. (i.e. in building),
If perchance a man of mind for a moment makes your house his lodging.
The inscription on the great southern arch of Nílkanth, dated a.d. 1574, runs:
The inscription on the right wall of Nílkanth, dated a.d. 1591–92, runs:
In the year a.h. 1000, when on his way to the conquest of the Dakhan, the slaves of the Exalted Lord of the Earth, the holder of the sky-like Throne, the shadow of Alláh (the Emperor Akbar), passed by this place.
That time wastes your home cease, Soul, to complain, Who will not scorn a complainer so vain.
From the story of others this wisdom derive, Ere naught of thyself but stories survive.
The inscription on the left wall of Nílkanth, dated a.d. 1600, runs:
The (Lord of the mighty Presence) shadow of Alláh, the Emperor Akbar, after the conquest of the Dakhan and Appendix II. The Hill Fort of Mándu. History The Mughals, a.d. 1570–1720. Dándes (Khándesh) in the year a.h. 1009 set out for Hind (Northern India).
May the name of the writer last for ever!
At dawn and at eve I have watched an owl sitting
The owl’s plaintive hooting convey’d me this warning
“Here pomp, wealth, and greatness lie dumb.”
Section II.—Mughals (a.d. 1570–1720) and Maráthás (a.d. 1720–1820).
Except that copper coins continued to be minted and that it was nominally one of the four capitals of the empire, during the emperor Akbar’s reign Mándu was practically deserted. The only traces of Akbar’s presence on the hill are in two of the five inscriptions already quoted from the Nílkanth pleasure-house, dated a.d. 1591 and a.d. 1600.
After about fifty years of almost complete neglect the emperor Jehángír, during a few months in a.d. 1617, enabled Mándu once more to justify its title of Shádiábád, the Abode of Joy. Early in March a.d. 1617, in the eleventh year of his reign, the emperor Jehángír after spending four months in travelling the 189 miles from Ajmír by way of Ujjain, arrived at Naâlchah on the main land close to the north of Mándu. The emperor notices that most of the forty-six marches into which the 189 miles were divided ended on the bank of some lake stream or great river in green grass and woody landscape, brightened by poppy fields. We came, he writes, enjoying the beauty of the country and shooting, never weary, as if we were moving from one garden to another.
Appendix II. The Hill Fort of Mándu. History The Mughals, a.d. 1570–1720. Of the emperor’s entrance into Mándu the Memoirs have the following note: On Monday the 23rd of Ispandád, the last month of the Persian year, that is according to Sir Thomas Roe’s account on the 6th of March 1617, when one quarter of the day had passed, I mounted my elephant, and, in good fortune and under kindly influences, made my happy entry into the fort of Mándu. About an hour (three ghadis) later I entered the quarters which had been prepared to receive me. During my passage across the hill-top I scattered Rs. 1500. Before my arrival Abdul Karím the engineer had been sent by me to repair the buildings of the former kings of Mándu. While my fortunate standards were at Ajmír Abdul Karím repaired such of the old Mándu buildings as were fit to be repaired and built others anew. On the whole he had provided quarters for me, the like of which have probably never been built in any other place. Three lákhs of rupees were spent on these repairs and buildings. I wish it had been possible to construct buildings like these in all cities likely to be visited by royalty. This fortress, he continues, stands on the top of a hill about thirty-six miles (18 kos) in circumference. They say that before the days of Rája Bikramájit a king was reigning over these parts whose name was Jaisingh Deva. In his time a man went to the forest to cut grass. When he brought the grass back he found that the blade of his sickle had turned yellow. The grasscutter in his surprise went to Mándan, an ironsmith. Mándan knew that the sickle was gold. He had heard that in those parts was to be found the philosopher’s stone, whose touch turns iron and copper into gold. He told the grasscutter to lead him to the place where the sickle had turned yellow, and there he found the philosopher’s stone. The smith presented this treasure to his king. The king amassed untold wealth, part of which he spent in building Mándu fortress which he completed in twelve years. At the request of the smith on most of the stones in the walls a mark was cut in the form of an anvil. Towards the close of his life, when king Jaisingh Deva withdrew his heart from the world, he called many Bráhmans together on the bank of the Narbada close to Mándu. He gave each Bráhman a share of his wealth. And to the Bráhman in whom he had the greatest faith he gave the philosopher’s stone. Enraged at the gift of a paltry stone the Bráhman threw it into the Narbada, and there the philosopher’s stone still lies. The emperor continues: On the 20th of Farwardín, five weeks after my arrival (11th April 1617) in reward for his services in repairing the buildings of Mándu, I conferred on my engineer Abdul Karím the command of 1200 horse, with the title of Maámúr Khán.
Jehángír’s last Mándu entry is this: On the night of Friday in the month of Abán (October 24th, 1617) in all happiness and good fortune I marched from Mándu and halted on the bank of the lake at Naâlchah.
This sketch notices only the main events and the main buildings. Even about the main buildings much is still doubtful. Many inscriptions, some in the puzzling interlaced Tughra character, have still to be read. They may bring to light traces of the Mándu kings and of the Mughal emperors, whose connection with Mándu, so far as the buildings are concerned, is still a blank. The ruins are so many and so widespread that weeks are wanted to ensure their complete examination. It may be hoped that at no distant date Major Delasseau, the Political Agent of Dhár, whose opportunities are not more special than his knowledge, may be able to prepare a complete description of the hill and of its many ruins and writings.