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Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. I, Part I: History of Gujarat c14: Appendix II. The Hill Fort of Mándu

Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. I, Part I: History of Gujarát c14

Language
English

Contents

Appendix II. The Hill Fort of Mándu

Part I.—Description

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MÁNDU, about twenty-three miles south of Dhár in Central India, is a wide waving hill-top, part of the great wall of the Vindhyas 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 Nimár 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.

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About twenty miles south of Dhár the level cultivated plateau breaks into woody glades and uplands. Two miles further the plain is cleft by two great ravines, which from their deeper and broader southern mouths 700 to 800 feet below the Dhár plateau, as they wind northwards, narrow and rise, till to the north of Mándu hill, they shallow into a woody dip or valley about 300 yards broad and 200 feet below the south crest of Málwa. From the south crest of the Málwa plateau, across the tree tops of this wild valley, stand the cliffs of the island Mándu, their crests crowned by the great Dehli gateway and its long lofty line of flanking walls. At the foot of the sudden dip into the valley the Álamgir or World-Guarding Gate stands sentinel.¹ Beyond the gateway, among wild reaches of rock and forest, a noble causeway with high domed tombs on either hand fills the lowest dip of the valley. From the south end of the causeway the road winds up to a second gateway, and beyond the second gateway between side walls climbs till at the crest of the slope it passes through the ruined but still lofty and beautiful Dehli or northern gateway, one of the earliest works of Diláwar Khán (A.D. 1400), the founder of Musalmán Mándu.

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¹ The following Persian verses are carved on the Álamgir gateway :

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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

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In the time of Álamgir Aurangzíb (A.D. 1658-1707), the ruler of the World,
This gate resembling the skies in altitude was built anew.
In the year A.H. 1079 (A.D. 1668) the work of renewal was begun and completed
By the endeavour of the exalted Khán Muhammad Beg Khán.
From the accession of this Emperor of the World Aurangzíb.
This was the eleventh year by way of writing and history.

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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.

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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, umaras, 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 Taláo 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 Gujárát 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.

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From the Jaház Mehel the road winds through fields and woods, gemmed with peafowl and droll with monkeys, among scattered palaces, mosques and tombs, some shapely some in heaps, about a mile south to the walled enclosure of the lofty domed tomb of the establisher of Mándu's greatness, Hoshang Sháh Ghori (A.D. 1405-1432). Though the badly-fitted joinings of the marble slabs of the tomb walls are a notable contrast to the finish of the later Mughal buildings, Hoshang's tomb, in its massive simplicity and dim-lighted roughness, is a solemn and suitable resting-place for a great Pathán warrior. Along the west of the tomb enclosure runs a handsome flat-roofed colonnade. The pillars, which near the base are four-sided, pass through an eight-sided and a sixteen-sided belt into a round upper shaft. The round shaft ends in a square under-capital, each face of which is filled by a group of leafage in outline the same as the favorite Hindu Singh-múkh or horned face. Over the entwined leafy horns of this moulding, stone brackets support heavy stone beams, all Hindu in pattern.¹ Close to the east of Hoshang's tomb is Hoshang's

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¹ Mr. Fergusson (Indian Architecture, page 513) says: "The pillars appear to have been taken from a Jain building." But the refinement on the square capital of each pillar of the Hindu Singh-múkh or horned face into a group of leaves of the same

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THE HILL FORT OF MANDU. DESCRIPTION.

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Jámá Masjid or Great Mosque, built of blocks of red limestone. Hoshang's mosque is approached from the east through a massive domed gateway and across a quadrangle enclosed on the east north and south by wrecked colonnades of pointed arches. The west is filled by the great pointed arches of the mosque in fair repair. On the roof of the mosque from a thick undergrowth of domelets rise three lofty domes.¹

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¹ Hoshang's great mosque has the following much damaged Persian inscription:

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In front of the gateway of the Great Mosque, in the centre of a masonry plinth about three feet high, stands an iron pillar about a foot in diameter at the base and twenty feet high. Close to the east of the gateway is the site of Mehmúd's (A.D. 1442) Tower of Victory, traces of which remained as late as A.D. 1840. About fifty yards further east are the ruins of a great building called the Ashrafi Mehel, said to have been a Musalmán college. To the north-east a banner marks a temple and the local state offices. South the road passes between the two lines of small houses and huts that make modern Mándu. Beyond the village, among ruins and huge swollen baobab stems, the road winds south along a downward slope to the richly-wooded lowland, where stretches to the west the wide coolness of the Ságar Taláv or Sea lake. Its broad surface covering 600 acres is green with fanlike lotus leaves, reeds, and water-grasses. Its banks are rough with brakes of tangled bush from which, in uncramped stateliness, rise lofty mhauras, mangoes, kirnis, and pípals. To the east round a smaller tank, whose banks are crowned by splendid mangoes and tamarinds, stand the domes of several handsome tombs. Of some

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outline shows that the pillars were specially carved for use in a Muslim building. The porch on the north side of the tomb enclosure is described (Ditto, page 543) as composed of pillars avowedly re-erected from a Jain building. This note of Mr. Fergusson's must have gone astray, as the north porch of Hoshang's tomb enclosure is in the plain massive pointed arch and square-shafted style of the tomb and of the great mosque. Mr. Fergusson's note apparently belongs to the second and smaller Jámá Masjid, about a hundred yards east of the Sea or Sagár lake, the pillars of whose colonnade and porch are still enlivened by rows of the lucky face of the Hindu old horay.

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The mosque of exalted construction, the temple of heavenly altitude,
Whose every thick pillar is a copy of the (pillars of the)
Sacred Temple (the Temple of Makkah).
On account of the greatness of its dignity, like the pigeons of the Temple of Makkah,
Sacred angels of high degree are always engaged in hovering around it,
The result of the events born of the merciless revolution of the skies.
When the sun of his life came as far as the balcony (i. e. was ready to set).
A'zam Humayun (that is Malik Mughís) said . . .
The administration of the country, the construction of buildings, and the driving back of enemies
Are things which I leave you (the son of A'zam Humayun) as parting advice with great earnestness.
The personification of the kindness of Providence, the Sultan A'la'-ud-din (Mehmud I. A.D. 1436-1469), who is
The outcome of the refulgence of the Faith, and the satisfier of the wants of the people,
In the year A.H. 858 (A.D. 1454),
In the words of the above parting advice, finished the construction of this building.

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of these domes the black masses are brightened by belts of brilliant pale and deep-blue enamel. To the north of this overflow-pool a long black wall is the back of the smaller Jâmá or congregation mosque, badly ruined, but of special interest, as each of its numerous pillars shows the uninjured Hindu Singh-mu'kh or horned face. By a rough piece of constructive skill the original cross corners of the end cupolas have been worked into vaulted Musalmán domes.¹

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¹ This Jâmá Mosque has the following Persian inscription dated H. 835 (A.D. 1431):

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From the Sea Lake, about a mile across the waving richly-wooded plain, bounded by the southern height of the plateau, the path leads to the sacred Rewa Kund or Narbada Pool, a small shady pond lined with rich masonry, and its west side enriched by the ruins of a handsome Bath or Hammám Khánah. From the north-east corner of the Rewa Pool a broad flight of easy stairs leads thirty or forty feet up the slope on whose top stands the palace of Báz Bahádur (A.D. 1551-1561) the last independent chief of Mându.² The broad easy flight of steps ends in a lofty arched gateway through which a roomy hall or passage gives entrance into a courtyard with a central masonry cistern and an enclosing double colonnade, which on the right opens into an arched balcony overlooking the Rewa Kund and garden. Within this courtyard is a second court enclosed on three sides by an arched gallery. The roof of the colonnades, which are reached by flights of easy steps, are shaded by arched pavilions topped by cupolas brightened by belts of blue enamel.

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² The following Persian inscription carved on the entrance arch shows that though may have been repaired by Báz Bahádur, the building of the palace was fifty years earlier (H. 914, A.D. 1508):

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With good omens, at a happy time, and in a lucky and well-started year,
On the 4th of the month of Alla'h (Ramasa'n) on the great day of Friday,
In the year 835 and six months from the Hijrah (A.D. 1431)
Counted according to the revolution of the moon in the Arabian manner,
This Islamic mosque was founded in this world,
The top of whose dome rubs its head against the green canopy of Heaven.
The construction of this high mosque was due to Mughi's-ud-di'n-wad-dunya (Malik Mughi's), the father of Mehmu'd I. of Malwa (A.D. 1436-1469), the redresser of temporal and spiritual wrongs.
Ulugh (brave), A'zam (great), Huma'yu'n (august), the Kha'n of the seven climes and the nine countries.
By the hands of his enterprise this so great mosque was founded,
That some call it the House of Peace, others style it the Kaa'bah.
This good building was completed on the last of the month of Shawwa'l (A.H. 835, A.D. 1431).
May the merit of this good act be inserted in the scroll of the Kha'n's actions!
In this centre may the praises of the sermon read (in the name) of Mehmu'd Sha'h
Be everlasting, so long as mountains stand on the earth and stars in the firmament.

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"In the time of the Sulta'n of Nations, the most just and great, and the most knowing and munificent Kha'kan Na'sir Sha'h Khilji (A.D. 1500-1512). Written by Yusuf, the year (H. 914) (A.D. 1508)."

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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 Nimár 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.

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From the Rewa Pool a path, along the foot of the southern height among noble solitary *mahuas* and *khiris*, across fields and past small clusters of huts, guides to a flight of steps which lead down to a deep shady rock-cut dell where a Muhammadan chamber with great open arched front looks out across a fountained courtyard and sloping scalloped water fable to the wild western slopes of Mándu. This is Nilkanth, where the emperor Akbar lodged in A.D. 1574, and which Jehángir visited in A.D. 1617.¹

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¹ Translations of its two much-admired Persian inscriptions are given below pages 370-371.

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From the top of the steps that lead to the dell the hill stretches west bare and stony to the Songad or Tárápúr gateway on the narrow neck beyond which rises the broad shoulder of Songad, the lofty south-west limit of the Mándu hill-top.²

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² On the Tárápúr gateway a Persian inscription of the reign of the emperor Akbar (A.D. 1556-1605) states that the royal road that passed through this gateway was repaired by Táhir Muhammad Hasan Imád-ud-din.

Part II.—History

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The 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

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Of early Hindu Mándu, which is said to date from A.D. 313, nothing is known.³ Hind spire stones are built into the Hindola palace walls; and the pillars of the lesser Jámá mosque, about a hundred yards from the east end of the sea or Ságar Lake, are Hindu apparently Jain. Of these local Hind chiefs almost nothing is known except that their fort, was taken and their power brought to an end by Sultān Shams-ud-din Altamsh about A.D. 1234.¹ Dhār, not Māndu, was at that time the capital. It seems doubtful whether Māndu ever enjoyed the position of a capital till the end of the fourteenth century. In A.D. 1401, in the ruin that followed Timūr's (A.D. 1398-1400) conquest of Northern India, a Pathān from the country of Ghor, Dilāwar Khān Ghori (A.D. 1387-1405), at the suggestion of his son Alp Khān, assumed the white canopy and scarlet pavilion of royalty.² Though Dhār was Dilāwar's head-quarters he sometimes stayed for months at a time at Māndu, strengthening the defences and adorning the hill with buildings, as he always entertained the desire of making Māndu his capital.³ Three available inscriptions of Dilāwar

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³ The Persian references and extracts in this section are contributed by Khán Sáheb Fazl-ul-lah Lutfullah Faridi of Surat. Sir John Malcolm in Eastwick's Handbook of the Panjáb, 119. This reference has not been traced. Farishtah (Elliot, VI. 563) says Mándu was built by Anand Dev of the Bais tribe, who was a contemporary of Khusrao Parwiz the Sassanian (A.D. 591-621).

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¹ The date is uncertain. Compare Elphinstone's History, 323; Briggs' Farishtah, I, 210-211; Tabakāt-i-Nāsiri in Elliot, II, 328. The conquest of Māndu in A.D. 1227 is not Mandu in Mālwa as Elphinstone and Briggs supposed, but Mandūr in the Siwālik Hills. See Elliot, Vol. II, page 325 Note 1. The Persian text of Farishtah (I, 115), though by mistake calling it Māndu (not Māndu), notes that it was the Mandu in the Siwālik hills. The poetical date-script also terms it Bilādi-Siwālik or the Siwālik countries. The date of the conquest of the Siwālik Māndu by Altamsh is given by Farishtah (Ditto) as A.H. 624 (A.D. 1226). The conquest of Mālwa by Altamsh, the taking by him of Bhilsah and Ujjain, and the destruction of the temple of Maha Kāl and of the statue or image of Bikramajit are given as occurring in A.H. 631 (A.D. 1233). The Mirāt-i-Sikandari (Persian Text, 13) notices an expedition made in A.D. 1395 by Zafar Khān (Muzaffar I, of Gujarāt) against a Hindu chief of Māndu, who, it was reported, was oppressing the Musalmāns. A siege of more than twelve months failed to capture the fort.

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² Briggs' Farishtah, IV, 170.

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³ Briggs' Farishtah, IV, 168. According to the Wakiāt-i-Mushtāki (Elliot, IV, 553) Dilāwar Khān, or as the writer calls him Amin Shāh, through the good offices of a merchant whom he had refrained from plundering obtained the grant of Māndu, which was entirely desolate. The king sent a robe and a horse, and Amin gave up walking and took to riding. He made his friends ride, enlisted horsemen, and promoted the cultivation of the country (Elliot, IV, 552). Farishtah (Pers. Text, II, 460-61) states that when Sultān Muhammad, the son of Firūz Tughlak, made Khwajah Sarwar his chief minister with the title of Khwajah Jehan, and gave Zafar Khān the viceroyalty of Gujarāt and Khizr Khān that of Multān, he sent Dilāwar Khān to be governor of Mālwa. In another passage Farishtah (II, 461) states that one of Dilāwar's grandfathers, Sultān Shahāb-ud-din, came from Ghor and took service in the court of the Dehli Sultāns. His son rose to be an Amir, and his grandson Dilāwar Khān, in the time of Sultān Firūz became a leading nobleman, and in the reign of Muhammad, son of Firūz, obtained Mālwa in fief. When the power of the Tughlaks went to ruin Dilāwar assumed the royal emblems of the umbrella and the red-tent.

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⁴ Dilāwar Khān Ghori, whose original name was Husain, was one of the grandsons of Sultān Shahāb-ud-din Muhammad bin Sām. He was one of the nobles of Muhammad, the son of Firūz Tughlak, who after the death of that monarch, settled in and asserted his power over Mālwa, (Pers. Text Farishtah, II, 460). The emperor Jehāngir (who calls him Amid Shāh Ghori) attributes to him the construction of the fort of Dhār. He says (Memoirs Pers. Text, 201-202): Dhār is one of the oldest cities of India. Rāja Bhoj, one of the famous ancient Hindu kings, lived in this city. From his time up to this thousand years have passed. Dhār was also the capital of the Muhammadan rulers of Mālwa. When Sultān Muhammad Tughlak (A.D. 1325) was on his way to the conquest of the Dakhan he built a cut-stone fort on a raised site. Its outline is very elegant and beautiful, but the space inside is empty of buildings. Amid Shāh Ghori, known as Dilāwar Khān, who in the days of Sultān Muhammad the son of Sultān Firūz, king of Dehli, gained the independent rule of Mālwa, built outside this fort an assembly mosque, which has in front of it, in the ground a four-cornered iron column about four feet round. When Sultān Bahādur of Gujarāt took Mālwa (A.D. 1530-31) he wished to carry this column to Gujarāt. In digging it up the pillar fell and broke in two, one piece measuring twenty-two feet the other thirteen feet. As it was lying here uncared-for I (Jehāngir) ordered the big piece to be carried to Agra to be put up in the courtyard of the shrine of him whose abode is the heavenly throne (Akbar), to be utilised as a lamp post. The mosque has two gates. In

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THE HILL FORT OF MÁNDU. HISTORY, The Málwa Sultáns, A.D. 1400-1570.

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Khán (A.D. 1387-1405) seem to show that he built an assembly mosque near the Ship Palace, a mosque near the Dehli Gate, and a gate at the entrance to Songadh, the south-west corner and citadel of Mándu, afterwards known as the Tárápúr Gate.

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In A.D. 1398 Alp Khán, son of Diláwar Khán, annoyed with his father for entertaining as his overlord at Dhár Mehmúd Tughlak, the refugee monarch of Dehli, withdrew to Mándu. He stayed in Mándu for three years, laying, according to Farishtah, the foundation of the famous fortress of solid masonry which was the strongest fortification in that part of the world.¹ On his father's death in A.D. 1405 Alp Khán took the title of Sultán Hoshang, and moved the capital to Mándu. The rumour that Hoshang had poisoned his father gave Diláwar's brother in arms, Muzaffar Sháh of Gujarát (A.D. 1399-1411), an excuse for an expedition against Hoshang.² Hoshang was defeated at Dhár, made prisoner, and carried to Gujarát, and Muzaffar's brother Nasrat was appointed in his place. Nasrat failed to gain the goodwill either of the people or of the army of Málwa, and was forced to retire from Dhár and take refuge in Mándu. In consequence of this failure in A.D. 1408, at Hoshang's request Muzaffar set Hoshang free after a year's confinement, and deputed his grandson Ahmed to take Hoshang to Málwa and establish Hoshang's power.³ With Ahmed's help Hoshang took Dhár and shortly after secured the fort of Mándu. Hoshang (A.D. 1405-1431) made Mándu his capital and spread his power on all sides except towards Gujarát.⁴ Shortly after the death of Muzaffar I. and the accession of Ahmed, when (A.D. 1414) Ahmed was quelling the disturbances raised by his cousins, Hoshang, instead of helping Ahmed as requested, marched towards Gujarát and created a diversion in favour of the rebels by sending two of his nobles to attack Brosch. They were soon expelled by Ahmed Sháh. Shortly after Hoshang marched to the help of the chief of Jháláváda in Kathiáváda,

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¹ Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 169.

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² When fellow-nobles in the court of the Tughlak Sultán, Zafar Khán (Sultán Muzaffar of Gujarát), and Diláwar Khán bound themselves under an oath to be brothers in arms. Farishtah, Pers. Text II. 462.

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³ Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 173; Elphinstone's History, 678.

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⁴ Though their temples were turned into mosques the Jains continued to prosper under the Ghoris. At Deogarh in Lalitpura in Jhánsi in the North-West Provinces an inscription of Samvat 1481, that is of A.D. 1424, records the dedication of two Jaina images by a Jain priest named Holi during the reign of Sháh Alambhaka of Mandapapara, that is of Sháh Alp Khán of Mándu that is Sultán Hoshang Ghori. Archæological Survey of India, New Series, II. 120.

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front of the arch of one gate they have fixed a stone tablet engraved with a prose passage to the effect that Ahmid Sháh Ghori in the year H. 808 (A.D. 1405) laid the foundation of this mosque. On the other arch they have written a poetic inscription of which the following verses are a part:

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The liege lord of the world.
The star of the sphere of glory.
The stay of the people.
The sun of the zenith of perfection.
The bulwark of the law of the Prophet, A'mi'd Sha'h Da'u'd.
The possessor of amiable qualities, the pride of Ghor.
Dila'war Kha'n, the helper and defender of the Prophet's faith.
The chosen instrument of the exalted Lord, who in the city of Dha'r constructed the assembly mosque
In a happy and auspicious moment on a day of lucky omen.
In the year 808 years have passed (A.D. 1405)
When this fabric of Hope was completed.

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and ravaged eastern and central Gujarát.¹ To punish Hoshang for these acts of ingratitude, between A.D. 1418 and 1422, Ahmed twice besieged Mándu, and though he failed to take the fort his retirement had to be purchased, and both as regards success and fair-dealing the honours of the campaign remained with Ahmed.² In A.D. 1421 Hoshang went disguised as a horse-dealer to Jájnagar (now Jájpur) in Cuttack in Orissa. He took with him a number of cream-coloured horses, of which he had heard the Rája was very fond. His object was to barter these horses and other goods for the famous war elephants of Jájnagar. An accident in the camp of the disguised merchants led to a fight, in which the Rája was taken prisoner and Hoshang was able to secure 150 elephants to fight the Gujarát Sultán.³ During Hoshang's absence at Jájnagar Ahmed pressed the siege of Mándu so hard that the garrison would have surrendered had Hoshang not succeeded in finding his way into the fort through the south or Tárápur Gate.⁴ For ten years after the Gujarát campaign, by the help of his minister Malik Mughis of the Khilji family and of his minister's son Mehmúd Khán, Málwa prospered and Hoshang's power was extended. Hoshang enriched his capital with buildings, among them the Great Mosque and his own tomb, both of which he left unfinished. Hoshang's minister Malik Mughis (who received the title of Ulugh Aázam Humáyún Khán) appears to have built the assembly mosque near the Ságar Lake in Hoshang's life-time, A.D. 1431. Another of his buildings must have been a mint, as copper coins remain bearing Hoshang's name, and Mándu Shádiábád as the place of mintage.⁵ In A.D. 1432, at Hoshangábád, on the left bank of the Narbada, about 120 miles east of Mándu, Hoshang, who was suffering from diabetes, took greatly to heart the fall of a ruby out of his crown. He said: A few days before the death of Fírúz Tughlak a jewel dropped from his crown. Hoshang ordered that he should be taken to Mándu. Before he had gone many miles the king died. His nobles carried the body to the Madrasah or college in Shádiábád or Mándu, and buried him in the college on the ninth day of Zil Hajjah, the twelfth month of A.H. 838 = A.D. 1434. The year of Hoshang's death is to be found in the letters Ah Shah Hoshang na mund: Alas, Shah Hoshang stayed not.⁶

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¹ Farishtah, Pers, Text II. 461-65.

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² Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 176, 178, 180, 181, 183.

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³ Farishtah, Pers, Text II. 466-67.

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⁴ Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 180. In connection with the Tárápur Gate Farishtah says (Pers, Text, II. 468): The fort of Mándu is built on the top of a mountain, and the line of its fortification is about twenty-eight miles in length. In place of a moat it is surrounded by a deep chasm, so that it is impossible to use missiles against it. Within the fort water and provisions are abundant and it includes land enough to grow grain for the garrison. The extent of its walls makes it impossible for an army to invest it. Most of the villages near it are too small to furnish supplies to a besieging force. The south or Tárápur gate is exceedingly difficult of access. A horseman can hardly approach it. From whichever side the fort may be attempted, most difficult heights have to be scaled. The long distances and intervening hills prevent the watchers of the besieging force communicating with each other. The gate on the side of Delhi is of easier access than the other gates.

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⁵ It follows that Farishtah (Briggs, IV. 196) is mistaken in stating that Hoshang's son Muhammad gave Mándu the name of Shádiábád, the Abode of Joy.

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⁶ Farishtah, Pers. Text II. 472-475. It seems to follow that from the first the monument to Hoshang in Hoshangábád was an empty tomb. Compare Briggs' Farishtah, IV, 180-190.

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On Hoshang's death his son Ghazni Khán, with the title of Sultán Muhammad Ghori, succeeded. Malik Mughis, his father's minister, and the minister's son Mehmúd were maintained in power. In three years (A.D. 1433-1436), as Sultān Muhammad proved dissipated cruel and suspicious, Mehmūd, the minister's son, procured his death by poison. Mehmūd Khilji then asked his father to accept the succession, but his father declined, saying that Mehmūd was fitter to be king. In A.D. 1436 Mehmūd was accordingly crowned with the royal tiara of Hoshang.¹ He conferred on his father the honour of being attended by mace-bearers carrying gold and silver sticks, who, when the Khán mounted or went out, had, like the mace-bearers of independent monarchs, the privilege of repeating the *Bismillah* 'In the name of the compassionate and merciful Allāh.'² He gave his father royal honours, the white canopy and the silver quiver, and to his title of Malik Ashraf Khān Jehān he added among others Amir-ul-Umara and Aāzam Humāyūn.³ Mehmūd quelled a revolt among his nobles. An outbreak of plague in the Gujarāt camp relieved him from a contest with Ahmed Shāh.⁴ In A.D. 1439 Mehmūd repaired the palace of Sultān Hoshang and opened the mosque built in commemoration of that monarch which Farishtah describes as a splendid edifice with 208 columns.⁵ About the same time Mehmūd completed Hoshang's tomb which Hoshang had left unfinished. On the completion of this building Hoshang's remains seem to have moved into it from their first resting-place in the college. In A.D. 1441 Mehmūd built a

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¹ Farishtah, Pers. Text II, 480.

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² Briggs' Farishtah, IV, 196. These titles mean: The Chief of Nobles, the Great, the August.

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³ It is related that one of the pious men in the camp of Sultān Ahmed of Gujarāt had a warning dream, in which the Prophet (on whom be peace) appeared to him and said: "The calamity of (spirit of) pestilence is coming down from the skies. Tell sultān Ahmed to leave this country." This warning was told to sultān Ahmed, but he disregarded it, and within three days pestilence raged in his camp. Farishtah Pers. Text, II, 484.

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⁴ Briggs' Farishtah, IV, 205, gives 230 minarets and 360 arches. This must have been an addition in the Text used by Briggs. These details do not apply to the building. The Persian text of Farishtah, II, 485, mentions 208 columns or pillars (*duyast o hasht ustuwānah*). No reference is made either to minarets or to arches.

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The following more detailed, but also more confused, story is told in the Wakiāt-i-Mushtāki (Elliot, IV, 552-54): A man named Mehmūd, son of Mughis Kiōlji, came to Hoshang and entered his service. He was a treacherous man, who secretly aspired to the throne. He became minister, and gave his daughter in marriage to the king. [Farishtah, Pers. Text II, 474, says: "Malik Mughis gave his daughter (Mehmūd's sister) in marriage, not to Hoshang, but to Hoshang's son Muhammad Shāh."] His father Malik Mughis, coming to know of his son's ambitious designs, informed the king of them. Hereupon Mehmūd feigned illness, and to deceive the king's physicians shut himself in a dark room and drank the blood of a newly killed goat. When the physicians came Mehmūd rose hastily, threw up the blood into a basin, and tossing back his head rolled on the floor as if in pain. The physicians called for a light. When they saw that Mehmūd had spat up blood they were satisfied of his sickness, and told the king that Mehmūd had not long to live. The king refrained from killing a dying man. This strange story seems to be an embellishment of a passage in Farishtah (Pers. Text, II, 477). When Khān Jehān, that is Malik Mughis the father of Mehmūd, was ordered by Sultān Muhammad to take the field against the Rājput rebels of Nādoti (?) many of the old nobles of Mālwa went with him. In their absence the party hostile to the Khiljis represented to Sultān Muhammad that Mehmūd Khilji was plotting his death. On hearing that the sultān was enraged against him Mehmūd secluded himself from the Court on pretence of illness. At the same time he worked secretly and bribed Sultān Muhammad's cup-bearer to poison his master. On the death of Sultān Muhammad the party of nobles opposed to Mehmūd, concealing the fact of Muhammad's death, sent word that Muhammad had ordered him immediately to the palace, as he wanted to send him on an embassy to Gujarāt. Mehmūd, who knew that the sultān was dead, returned word to the nobles that he had vowed a life-long seclusion to him and convinced him that the good of his country depended on his going to Gujarāt as he was ready to go and see sultān Muhammad. The nobles were caught in their own trap. They went to Mehmūd and were secured and imprisoned by him.

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garden with a dome and palaces¹ and a mosque at Naálchah about three miles north of the Dehli Gate of Mándu, a pleasing well-watered spot where the plateau of Málwa breaks into glades and knolls.² In A.D. 1443 in honour of his victory over Rána Kúmbha of Chitor, Mehmúd built a beautiful column of victory,³ seven storeys high, and a college in front of the mosque of Hoshang Ghori. Facing the east entrance to the Great Mosque stands a paved ramp crowned by a confused ruin. As late as A.D. 1843 this ruin is described as a square marble chamber. Each face of the chamber had three arches, the centre arch in two of the faces being a door. Above the arches the wall was of yellow stone faced with marble. Inside the chamber the square corners were cut off by arches. No roof or other trace of superstructure remained.⁴ This chamber seems to be the basement of the column of victory which was raised in A.D. 1443 by Mehmúd I. (A.D. 1432-1469) in honour of his victory over Rána Kúmbha of Chitor. Mehmúd’s column has the special interest of being, if not the original, at least the cause of the building of Kúmbha Rána’s still uninjured Victory Pillar, which was completed in A.D. 1454 at a cost of £900,000 in honour of his defeat of Mehmúd.⁵ That the Mándu Column of Victory was a famous work is shown by Abul Fazl’s reference to it in A.D. 1590 as an eight-storeyed minaret.⁶ Farishtah, about twenty years later (A.D. 1610), calls it a beautiful Victory Pillar seven storeys high.⁷ The emperor Jehángir (A.D. 1605-1627) gives the following account of Mehmúd’s Tower of Victory⁸: This day, the 29th of the month Tir, corresponding to July-August of A.D. 1617, about the close of the day, with the ladies of the palace, I went out to see the Haft Manzar or Seven Storeys, literally Seven Prospects. This building is one of the structures of the old rulers of Malwa, that is of Sultan Mehmud Khilji. It has seven storeys, and on each storey there are four porticos, and in each portico are four windows. The height of this tower is about 163 feet and its circumference 150 feet. From the surface of the ground to the top of the seventh storey there are one hundred and seventy-one steps.⁹ Sir Thomas Herbert, the traveller, in A.D. 1628 describes it from hearsay, or at least at second-hand, as a tower 170 steps high, supported by massive pillars and adorned with gates and windows very observable. It was built, he adds, by Khán Jehán, who there lies buried.¹⁰

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¹ Farishtah, Pers. Text II. 487.

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² Briggs’ Farishtah, IV. 207. Malcolm’s Central India, I. 37. In A.D. 1817 Sir John Malcolm (Central India, I. 37 Note) fitted up one of Mehmud’s palaces as a hot-weather residence.

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³ Of the siege of Kumbhalmer a curious incident is recorded by Farishtah (Pers. Text II. 485). He says that a temple outside the town destroyed by Mehmud had a marble idol in the form of a goat. The Sultan ordered the idol to be ground into lime and sold to the Rájputs as betel-leaf lime, so that the Hindus might eat their god. The idol was perhaps a ram, not a goat. The temple would then have been a Sun-temple and the ram, the carrier or vahana of the Sun, would have occupied the porch a position similar to that held by the bull in a Mahideva temple.

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⁴ Ruins of Mándu, 15.

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⁵ In the end of A.H. 846 (A.D. 1442) Mehmúd built a seven-storeyed tower and a college opposite the Jamá Mosque of Hoshang Sháh. Briggs’ Farishtah, IV. 210; Persian Text, II. 488.

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⁶ Compare Briggs’ Farishtah, IV. 323.

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⁷ Gladwin’s Ain-i-Akbari, II. 41.

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⁸ Briggs’ Farishtah, IV. 210; Farishtah, Persian Text II, 488.

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⁹ Memoirs of the emperor Jehángir (Pers. Text) Sir Sayad Ahmed’s Edition, page 176, eleventh year of Jehángir, A.D. 1617.

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¹⁰ Herbert’s Khán Jehán is doubtless Mehmúd’s father the minister Malik Mughis, Khán Jehán Aázam Humáyún. It cannot be Khán Jehán Pír Muhammad, Akbar’s general, who after only a few months’ residence was slain in Mándu in A.D. 1561; nor can it be Jehángir’s great Afghan general, Khán Jehán Lodi (A.D. 1600-1630), as he was not in Mándu until A.D. 1628, that is more than a year after Herbert left India. Compare Herbert’s Travels, 107-118; Elliot, VI. 249-323, VII. 7, 8, and 21; and Blochman’s Aín-i-Akbari, 503-506.

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THE HILL FORT OF MÁNDU. HISTORY.

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Two years later (A.D. 1445) Mehmúd built at Mándu, and endowed with the revenues of several villages a large Shifa Khánah or Hospital, with wards and attendants for all classes and separate apartments for maniacs. He placed in charge of it his own physician Maulána Fazlulláh.¹ He also built a college to the east of the Jámá mosque, of which traces remain.²

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¹ Briggs’ Farishtah, IV. 214.

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² Ruins of Mándu, 13. Farishtah has three mentions of colleges. One (Pers. Text. II. 475) as the place where the body of Hoshang was carried, probably that prayers might be said over it. In another passage in the reign of Mehmúd I. (Pers. Text, II. 480) he states that Mehmúd built colleges in his territories which became the envy of Shíráz and Samarkand. In a third passage he mentions a college (page 438) near the Victory Tower.

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In A.D. 1453, though defeated, Mehmúd brought back from Gujarát the jewelled waistband of Gujarát, which in a daring charge he had taken from the tent of the Gujarát king Kutb-ud-dín Sháh.³ In A.D. 1441 Mehmúd’s father died at Mandisor. Mehmúd felt the loss so keenly that he tore his hair like one bereft of reason.⁴ After his father’s death Mehmúd made his son Ghiás-ud-dín minister, and conferred the command of the army and the title of Aázam Humáyún on his kinsman Táj Khán. In A.D. 1469, after a reign of thirty-four years (A.D. 1436-1469) of untiring energy and activity Mehmúd died. Farishtah says of him: "His tent was his home: the field of battle his resting-place. He was polite, brave, just, and learned. His Hindu and Musalmán subjects were happy and friendly. He guarded his lands from invaders. He made good his loss to any one who suffered from robbery in his dominions, recovering the amount from the village in whose lands the robbery had taken place, a system which worked so well that theft and robbery became almost unknown. Finally, by a systematic effort he freed the country from the dread of wild beasts.⁵

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³ Briggs’ Farishtah, IV. 217. A different but almost incredible account of the capture of the royal belt is given in the Mirát-i-Sikandari, Pers. Text, 160: When Sultán Kutb-ud-dín, son of Sultán Muhammad, defeated Sultán Mehmúd Khilji at the battle of Kapadvanj, there was such a slaughter as could not be exceeded. By chance, in the heat of the fray, which resembled the Day of Judgment, the wardrobe-keeper of Sultán Kutb-ud-dín, in whose charge was the jewelled belt, was by the restiveness of his horse carried into the ranks of the enemy. The animal there became so violent that the wardrobe-keeper fell off and was captured by the enemy, and the jewelled belt was taken from him and given to Sultán Mehmúd of Malwa. The author adds: This jewelled waistband was in the Malwa treasury at the time the fortress of Mándu was taken by the strength of the arm of Sultán Muzaffar (A.D. 1531). Sultán Mehmúd sent this belt together with a fitting sword and horse to Sultán Muzaffar by the hands of his son.

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⁴ Briggs’ Farishtah, IV. 209.

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⁵ Briggs’ Farishtah, IV, 234-235; Pers. Text, II. 508.

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In A.D. 1469 Mehmúd was succeeded by his son and minister Ghiás-ud-dín, to whose skill as a soldier much of Mehmúd’s success had been due. On his accession Ghiás-ud-dín made his son Abdul Kádir Prime Minister and heir-apparent, and gave him the title of Násir-ud-dín. He called his nobles, and in their presence handed his sword to Násir-ud-dín, saying: "I have passed thirty-four years in ceaseless fighting. I now devote my life to rest and enjoyment."⁶ Ghiás-ud-dín, who never left Mándu during the whole thirty years of his reign (A.D. 1469-1499), is said to have completed the Jaház Mehel or Ship Palace,⁷ and the widespread buildings which surround it. It seems probable that the Tapela Palace close to the south-east of the Ship palace and the lake and royal gardens immediately to the north and north-east of the Tapela palace were part of Ghiás-ud-din's pleasure-houses and grounds. The scale of the ruins behind the Hindola or Swingcot palace to the north, and their connection with the out-buildings to the west of the Jaház Mehel, suggest that they also belonged to the palaces and women's quarters of the pleasure-loving Ghiás-ud-din.

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⁶ Briggs’ Farishtah, IV, 236.

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⁷ Ruins of Mándu, 6.

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Of the surprising size and fantastic arrangements of Ghiás-ud-din's pleasure city, the true Mándu Shádiábád or Abode of Joy, curious details have been preserved. This Abode of Pleasure was a city not a palace. It contained 15,000 inhabitants, all of them women, none either old or plain-featured, and each trained to some profession or craft. Among them were the whole officers of a court, besides courtiers, teachers, musicians, dancers, prayer-readers, embroiderers, and followers of all crafts and callings. Whenever the king heard of a beautiful girl he never rested till he obtained her. This city of women had its two regiments of guards, the Archers and the Carabineers, each 500 strong, its soldiers dressed like men in a distinguishing uniform. The archers were beautiful young Turki damsels, all armed with bows and arrows; the carabineers were Abyssinian maidens, each carrying a carbine. Attached to the palace and city was a deer park, where the Lord of Leisure used to hunt with his favourites. Each dweller in the city of women received her daily dole of grain and coppers, and besides the women were many pensioners, mice parrots and pigeons, who also received the same dole as their owners. So evenly just was Ghiás-ud-din in the matter of his allowances, that the prettiest of his favourites received the same allowance as the roughest carabineer.¹

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¹ Farishtah Pers. Text, II. 504-505.

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The Lord of the City of Pleasure was deeply religious. Whenever he was amusing himself two of his companions held in front of him a cloth to remind him of his shroud. A thousand Háfizahs, that is women who knew the Kuráán by heart, constantly repeated its holy verses, and, under the orders of the king, whenever he changed his raiment the Háfizahs blew on his body from head to foot with their prayer-hallowed breath.² None of the five daily prayers passed unprayed. If at any of the hours of prayer the king was asleep he was sprinkled with water, and when water failed to arouse him, he was dragged out of bed. Even when dragged out of bed by his servants the king never uttered an improper or querulous word.

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² Farishtah Pers. Text, II. 505.

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So keen was his sense of justice that when one of his courtiers pretending he had purchased her, brought to him a maiden of ideal beauty, and her relations, not knowing she had been given to the king, came to complain, though they gladly resigned her, the king grieved over his unconscious wrong. Besides paying compensation he mourned long and truly, and ordered that no more inmates should be brought to his palace.³ So great was the king's charity that every night below his pillow he placed a bag containing some thousand gold-mohurs, and before evening all were distributed to the deserving. So religious was the king that he paid 50,000 tankas for each of the four feet of the ass of Christ. A man came bringing a fifth hoof, and one of the courtiers said: "My Lord, an ass has four feet. I never heard that it had five, unless perhaps the ass of Christ had five." "Who knows," the king replied, "it may be that this

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³ Farishtah Pers. Text, II. 507.

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THE HILL FORT OF MÂNDU. HISTORY. The Mâlwa Sultâns, A.D. 1400-1570.

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last man has told the truth, and one of the others was wrong. See that he is paid." So sober was the king that he would neither look upon nor hear of intoxicants or stimulants. A potion that had cost 100,000 tankas was brought to him. Among the 300 ingredients one was nutmeg. The king directed the potion to be thrown into a drain. His favourite horse fell sick. The king ordered it to have medicine, and the horse recovered. "What medicine was given the horse?" asked the king. "The medicine ordered by the physicians" replied his servants. Fearing that in this medicine there might be an intoxicant, the king commanded that the horse should be taken out of the stables and turned loose into the forest.¹

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¹ Wâkiât-i-Mushtâki in Elliot, IV. 551-556. Probably these are stock tales. The Gujarat historians give Muzaffar and Muhammad the Gold-giver (A.D. 1411-1451) credit for the horse scrupulosity. See Mirât-i-Sikandari Pers. Text, 178.

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The king's spirit of peace steeped the land, which, like its ruler, after thirty years of fighting yearned for rest. For fourteen years neither inward malcontent nor foreign foe broke the quiet. In A.D. 1482 Bahlol Lodi advanced from Dehli to subdue Mâlwa. The talk of Mându was Bahlol's approach, but no whisper of it passed into the charmed City of Women. At last the son-minister forced his way into the king's presence. At the news of pressing danger his soldier-spirit awoke in Ghiâs-ud-dîn. His orders for meeting the invaders were so prompt and well-planned that the king of Dehli paid a ransom and withdrew. A second rest of fifteen years ended in the son-minister once more forcing his way into the Presence. In A.D. 1500 the son presented his father, now an aged man of eighty, with a cup of sherbet and told him to drink. The king, whose armlet of bezoar stone had already twice-made poison harmless, drew the stone from his arm. He thanked the Almighty for granting him, unworthy, the happiest life that had ever fallen to the lot of man. He prayed that the sin of his death might not be laid to his son's charge, drank the poison, and died.²

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² Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 236-239; Wâkiât-i-Jehângiri in Elliot, VI. 349-350; Wâkiât-i-Mushtâki in Elliot, IV. 551-55; Malcolm's Central India, I. 35-36. The Mirât-i-Sikandari (Pers. Text, 160) has the following notice of Ghiâs-ud-dîn: The Sultâns of Mându had reached such a pitch of luxury and ease that it is impossible to imagine aught exceeding it. Among them Sultân Ghiâs-ud-dîn was so famous for his luxurious habits, that at present (A.D. 1611) if any one exceeds in luxury and pleasure, they say he is a second Ghiâs-ud-dîn. The orders of the Sultân were that no event of a painful nature or one in which there was any touch of sadness should be related to him. They say that during his entire reign news of a sad nature was only twice conveyed to him: once when his son in-law died and once when his daughter was brought before him clothed in white. On this occasion the Sultân is related to have simply said: "Perhaps her husband is dead." This he said because the custom of the people of India is that when the husband of a woman dies she gives up wearing coloured clothes. The second occasion was when the army of Sultân Bahlol Lodi plundered several of the districts of Chanderi. Though it was necessary to report this to the Sultân, his ministers were unable to communicate it to him. They therefore asked a band of actors (bhânds) to assume the dress of Afghâns, and mentioning the districts to represent them as being pillaged and laid waste. Sultân Ghiâs-ud-dîn exclaimed in surprise: "But is the governor of Chanderi dead that he does not avenge upon the Afghâns the ruin of his country!"

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Ghiâs-ud-dîn can hardly have shut himself off so completely from state affairs as the story-tellers make out. He seems to have been the first of the Mâlwa kings who minted gold. He also introduced new titles and ornaments, which implies an interest in his coinage.³ Farishtah says that Ghiás-ud-dín used to come out every day for an hour from his harím, sit on the throne and receive the salutations of his nobles and subjects, and give orders in all weighty matters of state. He used to entrust all minor affairs to his ministers; but in all grave matters he was so anxious not to shirk his responsibility as a ruler, that he had given strict orders that all such communications should be made to him at whatever time they came through a particular female officer appointed to receive his orders.¹

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³ Compare Catalogue of Indian Coins, The Mahomedan States, pages LIV. LV. and 138-121.

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¹ Farishtah Pers. Text, II, 507.

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According to most accounts Násir-ud-dín was led to poison his father by an attempt of his younger brother Shujáát Khán, supported if not organised by some of Ghiás-ud-dín's favourite wives to oust Násir-ud-dín from the succession.² In the struggle Násir-ud-dín triumphed and was crowned at Mándu in A.D. 1500.³ The new king left Mándu to put down a revolt. On his return to Mándu he devoted himself to debauchery and to hunting down and murdering his brother's adherents. He subjected his mother Khurshíd Ráni to great indignities and torture to force from her information regarding his father's concealed treasures.⁴ In a fit of drunkenness he fell into a reservoir. He was pulled out by four of his female slaves. He awoke with a headache, and discovering what his slaves had done put them to death with his own hand.⁵ Some time after in A.D. 1512, he again fell into the reservoir, and there he was left till he was dead.⁶ Násir-ud-dín was fond of building. His palace at Akbárpúr in the Nimar plain about twenty miles south of Mándu was splendid and greatly admired.⁷ And at Mándu besides his sepulchre⁸ which the emperor Jehángír (A.D. 1617) mentions,⁹ an inscription shows that the palace now known by the name of Báz Bahádur was built by Násir-ud-din.

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