Mandu, Madhya Pradesh

Mandu or Mandavgad is an ancient city in the present-day Mandav area of the Dhar district. It is located in the Malwa region of western Madhya Pradesh, India, at 35 km from the Dhar city. In the 11th century, Mandu was the sub division of the Tarangagadh or Taranga kingdom . This fortress town on a rocky outcrop about 100 km (62 mi) from Indore is celebrated for its fine architecture.

Quotes

• Mandu became the capital of the Muhammadan Sultãns of Mãlvã who set about buildings themselves palaces and mosques, first with material pilfered from Hindu temples (already for the most part desecrated and ruined by the iconoclastic fury of their earlier co-religionists), and afterwards with their own quarried material. Thus nearly all the traces of the splendid shrines of the ParamAras of MAlvA have disappeared save what we find utilized in the ruined mosques and tombs…
  • Archaeological Survey of India, Annual Report 1902-03, Pp. 16-17. Quoted from Shourie, A., & Goel, S. R. (1990). Hindu temples: What happened to them. [1]

• The date of the construction of the Hindola Mahall cannot be fixed with exactitude… There can, however, be no doubt that it is one of the earliest of the Muhammadan buildings in MãNDû. From its outward appearance there is no sign of Hindu workmanship but the repairs, that have been going on for the past one year, have brought to light a very large number of stones used in the structure, which appear, to have been taken from some pre-existing Hindu temple. The facing stones, which have been most accurately and smoothly cut on their outer surfaces, bear in very many cases on their inner sides the under faced images of Hindu gods, or patterns of purely Hindu design, while pieces of Hindu carving and broken parts of images are found indiscriminately mixed with the rubble, of which the core of the walls is made.
  • Archaeological Survey of India, Annual Report 1993-4, Pp. 31-32. Quoted from Shourie, A., & Goel, S. R. (1990). Hindu temples: What happened to them. [2]

• “The transfer of the capital from Dhar to Mandu by Dilwar Khan in AH 794/AD 1392, marks a new phase in the development of Mosque architecture in Malwa. The Mosque built by him in C. AH 808/AD 1405-06 is oblong in ground plan, the western side being formed by the liwan. Its roof is supported by Hindu pillars…”
  • Syed Mahmudul Hasan, Mosque Architecture of Pre-Mughal Bengal, Dacca (Bangladesh), 1979.

• When sultan Mahmud led an expedition against the Hara Rajputs in 1454, he put many of them to the sword, “and sent their children into slavery at Mandu.”
  • Lal, K. S. (1990). Indian muslims: Who are they.

External links

• Mandu Tourist Places - MP Tourism