Just About Everything: 2016

Saturday, December 31, 2016

Unakoti in Tripura, India, is known for its amazing Rock-cut faces dating back to the 11th century

Unakoti, Rock-cut Shiva head

Tripura is one of the states in India that I have never visited, i have been wanting to visit Tripura for a long time because of some of the gems it houses.

Though not as tourist ready as other states, some of the places that we saw are indeed worth visiting. In our short five day trip, we managed to touch all the districts (we did a total of 930 km by road). The roads are quite well-maintained. If you plan to travel to Tripura, don't expect elaborate food menus and great hotels.You will get everything, but without frills. The lodges that we stayed in were basic. My favourite was the Belonia tourist lodge in South Tripura district.

On our first day, we headed straight to North Tripura towards Unakoti from the airport. We rented a car through an agent in Agartala who also booked the Government run lodges in the various places we visited.We arrived at Unakoti at 3.30 pm after covering a distance of 145 km. We wanted to see Unakoti in broad daylight, and managed to get an hour of daylight to see this amazing place! Because of the hilly terrain and the number of stairs, it may not be convenient for everyone to access all the sculptures, but you can see the main ones from a distance .

I am posting some pictures from Unakoti (which means one less than a crore in Bengali) which dates back to the 11 century AD.I have never seen anything like this before! In fact, these rock-cut faces are considered to be the largest in India. The main Siva head is known as the Unakotiswara Kal Bhairava and is around 30 feet high.

Below is the write up about Unakoti from the ASI :

The combination of these massive rock-cut faces, the greenery, hills, and waterfalls made Unakoti a visual delight. I just loved it!

Entry point to Unakoti

The Central Shiva face

More amazing faces carved out on the hills

Ganesha

Ganesha and other sculptures

Nandi bulls, Shiva's chariot

More faces

Sculptures on the hills

Interesting face

Is this an animal with a human head?

Dancing figures

Durga on the left side of the main Shiva

The surrounding areas

Three faces (Brahma, Vishnu, and Maheshwara ) enshrined as Linga

The main Shiva head is about 30 feet high! This is how large the rock-cut sculptures are in Unakoti.

Sunset over Unakoti hills

Saturday, November 26, 2016

Daulatabad Fort-This 12th Century fort was perhaps one of the most fortified forts in India

Daulatabad Fort

Daulatabad Fort is located around 16km from Aurangabad in Maharashtra, India. Daulatabad, known as Devgiri then, was built in the 12th Century AD by Yadava King of Bhillama V.

Devgiri was taken over by Allauddin Khilji in 1226 AD followed by Sultan. Mohammed Bin-Tughlak who moved his capital from Delhi to Devgiri in In 1327 AD and named Devgiri, Daulatabad, the City of Fortune.

This fort was very well fortified. It had triple rows of walls surrounding it. One could reach the top only through a narrow bridge.

Surrounding the fort was a moat filled with water and crocodiles. On the way to the top, there is a very aptly named cave called Andheri, One can’t see a thing because it is pitch dark; once inside the cave it is rather difficult to make out anything. Thus must have been extremely confusing for the enemy. Even if someone were to stumble out of the cave, they would be easy target, and would get killed or fall from the many openings on the walls into the moat.

Some of these strong defence systems made it very difficult to capture this fort.

Some of the key landmark structures inside the Fort are, the 70 m high Chand Minar, Chini Mahal (it is now merely a dilapidated structure but must have been beautiful then), and Mendha Tope which is one of the largest pieces of artillery inside the Daulatabad Fort.