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| 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.
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| Entry to Daulatabad |
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