Mandu, the fortress town on a rocky terrain, is at a distance of about 35 km from Dhar and about 100 km (62 mi) from Indore - it is celebrated for its fine architecture and engineering marvels of India, from the Tenth Century !
Mandu was such an important & embattled place with a very rich and varied history ! It was an important military outpost and its military past can be gauged by the circuit of the battlemented wall, which is nearly 80 km long and is punctuated by 12 gateways ! It is said to be the largest fort in the country, which encloses a large number of fascinating ruins, including temples, palaces, canals, bath pavilions, and more. The wall of the Mandu fort has Jain temples of 14th century, remains of Hindu & Jain temples from 10th to 12th century, and other buildings ! The oldest mosque here dates from 1405; the finest is the Jama Masjid or great mosque, a notable example of Pashtun architecture ! The marble domed tomb of this ruler is also magnificent !
Through the ages, emperors, historians and travellers have been overwhelmed by the romance of Mandu, perched on a rocky spur of the Vindyhaa ranges ! Mandu has seen change of reign of so many dynasties in its existence that it may not have been common for other parts of India ! It has been described as the city of joy, a celebration in stone, whose medieval rulers, the Malwa Sultans, built exquisite palaces and mosques, between the 14th and 16th centuries ! Hoshang Shah's Tomb, Jami Masjid, Jahaz Mahal, the picturesque kunds (reservoirs), which fill to the brim during the rains, stand testimony to the grand vision of their patrons, while the songs sung by the balladeers of Malwa pay tribute to the star-crossed love of the poet-prince Baz Bahadur and his beautiful consort, Roopmati !
However, to know about the full & detailed history of this great city, read the paragraphs below:
Persian historian Firishta believed that Mandu was built by some Anand Deo Bias (Rajput) in the fifth century A. D., but there is no historical proof for the same except an image of Jain Tirthankar dated 555 A. D. saying it was installed in a temple in 'Mandap Durga' !
Historians also believe that the old Mandu (Budhi Mandu), at the Westernmost part of the Mandu plateau, had been ruled by Gurjar-Pratihar empire of Kannauj around the 10th century A. D., though not much details can be found ! However, the remains of the 10th to 12th century A. D. Hindu & Jain temples have been found in the Dhar & Mandu region, which were used by Mughal & other rulers while building expansive & beautiful palaces, tombs, and mosques !
The Parmars were the first established rulers of Mandu and Dhar, whose reign has been traced from 800 to 1310 A. D. ! They also made Dhar as their kingdom's capital and have been said to also capture Ujjain (Avanti) once !
After this, the Malwa Sultans founded by Dilawar Khan Ghori, the Governor of Malwa under Mohammad bin Tughlaq ruled in this region, when their capital was also shifted from Dhar to Mandu (1405) ! Malwa Sultans had also minted Gold, Silver, and Copper coins at the Mandu mint, which are now a prized collector's item ! The other important rulers in this dynasty to have ruled from Mandu have been Hoshang Shah, Ghazni Khan, Mahmud Khilji, Ghias-ud-din, Nasir-ud-din, etc. ! Ghias-ud-din was the ruler who is believed to have never trusted any man, including his own son, and so, had an army of 15,000+ women for each and every job in the kingdom ! He is said to even have 500 Turkish women as his personal bodyguards ! However, in spite of all the precautions against men, he was killed by a man, his son Nasir-ud-din !
Sometime between 1511 and 1531 A. D., Bahadur Shah, the ruler of Gujarat, had captured Mandu ! This did not go too well with the Mughals, and Humayun, the mughal emperor, attacked Bahadur Shah in 1535 and gained control of Mandu ! Between 1540 and 1554 A. D., Mandu once again saw changes and came under the Sher Shah Suri dynasty !
Later, Baz Bahadur, son of Sher Shah Suri's commander Shujaat Khan, also attempted to set up his independent kingdom here, when in 1561, Mughal Emperor Akbar's general Adam Khan Koka drove Baz Bahadur out of Mandu ! Once again, Akbar and the Mughals became the rulers of Mandu and continued to remain so until the 18th century !
It is very interesting to note that Mughals, specially Akbar and Jehangir had special love for this beautiful place ! Akbar has been recorded to have visited Mandu at least 4 times, and during one his visits, he had ordered most of the buildings and the fort to be destroyed in order to prevent enemies to use Mandu as their strategic base !
However, Jehangir, who had lived here for more than 7 months, got many of the buildings repaired and new ones built ! Jehangir had also got here Sir Thomas Roe, ambassador from British monarch James I, who has also documented the beauty and difficulty of accessing Mandu !
Mughal Emperor Jehangir, in his famous autobiography Tuzuk-i-Jehangiri (Jahangirnama), had mentioned:
"I know of no other place that is as pleasant in climate and with such attractive scenery as Mandu in the rainy season."
He also mentions about his and his wife, Empress Nur Jahan's experiences in Mandu ! Jehangir had also issued special commemorative coin in 1618, struck at the Mandu mint ! His son, Prince Khurram (who became Shah Jahan) had also lived in Mandu, while in rebellion against his father; and also later, when he became the emperor !
However, this wasn't the end of change of rulers in Mandu ! In a splendid turn of the Wheel of Fortune, the Maratha Ponwars (descendants of Parmars) claimed Mandu back after a long gap of 700 years ! And Mandu had remained with Marathas till India's independence !