United States or Puerto Rico ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Akbar sent a force after him which pursued him to the confines of Gujarát, and took from him his horses, his elephants, and his wives. The reception accorded to Akbar in Mándu was of the most gratifying character. The zamíndárs of the neighbouring districts crowded in to pay homage, and the King of distant Khándesh sent an embassy to greet him. Akbar received the ambassador with distinction.

Mandu is situated on the ridge of the Vindhya Mountains, about two thousand feet above the surface of the sea. According to Malcolm's statement, this town was built in A.D. 313, and for a long time was the capital of the Hindu Rajas of Dhara. The historian Ferishtah points to Mandu as the residence of Dilivan-Khan-Ghuri, the first King of Malwa, who flourished in 1387-1405.

Each of these early Mahomedan states has a story and a character of its own, and each goes to illustrate the subtle ascendancy which the Hindu mind achieved over the conquering Mahomedan. I can only select a few typical examples. None is in its way more striking than Mandu, over whose desolation the jungle now spreads its kindly mantle.

In 1526 the town was taken by Bahadur-Shah, King of Gujerat, but in 1570 Akbar won this town back, and a marble slab over the town gate still bears his name and the date of his visit. Everything shows that Mandu was once one of the wealthiest towns of India. The town wall is thirty-seven miles long. Streets ran whole miles, on their sides stand ruined palaces, and marble pillars lie on the ground.

The system he had pondered over just prior to his death shows no radical advance in principle on that which had existed in Hindustán. He would have parcelled out the empire into six great divisions, of which Delhi, Agra, Kanauj, Jaunpur, Mándu, and Lahore should be the centres or capitals.

Under such a skilled chieftain we had nothing to fear from tigers; and so our procession started, and slowly crawled up the winding path. It cannot be said that the inquisitive travelers, who appeared later on, in the den of the prophetess of Mandu, shone through the freshness and elegance of their costumes. My gown, as well as the traveling suits of the colonel and of Mr.

The native historian adds: 'when Mubárak Sháh, the ruler of Khándesh, 'received this gracious communication, he was greatly delighted, and he sent his daughter with a suitable retinue and paraphernalia to his Majesty, esteeming it a great favour to be allowed to do so. After a short stay at Mándu, Akbar returned to Agra, by way of Ujjain, Sarangpur, Siprí, Narwár, and Gwalior.

Mandu was at first an essentially Mahomedan city, and under Mahmud Khilji, who wrested the throne from Hushang's effete successor, its fame as a centre of Islamic learning attracted embassies even from Egypt and Bokhara. But its greatness was short-lived. Mahmud's son, Ghijas-ud-Din, had been for many years his father's right hand, both in council and in the field.

The grey grim walls of Mandu still crown a lofty outpost of the Vindhya hills, some seventy miles south-east of Indore, the natural scarp falling away as steeply on the one side to the fertile plateau of Malwa as on the other to the broad valley of the sacred Nerbudda.

We left the thick forest behind us, and reached a deep glen, on three sides bordered with the thick forest, where even by day the shadows are as dark as by night. We were about two thousand feet above the foot of the Vindhya ridge, judging by the ruined wall of Mandu, straight above our heads. Suddenly a very chilly wind rose that nearly blew our torches out.