Raigad
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Raigad is a hill fortress situated in the modern day Raigad District of Maharashtra, India. The great Maratha king Shivaji made the fort his capital in 1674 when he was crowned king of a Marathi kingdom which later developed into the Maratha Empire.
The fort, which rises 820 m (2700 ft) above sea level, is located in the Sahyadri mountain range. There are approximately 1400–1450 steps leading to the fort, though today a rope-way exists to reach the top of the fort. The fort was looted and destroyed by the British upon siege.
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[edit] History
Shivaji Maharaj had seized the site, then the fortress of Rairi, from the royal house of the Chandarrao Mores, a junior or Cadet dynasty descended from the ancient Maurya imperial dynasty. The last More king (or raja) was a feudatory of the Sultan of Bijapur. Shivaji renovated and expanded the Fortress of Rairi and renamed it Raigad (the King's Fort), the name he gave it when he selected it for his capital when he was in the process of assuming the royal character. Rajgad, a hill fortress situated in Raigad District of Maharashtra, India was capital of Shivaji's kingdom.
[edit] Structure
The fort's ruins today consists of the queen's quarters, consisting of six chambers, with each chamber having its own private commode with plumbing. The main palace was constructed using wood, of which only the bases of pillars remain. Ruins of three watch towers can be seen directly in front of the palace grounds overlooking an artificial lake created next to the fort. It also has a view of the execution point called Takmak Tok, a cliff from which the sentenced prisoners were thrown off.
The king's public Durbar has a replica of the original throne that faces the main doorway called the Nagarkhana Darwaja. This enclosure had been acoustically designed to aid hearing from the doorway to the throne. A secondary entrance, called the Mena Darwaja, was supposedly the private entrance of the royal ladies of the fort; it leads to the queen's quarters. The erstwhile main entrance to the fort is the imposing Maha Darwaja. The convoy of the king and the king himself used the Palkhi Darwaja. To the right of Palkhi Darwaja, is a row of three dark and deep chambers. Historians believe that these were the granaries for the fort.[1]
A statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji is erected in front of the ruins of the main market avenue that eventually leads to the Jagdishwar Mandir and his own Samadhi (tomb) and that of his dog Waghya.[2]
 Shivaji's Raigad fort:Inside View |
 Shivaji's Raigad fort:Inside View |
 Shivaji's Raigad fort:Ruins of the tower |
 Shivaji's Raigad fort:Nagarkhana Darwaja |
 Shivaji's Raigad fort:Statue Commemorating the coronation of Maharaj in Raigad |
 Shivaji's Throne |
 Statue Commemorating the coronation of Maharaj in Raigad |
 Statue in memory of Shivaji's faithful dog |
 Ruins of the three towers in front of the main palace |
 The artificial lake: Ganga-Sagar and the Takmak Tok cliff |
[edit] References
- ^ Write-up from the Raigad ropeway webpage. Retrieved on 2007-01-13.
- ^ Fight Fire with Fur (Page 2)
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
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