Text: Md. Masarrath Ali Khan

The grand Jami Masjid is an important landmark and the biggest mosque in Bijapur

Bijapur in Karnataka, south India was originally established in the 10th-11th centuries by the Kalyani Chalukyas and was known as Vijayapura, which means the City of Victory. Bijapur came under the influence of Khilji Sultans of Delhi in the late 13th century. In 1347, the Bahmani Sultanate of Gulbarga conquered it and by that time, it was being referred to as Vijapur. The city shot to fame with the rise of Adil Shahi dynasty (1489-1686) which corresponds with the most brilliant period in the history of the region. The Adil Shahis’ architectural history can be compressed within a century; nevertheless, within this short span, they concentrated their energies almost exclusively on architecture and allied arts, and beautified the city and its environs with sparkling gems of architectural beauty. In this process, each member of the dynasty endeavoured to excel his predecessor in the number, size or splendour of his buildings. The Sultans maintained the high character of the building art, and did not let it decline or decay, and the end, when it came, was due to the production ceasing abruptly owing to the fall of the dynasty. Thus few cities in our country can claim to be home to as many monuments of architectural excellence as Bijapur does.

History
The history of Adil Shahi dynasty begins in Turkey. When Sultan Murad of Turkey died in 1451 AD, his son Muhammad succeeded him as Sultan. He had a younger brother named Yusuf. After Sultan’s death and succession to crown by the throne prince, all the other sons were executed, but Yusuf’s mother replaced him with another young boy of his age and semblance. The young Yusuf travelled to India in 1456-60 AD and joined as a retainer in the service of Sultan Muhammad Bahamani of Bidar. He returned victorious from an expedition in Telugu country and was given five towns as gift. Soon after, he was made the governor of Bijapur with the title of Adil Khan. The death of Sultan Muhammad signalled the crumbling of Bahamani Kingdom of Bidar. Yusuf seized the golden opportunity – he gathered a strong army around him and declared his independence in 1489 and laid the foundations of the Adil Shahi kingdom, one of the greatest Muslim kingdoms in the history of Deccan.
After Yusuf (1490-1510), eight kings of the Adil Shahi dynasty ruled, with Bijapur as its capital city. They were Ismail (1510-34), Mallu (1534-35), Ibrahim I (1535-57), Ali I (1557-80), Ibrahim II (1580-1626), Sultan Muhammad (1626-56), Ali II (1656-72) and Sikandar (1672-86).
The Adil Shahis’ monuments can be broadly classified into four categories: mosques, mausoleums, wells (baodis), and miscellaneous monuments.

Mosques
The old Jami Masjid built by Yusuf in Sakaf Rauza area, is one of the earliest mosques attributed to the Adil Shahis. The Adil Shahi queens also evinced interest in building mosques. Chand Bibi, the queen of Ali I, built the Bukhara Masjid for the moulvi of a Bukhara family. It is a large square, once enclosed by a row of archways of which only those on the south and east still remain. The arches within the building are very attractive and have gorgeous stucco work and ornamentation. The front door is obscured by the surrounding buildings on the main road.
The grand Jami Masjid, begun by Ali I Adil Shah and completed by Muhammad Adil Shah under the supervision of Malik Yaqut in 1636 is an important landmark and the biggest mosque in Bijapur. It consists of 9 arches by 5 arches and spans an area of more than 1, 16,000 square feet. A great dome supported on cross arches rises in the centre of the building and covers the 9 arches. The niche (mihrab) is a visual splendour. The entire front and recess are covered with rich gilding against a coloured background. There are representations of tombs and minarets, chains, niches, vases with flowers, all of which is interspersed with bands and medallions bearing decorative inscriptions. These decorative paintings are said to have been executed by Malik Yaqut. After conquering the city of Bijapur in 1686, Aurangzeb added an eastern gateway to this mosque. He also got the surface of the prayer hall divided into 2250 identical geometrical patterns of equal dimensions, each intended to accommodate one person offering prayers in the mosque.

The mihrab (niche) in Jami Masjid - the entire front and recess are covered with rich gilding against a coloured background

1586 AD saw the construction of Zanjiri Mosque, built to the orders of Ibrahim II Adil Shah in honour of his queen Malika Jahan Begum. Its rich façade, the bulbous dome standing amidst graceful minarets and the ornamental parapet, all impart it a dignified characteristic look. The mosque is a fine specimen of the more delicate phase of the Bijapur architecture and can compare favourably with any other piece of Muslim architecture of the Deccan.
The Andu Masjid (1608 AD) was built by Etebar Khan, one of the nobles of Ibrahim II. Its upper floor is a prayer chamber while the ground floor is a hall or rest house. The principal dome and the smaller bulbs of the minarets are of the ribbed melon shape variety and so it is called the Andu Masjid or the egg-shaped mosque. Ibrahim II also got the Mecca Masjid built, which looks like a miniature mosque when compared with the other grand monuments of the city.
Other mosques include the Karimuddin Mosque, Ali Shaheed Peer Mosque, Baitullah Khan’s Mosque, Mulla Mosque, Dharwadi Mosque, Ikhlas Khan’s Mosque and Bara Tang Mosque.

Mausoleums
Innumerable sufis, saints and sages had made Bijapur their home during the Adil Shahi times. The sultans were their disciples and sought their blessings in important matters. The kings not only erected colossal mausoleums for themselves, their queens, family members and nobles, but also for the saints they followed, thereby making Bijapur the City of tombs. So sincere was the devotion of the nobles to the sufis that the former often wished to be buried in proximity of the latter. Sikandar Adil Shah chose to be buried beside his spiritual teacher Pir Nasrulla in a simple grave.
Another incomplete building which evokes interest is the tomb of Malika Jahan Begum, dating to 1586 AD, situated in Ainapur village, 5 kms from the city on the Bijapur – Sindgi road. Green grave stones are seen in a row in the middle of the raised platform. Actual graves are underneath the building. There is a small mosque to the south of the tomb situated on a high platform. The whole area is enclosed by a tall stone compound.
Unquestionably, one of the most magnificent mausoleums of Bijapur is the Ibrahim Rauza (1626 AD), mausoleum of Ibrahim II Adil Shah, which was built at the orders of his queen Taj Sultana and was designed by the architect Malik Sandal. This was meant to serve as the last resting place for the mortal remains of Taj Sultana, but her husband having predeceased her (1627 AD), he was the first to be buried there.
Often referred to as the ‘Balancing Mosque’ and ‘a delicate flower in black stone’, it has few parallels in the whole country and is said to have inspired the design of Taj Mahal at Agra. The mausoleum is noted for its striking symmetry of proportion, 24 exquisite minarets, cupolas, parapets and cornices. The delicate refinement of the stone tracery and the bold calligraphy of Arabic inscriptions, so profusely lettered on the walls of the tomb chamber are unrivalled. The mosque’s deep rich cornices, graceful minarets and perforated parapets show a maturity of art at its best.
Visually the building divides itself into three zones: the arcaded ambulatory below surrounding the mortuary chamber, the solid volume of the dome above ‘paged’ by corner appendage minars, and a median zone composed of multiple brackets and jostling crenellations, both of which, aided by the eave, establish a strong horizontal emphasis. The globular dome is double, and the ceiling of the inner dome rises only as high as the crenellations. It is terminated by a water jar finial crowned by a crescent, and is garnished with a supporting calyx around its base.
The tomb chamber contains six graves, aligned along the east-west axis. Starting from the eastern side, they belong to (1) Queen Taj Sultana (2) the mother of Ibrahim II (3) Ibrahim II himself (4) Ibrahim’s daughter Zohra Sultana (5) Ibrahim’s son Darvesh and (6) Ibrahim’s son Sulaiman.
Once Sultan Muhammad Adil Shah fell seriously ill and his chances of survival started waning with each passing day. He approached the Sufi saint Hashim Pir Alvi and sought his blessings. The saint not only blessed the Sultan but also gifted the remaining years of his own life (1646-56) to him, and left for heavenly abode on the third day; but the Sultan lived for 10 more years and successfully completed his dream project, the famous Gol Gumbad (or Gol Gumbaz), in which he was entombed in 1656.

Gol Gumbad - the pride and signature of Bijapur

Gol Gumbad is the pride and signature of Bijapur and was built to create awe and amazement in the minds of the visitor. In plan, it is a huge cube of gigantic proportions surmounted by a large-hemispherical dome - the second largest dome in the world (the first being St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome), which stands without any support from the bottom. An octagonal turret is attached to each of the four corners of the cube. According to some scholars, the design of these four towers of Gol Gumbad was borrowed from the four minarets of the Charminar, built by Sultan Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah in Hyderabad in 1591-92.
There is a narrow spiral staircase of over 100 steps, in each turret of Gol Gumbad leading to the upper storeys. It is said that only one spiral staircase leads to the gallery while the rest take the visitor into the walls and make him disappear permanently. As of today, only one staircase is open to tourists which communicates with each of its eight storeys and finally leads to the flat roof of the hall.
After passing through the thickness of the dome, one enters into a 11 feet wide whispering gallery projecting from the inner face of the base of the dome. Here, four stone benches mark the places from where the visitors can hold private conversations across the dome. The clarity of the sound matches that of a modern telephone and even a faintest whisper, or a scratch is heard from side to side. A single clap gets echoed over ten times distinctly.
It is said that Sultan Muhammad and his mistress Rambha once paid a visit to Gol Gumbad, and they stood on opposite sides of the gallery, about 124 feet away. The prince questioned lightheartedly, “Rambha, do you love me?” She replied, “Yes, undoubtedly I do”. Then the Sultan challenged her sportively, “Can you give up your life for me if I so desire?” Before he could say anything more or see what was happening around, in the flicker of a second, Rambha had jumped from the gallery into the hall below and was dead.
The original tombs of the grandson of Sultan Mohammad, Arus Bibi, the sultan himself, mistress Rambha, his daughter and a senior queen are concealed in a vault under the ground floor.
The internal diameter of this dome nearly rivals that of the St. Peter’s Basilica (137 ½ feet) and the Pantheon (142 ½ feet) in Rome as well as the Cathedral of Florence (138 feet) while outstripping St.Paul’s of London (112 feet) and St. Sophia of Constantinople (107 feet). It ranks as the dome that spans the largest uninterrupted floor space in the world (15833 square feet). With a floor area of 18300 square feet and a height of 167 feet, Gol Gumbad dominates the landscape of Bijapur for miles around.
Ali II Adil Shah decided to eclipse the grandness of Gol Gumbad by erecting an enviable monument of gigantic size and proportions. His intention was to raise a cube of 225 feet making use of a series of arches, one above the other, and to surmount it with a dome. Had it been raised to that height, its shadow would have fallen on the Gol Gumbad, as conceptualised by Ali II. But sadly his dream did not materialise. Ali II began building his own mausoleum sometime around 1656, but died, leaving it incomplete. It is best left to the mind’s eye of the visitor to imagine how the building, if finished, would have looked like.
Popularly known as Bara Kaman, Ali II’s mausoleum consists of a series of 7 arches by 7 arches. Three smaller arches on both sides flank the huge central arch. The entire scheme rests on a huge elevated square platform of 225 feet side. The tomb of Ali II, his queen and eleven other ladies are situated in this building. The smooth greenish tombstone laid on Ali’s tomb is a work of art in itself. The grain, the colour and the toughness of the stone make it an ideal tombstone.
The Jod Gumbad is a group of two huge mausoleum buildings. They belong to Khan Mohammad, a general in the army of Ali II Adil Shah, and Abdul Razzaq Qadri, his saint and religious teacher. The dargah of the saint is larger, but a rather simple structure, surrounded by a dome without any ornamentation with the grave in the vault. It is held in high reverence by the local Muslims. Both buildings have tall elegant facades, capped with cornices on brackets and corner finials with domical tops.
The tomb of Saint Habibullah Quadri is situated half a kilometre to the northwest of Ibrahim Rauza. It is popularly known as Moti Gumbad as it shines like a pearl in moonlit night. It is said that the inside of the tomb was whitened with a wash largely composed of pearls ground to powder.
Other prominent mausoleums include Nitya Navari Tomb, Mausoleums of Ali I, Kishwar Khan, Etebar Khan, Jain Shah, Hasan Gulzar and Afzal Khan.

Baodis (wells)
Bijapur abounded in wells (baoli, baodi) during the Adil Shahi times. One among them is the Chand Baodi (1579 AD) built by Ali I in honour of his queen, in north western part of the city about 100m to the southeast of the Shahpur Gate. It has a descending flight of steps – reaching down to a platform, spanned by a single big arch. Rooms with windows facing the well are built in the centre of the three sides except on the side of the big arch.

Sat Manzil was fitted with ornamental baths and necessary water devices, with pipes laid through masonry

The Chand Baodi provided the model on which Ibrahim II got the Taj Baodi (the biggest well of Bijapur) built in honour of his queen Taj Sultana in 1620 AD, near Makka Gate. The Taj Baodi has a huge arch and two octagonal towers surmounted by domes. The eastern and western wings of the towers form spacious rest houses, which were meant for use by the travellers. Flights of steps on both sides of the platform descend into the water’s edge. The well is 223 feet square and 52 feet deep. Besides the Chand Baodi and Taj Baodi, the Ibrahimpur Baodi near Ibrahimpur Railway Gate is attributed to the Adil Shahis.
Apart from the three baodis mentioned above, there is no authentic information as to who built the other baodis of Bijapur. Urbanisation and commercialisation have taken their toll and the many baodis of Bijapur are in various stages of preservation and use.

Miscellaneous monuments
The Adil Shahis and their nobles bestowed Bijapur with an assortment of monuments, meant to serve different purposes. Khwaja Najjar Ghaflat built the Dakhani Idgah (1538 AD) with a large platform for worshippers to assemble and offer prayers. It has an extraordinary thickness of walls, has a terrace that runs along the top to rooms under the domes of each one of the three bastions to which access is gained by a staircase through the wall in continuation of the pulpit steps.
The Gagan Mahal ( Sky Palace) built by Ali I in 1561 AD – which was meant to serve both as a residence and a Durbar Hall - has remained mute witness to the many tragic deeds recorded in the city’s history. It has small chambers on east and west side flanking the hall. The hall’s windows and balconies were gorgeously painted. It was from here that Chand Bibi, queen of Ali I ruled, amidst political intrigues. After capturing Bijapur in 1686, Aurangzeb occupied Gagan Mahal and commanded Sikandar Adil Shah to appear before him, bounded in chains. It was here at Gagan Mahal that curtains finally came down on the glorious Adil Shahi kingdom.
Ibrahim II built a royal palace Sat Manzil (1583 AD) and got it fitted with ornamental baths and necessary water devices, with pipes laid through masonry, running from storey to storey. Though it was originally a seven storeyed palace, it now rises to a height of five storeys only. The building stands in, and forms the northwestern corner of the large rectangular block of buildings, known as Chini Mahal or Farooq Mahal, now used for public offices. The traces of paintings, gilding and exquisite ornamentation in a part of the building are attributed to Muhammad Adil Shah who converted it into a pleasure palace for himself and his favourite Rambha.The Jal Manzil (water pavilion) stands in proximity to the Sat Manzil. It rises in the centre of a small pond with a typical lotus based dome and four slender minarets.
Muhammad Adil Shah built a two storeyed summer palace at Kumatagi Tank, 10 km from the city on the Sindgi Road. Its ground floor has layers of walls with pipes and water devices running through them. Water flowing through these pipes helped the interiors remain cool even in hot summer. The water pavilions have a network of cisterns and fountains around them. The walls are embellished with frescoes depicting the game of polo, a hunting scene and European envoys at the court of Bijapur sultan.
1584 AD saw the construction of Hyder Burj (Upli Burj), a lofty tower standing on a high ground to the north of Dakhani Idgah. A Persian inscription near states that it was built about 1585 AD by Hyder Khan, the general of Ali I and Ibrahim II. The tower is cylindrical with tapering surface, about 80 feet high and climbed by a flight of winding stone steps. It is furnished with all necessary war materials, guns, powder chambers and water cisterns. Its two guns are curious as they are of great length though of somewhat small calibre.
Abutting the Jami Masjid Road, Mihtar Mahal (1620 AD) is an ornamental gateway leading to a small mosque. It is a tall square tower, with two slender minarets at upper forwards corners. It is about 24 feet square in plan and 96 feet at the top of the minarets.

Upli Burj - a lofty tower standing on a high ground constructed in 1584 AD

Ibrahim II also got the Anand Mahal (Palace of Joy) built as a pleasure palace. It is said that this palace was brilliantly and luxuriously lit up at night. It had magnificent ornamented walls, lofty rooms, a majestic central hall and an equally grand frontal hall, covered with gorgeously gilt roof that supported a terrace above from which the ladies of the palace could catch many glimpse of the outer world. Now many parts of the building are used as government offices and the glory of the original palace has gone forever!
Upon the outer edge of the citadel moat, towards the east is the Aasar Mahal. It is considered sacred because the relics of the Prophet are supposed to be enshrined in one of its room. It was built by Muhammad Adil Shah in about 1646 AD and was originally intended as a hall of justice. But as the old Aasar Mahal (the original palace housing the relic) was accidentally burnt, the relics were transferred to this building.
The best apartment in the palace is the long central one upstairs towards the rear side which is 81 feet long by 27 feet broad. In the rooms on the upper storey can be seen the specimens of the golden paintings of those times. The colour effect still exists in good quality, which is an ample testimony to the fact that the gold leaf used was of genuine quality. The fine ceiling of the gilded hall and the prayer carpets are worth noticing. A room on the ground floor is referred to as Kutub Khana or the library. The books are said to have been carried away by Aurangzeb. In front of the building is a great tank which is fed by the Begum Talab or Torvi conduits.

Military architecture
A high barren ground interspersed with small hills surrounds Bijapur city, and for miles around, there is no place fit for construction of a hill fort. There is also no river around which could have obstructed the progress of an invader. The city was vulnerable to frequent attacks from the enemies. In these circumstances, Ali I Adil Shah was the first king who realised the weak points of the unguarded city and fortified it with a strong and continuous wall.
The fortifications of Bijapur consist of an outer fort, enclosing the town or an inner citadel (Ark-Qila). The massive fortification wall is 9½ kms in length and 3¼ kms in width being elliptical in shape. The construction of the curtain wall round the city was made the duty of the leading citizens, each of them being responsible for a certain length of walling, but although here are some variations in the work, there is a similarity in character throughout.
The wall is surrounded by a deep moat 40-50 feet broad, and strengthened by as many as 106 bastions of various designs. The wall is very thick, in places from 31 feet to 35 feet; it is 30 feet high and is constructed of outer and inner faces of stone, set in mortar, and a core of well-rammed earth. The wall actually seems to consist of two stone walls 20 to 30 feet apart with an intervening space filled with earth and covered with a masonry platform. The construction was started in 1565 AD and took two years for completion. On the top of the wall there is a wide crenellated wall-walk, which runs all around the curtain, across the bastions and over the gateways. Of the 106 bastions ten are guarding the gateways and the rest are distributed throughout the length of the walls.

Gates of the fort
The fort had five main gates facing five directions. All of them were immensely strong; each one was flanked by two massive bastions and guarded above by a battlemented wall. Each had two sets of doors, one inside the other. If the outer one was forced and the enemy proceeded to bombard the inner one, the protruding battlements were so constructed as to afford cover to the besieged who could shoot at the enemy from his behind. The doors were of thick wooden beams fastened together with iron clamps, strengthened with massive bars and bristling with 12 iron spikes.
In addition, posterns and breaches were made in the wall at later periods for access to new roads. The gateways are flanked by a bastion on either side and were approached from across the moat by draw-bridge; some of them are defended by a barbican on the outside.
The first gate facing the east is called The Allapur Gate and the second gate facing the north is called the Bahamani Gate.
Shahpur Gate, the third gate in the northwest corner of the fort, was a massive structure, flanked by large towers or bastions and having an inner court enclosed by very thick walls. The outer gateway was defended by a drawbridge, a heavy iron chain (which was drawn across the entrance) and two leaved door. When closed, it was secured by a timber beam, drawn out from a socket on one side, passed behind the door and fitted into a corresponding socket on the other side. The inner court was fortified all round and on the south side it was constricted into a passage leading towards the gate which opened on to the city. The leaves of this door were formidable barriers; they were 7 inch thick, strengthened at frequent vertical intervals with battens 8 inch x 6 inch, covered with iron plating and studded with rows of thin iron spikes, which were a protection against the elephant attack. They began 8½ feet above ground level and closely set, were continued up to the door row after row. There were recesses for the guard, both within and without the gateway.

Malik-i-Maidan Gun - the second largest gun of Bijapur Buruj lies at Sherza Burz or Lion Tower

The fourth gate is the Makka Gate facing the west. It had a large rectangular court with recesses for guard on all sides. At the southeast of the court, there was a large circular well. Figures of lions trampling an elephant were carved on both side of the entrance gateway. The Makka Gate is not in use now as the buildings inside the gate were used for government purposes.
Mangoli Gate, the fifth gate, faces the south. Aurangzeb made his victorious entry through this gate and named it as Fateh Gate. It is defended by a semi-circular barbican with recesses all round its curved inner face; the entrance is at the side, immediately below the curtain wall and therefore at the command of the defenders upon the wall. Of all these doors of five gateways, thick wooden doors of Allapur Gate remain in part. All other doors have disappeared.
The citadel had one gate called Mahal Gate facing the Jami Masjid Road, but like others this too has disappeared. The Ark-Qila Gate consisted of a barbican; the main gate was flanked by two enormous towers and an inner court enclosed by a semi-circular wall. The great flanking towers are of two concentric shells. The jambs and the upper part of the gate have been torn away.
Major portion of the fort wall and citadel cannot be traced now as they have succumbed to ravages of time or have been demolished. Encroachments over and along the fort tell a sad story of how pristine heritage has been neglected for years.

Navaraspur
Ibrahim II began to lay the foundations of a new city to the west of the original city in 1602 and named it Navaraspur. The nobles of the court were asked to build their mansions there. But the astrologers advised the king to halt the work; and to avoid shifting the capital. The king obeyed the astrologer’s warning and retained his court at Bijapur but he spent most of his time at Navaraspur, near Torvi.
The Navaraspur city is now in ruins. A small stream encircles the palace on the two sides and surrounding all about a 330 feet off, a lofty wall secures privacy. The remains of the two palaces Sangeet Mahal and Nari Mahal can still be seen here in dilapidated conditions.
Till 1987, there was no proper approach road to the Navaraspur ruins. Dr. Hanamant Govindappa Daddi, a well-known physician, social scientist, photographer and an ardent lover of Bijapur monuments, wrote about this in dailies. Then the Chief Secretary of Zilla Panchayat Sri Arvind Jadhav took interest and developed the area and started the Navaraspur Festival. The festival is a celebration of Indian classical music, dance and folk forms, presented by eminent artistes of national and international repute.

The Archaeological Museum, Gol Gumbad Complex
The museum housed in the Naqqaar Khana (Trumpet House) of the Gol Gumbad Complex, was originally established as a district museum in 1892 AD. Later on, it was decided to develop it as a site museum in 1982 AD. Naqqaar Khana is in typical Adil Shahi building with elevated platforms and tall and loft arches raised over massive piers. The large and good massive showcases introduced by the British officers, themselves have become good examples of antique furniture.
The collection comprises stone inscriptions of Arabic, Persian, Kannada and Sanskrit languages in different scripts and written in varied calligraphy, Brahmanical and Jaina sculptures, hero stones, illustrated and plain manuscripts, coins, China wares, wooden carving, carpets, maps, sanads and firmans, miniature paintings, Bidiri ware and other house hold articles, dating from 6th to 8th century AD.
The museum has six galleries, three in the ground floor and the rest in upper storey. It houses a majority of movable cultural property of the region with a special collection of Adil Shahi art objects.

Guns of Bijapur
The guns of Adil Shahi dynasty can still be seen in Bijapur. These include Malik-i-Maidan Gun, Landa Kasab Gun, Murtuzabad Gun, Aldi Burj Gun, Guns on the Hyder Burj and other guns in the museum.
Among them, the Landa Kasab Gun is the biggest gun of the city. It is on the Landa Kasab Bastion in the southern fort wall of the city. It bears an inscription recording its erection during the time of Ali I. The gun is 21½ feet long and has a muzzle diameter of 4½ feet. The total estimated weight of the gun is 49 tonnes. From two artificial mounds outside the fort wall, Aurangzeb is said to have fired at the gun and the bastion both of which bear the mark of the enemy’s battery. Close by on the same bastion is another small iron gun 5 ¾ feet long.

Erstwhile Naqqar Khana, presently ASI Museum in Gol Gumbad Complex

About 300 feet to the north of Phatak Gate, stands the Sherza Burj (Lion Tower) named after two lions carved in stone to the right of the entrance, which leads to the tower platform. The bastion is of a great diameter and very strong. Here lies the Malik-i-Maidan Gun, the second largest gun of Bijapur, next to the Landa Kasab Gun. It was cast in Ahmednagar in1549 AD by a Turkish officer in the service of Burhan Nizam Shah I. When struck, this gun sounds like a bell. Outside, it is of a dark green colour, the surface polished like glass, while it is adorned with inscriptions in Persian and Arabic, beautifully cut in relief on the upper surface in three separate panels. The great muzzle is fashioned in the shape of the head of a lion. It is said to have been taken to the great battle of 1565, and was brought to Bijapur in 1632 AD by the then army general Murari Pandit as a trophy of war and was set up in its present position. It was brought from the fort of Parandah, with the help of an infinite exertion of ten elephants, 400 oxen and many men. In 1854 it was auctioned for a mere one hundred and fifty rupees but the sale was cancelled in the end.
In spite of some internal intrigues and intermittent political chaos, the Adil Shahi dynasty survived for nearly 200 years. In the 17th century, the Marathas revolted and captured major parts of the Adil Shahi kingdom. Aurangzeb conquered the weakened sultanate in 1686, during the tenure of Sikandar Adil Shah on the throne, and the dynasty ceased to exist forever.
But even today, the Adil Shahi monuments continue to evoke the same admiration as they did six centuries ago…

The writer is a freelance travel writer.

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