Trip to Warangal…. Abode of Kakatiyas

Continuing from my previous article, Bhongir...the brooding fort. Must be around 8:30 or 9 am, breakfast over and our cab on Warangal highway...The morning sun, pleasent and beautiful, and the day held the promise of making our trip a great one....

Our cab was loaded with muncies, fruits and I do not even remember what all was there...just to ensure that no one complained of being hungry. While some of us munched on, some dozed off, while many of us chattering like school kids who were on a school picnic. The drive to Warangal was great, and our first pit stop was 1000 Pillars Temple. Though now, you can see only few pillars, many of them have fallen. This entire temple is looks like chariot and has a temple for Lord Shiva, Vishnu, and Surya. The moment you enter the temple, on your left you can see a huge Shiva Lingam, very beautiful. The temple has beautifully carved pillars, roof, and walls, and slabs. It is unique and each carving seemed to far more complicated than the one we had finished viewing. This Archaeological Survey of India site, is trying to get few more beautifully carved pillars back to its original count. We got so engrossed in the carvings, that we forgot the time that just went by and suddenly, we felt that we all were hungry and badly needed to have a lunch. We decided the place called Ashoka or something, sorry am not sure about the name, we packed ourselves into the cab and off we went for lunch.

Lunch session over, now we all decided to see the Warangal Fort, for which we all so enthu about. We reached there in 15 minutes. While entering the fort, we went through the huge gates, Cor, from our US office was really amazed. He mentioned that he had been to many forts all over the Europe, but this was first fort where he had driven through a fort!! Though there is nothing like to be called as fort there, but the ruins of the fort has been kept. I was informed by a person there, that invaders destroyed the entire fort and whatever you can see is the only the ruins of majestic fort that was once there. This entire place has huge garden and we all sat down and had great time. We took our sweet time to view the broken pieces of the fort, but somehow I found it so interesting and I was totally engrossed. Each piece had a story to tell. If it could talk, then we would have heard the entire story of the fort. Next to this place, was an old temple, and down some rooftop kind of structure.

Kaktiyas built the Warangal fort during the 13th century. It is believed that though this fort is not not huge as Golconda fort, but it was impregnable. We saw that the there four beautifully carved gateways and can you guess we tried to analyse how they were built....While returning back from fort, we crossed the Khush Mahal, built by Shitabh Khan. Since we did not have much time, we could not stop over and see what was inside. We moved on to see Bhadrakali temple, situated on a hilltop between Hanamkonda and Warangal. The image of Goddess Kali is embedded in the stone and was beautiful. It is belived that once Goddess was fierce looking, but over a period of time has mellowed down. The temple is located at the banks of a lake and I do not know the name of the lake.

We finished all these places by 8:30 PM and by that time we all were dead tired. By the time we all reached it was half past midnight. Though tired, we had a great day and now we are planning for our next trip. You guys will see it soon....

Bhongir...The brooding fort

We, a group of colleagues and friends planned a trip to Warangal on 12th January 2008, and for this trip we checked all the minute details of the things that we may require. When the entire Hyderabad was sleeping to wake up for a lazy Saturday morning, we all (about 9 people) started for Warangal at 6:00 AM in the hired cab.

Though Bhongir fort was not a part of our agenda, but I do not know why we just decided to stop at this fort and check it out. I was very happy, as this fort has something alluring, which has fascinated me so much that time again and again I love to visit place.

Bhongir…the brooding 10th century fort at the height of 500 feet from ground level, spreads over an area of 40 acres and is about 51 Kms from Hyderabad. The western Chalukya ruler named Tribhuvanamalla Vikramaditya, built this fort on the top of a hillock at Bhuvangiri (now called as Bhongir). As someone aptly says… Forts made of rock never crumble away, and Bhongir happens to be a small rock fort perched on a massive dome of granite and was considered practically impregnable by invading armies. This 10th century fort has quite a history attached to it. The fort has been through Chalukiya, Kakatiyas, and then the Bahmani Sultans relinquish this fort. Qutab Shahi used this fort as prison for pretenders though it is an interesting fact that the British never paid attention to this fort, and finally by 18th century this fort was long forgotten. While climbing the steep hillock, we found that the fort’s unique egg-shaped construction, two entry points, one of which was used by us to enter the fort, and another one on the other side. The entry that we had used was close to the main road itself. While climbing through the rumbling fort, we noticed some in scriptures detailing the past life. We even noticed that the sculpture of the fort, was found different in many places, we could see the Chalukya, Kakityas, and even some places some stray sculpture.

From time to time we took a break during the trek up the hill and took our time to enjoy the nature at its best. The silence that broke with bird song, rising sun gave us a glimpse of nature that we city dwellers miss it quite often. During the climb, at some places we saw few steps embedded in the hilly terrain, but at most of the places these steps have eroded, or should we say that these steps were lost over the passage of time.

Once we reached the top, we found that the fort had a vast underground chamber, trap doors, an armory, stables, ponds, wells etc., and is surrounded by moats. These moats were used as reservoirs and if one looks around carefully, one can find that the rock has gashes, and these were used to channelize the rainwater to these moats. A brilliant idea to harvest the rainwater!!

In all we found two cannons lying around the fort, and each one of them was strategically placed. When we were at the top, we realized that this fort was built in a very strategic location and the huge rock itself made a well fortified fort.

Though the mansion was completely ruined, but the massive two stairways were still strong. While using the staircase, we found them to be amply narrow as well as steep to climb up to reach the terrace of the mansion. Immediate next to the ruined mansion we found some wireless antennas, probably belonging to the radar department of the state government. We spent sometime at the top, had some snacks. The view from the top was simply breathtaking….. can’t explain in language unless one visits.

After spending sometime, we started to climb down the hill. Once we were all down, we had breakfast and got back to our cab to move on with our trip to Warangal, leaving behind Bhongir fort, looming like grey, menacing and silent fort over the line of trains and traffic snaking past …

More about our Warangal trip in the “Trip to Warangal…. Abode of Kakatiyas….”