Narnala
Narnala, 1908
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Hill fortress in the Akot taluk of Akola District, Berar, situated in 21° 15' N. and 77° 4' E., on the southernmost range of the Satpura Hills, at an elevation of 3,161 feet. The hill was probably fortified at an early date, for Firishta says that the fort was repaired by the Bahmani king Ahmad Shah Wall, when he encamped at Ellichpur from 1425 to 1428. The works comprise three distinct forts : Jafarabad on the east, Narnala itself in the centre, and Teliya- garh on the west. There are six large and twenty-one small gates. The system of water-supply in this fort was admirable, and portions of an aqueduct and of drains for catching surface water still remain. Within the walls are situated nineteen tanks, of which only four hold water throughout the year. Four very curious covered stone cisterns are supposed, apparently on slender grounds, to have been the work of Jains before the Muhammadan invasion. The Jama Masjid, now in ruins, is said to have borne an Arabic inscription recording its construction in 1509 by Mahabat Khan, but this has disappeared. A small mosque attributed to Aurangzeb is in good repair. Other buildings are the Bdradarl, the Sarrafkhana, the arsenal, and the elephant stables. There are also the ruins of a palace erected for Raghuji Bhonsla, and on Teliyagarh is a small mosque. The most interesting part of the fort is the innermost of the three gate- ways of the Shahnur entrance.
It is built of white sandstone and is highly ornate, being decorated with conventional lotus flowers, a rich cornice, and Arabic inscriptions, and flanked by projecting balconies with panels of stone lattice-work displaying considerable variety of design. A short text from the Koran, used as a chrono- gram, gives the date of the building of the gate as i486, and the date is also expressed in words. A second inscription records the fact that the gate was built in the reign of Shahab-ud-din Mahmud Shah (Bahmani), and contains an interesting though evidently inac- curate account of that monarch's descent. In 1437, when Nasir Khan, Sultan of Khandesh, invaded Berar, the Khan-i-Jahan, governor of the province, who remained faithful to his master, the Bahmani king Ala-ud-dln Ahmad II, was besieged in Narnala by disaffected nobles, but managed to break through the besieging force and joined Khalaf Hasan before his victory at Rohankhed. Burhan Imad Shah, the last of the independent kings of Berar, was confined in Narnala by his minister Tufal Khan; and in 1572 Murtaza Nizam Shah of Ahmadnagar laid siege to the fortress and captured both king and minister, subsequently putting them to death. In 1597-8 the fort was captured by Akbar's officers, Saiyid Yusuf Khan Mashhadi and Shaikh Abul Fazl, from the officer who held it for the Sultan of Ahmadnagar.
