Mudgal fort - part 2

..continued from Mudgal fort - part 1. If you have not read part 1, do read it and then come back here.

We move the eastern side to the western side. We had to cross the ravine to reach the ruins of the place and a large bastion. We rested a while here and had Seetaphal ~ custard apples our guides had picked carefully. Seetaphal plants are scattered all over the fort but we are not supposed to pick the fruits because the plants are leased out to a contractor. However, our guides could spot ripe ones and helped themselves :-)

That's the bastion. these structures are built of demolished Hindu temples and buildings. I say that because we found some stones which are clearly identified as temple architecture. We had seen similar happenings in Manvi fort too. Now, if you notice the wall next to the flight of steps in the picture above, you can see one of the blocks is extra long, it bears a Kannada inscription (see below picture, inset right). Veeresh showed us a small slab with images of Lord Hanuman, it was no ordinary sculpture. It was a sculpture of seven individual Hanuman grouped together into one (see below picture, inset left) - something I've not seen anywhere else. Unfortunately I couldn't get a decent picture of it.. I should have held a cloth above it to create a uniform shadow.

That's Nauras Burj and part of Mudgal town in the background.

That's the half moon turret in the back ground. Mudgal fort is simply a beautiful place, the rock formations are amazing. In the ravine below I could spot few rock formations which are clearly shelters. I told our guides I wanted to explore them.. might find a rock painting or two.

Clearly it is a natural shelter which can used in rainy season. We had to clamber up a steep face to reach the mouth of the cave. Its not an ideal home but offers good shelter.

Here something wonderful happened. Shah Rukh struck a boulder with a smaller stone and it rang like a metal bell. Wow, we found a musical stone!! It was a long time wish to hear a musical stone, today was the day! If not for our guides we wouldn't have known it. It was not one stone, but two.

Watch this short video to see hear the stones with Malatesh in action.

My guess turned out true; we found few rock paintings here, however they were small and faded.

One or two drawings depicted human beings, the rest we could not make out.

Veeresh took us to another shelter. We had to bend down to the knees to pass through the mouth. It was cool inside, a prefect summer home. However, during rainy season streams will be flowing through this cave. One of the rocks had a sculpture of Lord Hanuman.

Having seen our interest in musical stones, Veeresh us about another rock formation called Nagaari Bande. Though Sun was blazing down and we were tired and hungry I did not want to miss seeing and hearing few more musical stones. Mohan mama and Ravi decided to stay put. We had to go the southern end of the fort now. On the way I happened to notice this boulder resting on three smaller rocks; it could be weighing close to 25 tonnes. How on earth did those rocks got placed there? Is it a natural formation or man-made?

So that's Nagaari Bande, musical rocks pointed. Rocks are balanced delicately.

These rocks rang louder and a wider range of tunes. Also the player had to squeeze in the narrow gap to get into position. That's Veeresh at the top and Shah Rukh at the bottom testing the notes while I and Malatesh took pictures.

The cave had a better effect in terms of acoustics because of the enclosed space. Here it is open and wind can effect the sound. Nagari Bande has place for audience too :-)

Nagaari Bande is a canvas for artists too. We could see a bunch of interesting drawings on rock; I believe these are modern petroglyphs. Starting bottom left, going clockwise; a board game; Panja, a Muslim symbol; an axe; hexagram and a man. Bottom-right drawing was found a short distance from Nagaari Bande.

This monolith has an interesting shape. To me it looks like a model of a fort. Close to the bottom left corner of the picture is a small oval shaped pit. This pit reminds me of the pit seen at Onake Kindi near Anegundi. We guessed the purpose of the pit is to grind ingredients to make paint for rock art. See inset for a closer look at the pit.

Another image of Lord Hanuman; with this we have seen 9 images of Hanuman at Bala Hisar.

It was close to 2 PM now, alarm bells were ringing in our tummies. We missed seeing Mudgal fort's  northern gate, there's a cannon on one of the turrets. We could see it from Nauras Burj, unfortunately time was a constraint. Do watch the video for a quick preview of Mudgal fort. We took the path through the ravine because it would be a shorter way down. We found Mama and Ravi resting in the shade. The path passed through a mini Jaali-gida jungle.

Back at the cab I got a good wash, helped me cool off a bit. We thanked our guides, exchanged phone numbers and said bye. We found a Lingayath Khanawali close to the town square, food was good. There wasn't much of crowd because of Christmas holiday. Oh just remembered something; quoting a para from Raichur district website. There is an old Roman Catholic Church at this place. It is said that it stands on the foundation of one, which had been built by Jesuits before 1557 during the reign of Ibrahim Adil Shah who had granted inam land for its support. The original very old church was pulled down and another was built in its place later.

We got directions for Lingsugur, the road was good and the ride was smooth. Our next destination- Jaladurga.

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