Fort Jaladurga

It was a long time wish to see Jaladurga. I'd been to Sindhudurg the island fort in Arabian Sea, but I also wanted to see a river island fort.

December 25, 2012
That's the bridge across the right fork of river Krishna as seen from Lingsugur taluq, Raichur district. This bridge is at the western tip of the island, close to Jaladurga village. The other bridge is downstream close to the eastern tip of the island. Tourists wanting to reach Jaladurga fort have to take this bridge. The dark mound on the horizon is Jaladurga fort ruins.

Close up of fort ruins. The fort ruins can be seen from the base of the hill going right up to the summit. In fact this the highest point of the fort as well as the island.

Here's a rough schematic of the group of island formed by river Krishna. In fact river Krishna defines the district borders of Raichur and Yadir. Jaladurga occupies a the western tip of the island. Jala + Durga = water + fort. Perhaps we can call it Dweepadurga too. Dweepa + Durga = island + fort. About 4 kms downstream is another island with a small fort on it.

At Jaladurga village we stopped to make inquiries. We got introduced to Amarappa Hadpad an elderly man who volunteered to show us the fort. The fort is about 1½ kms from the village, vehicles almost till the fort gate. We went through two gateways which means we passed two layers of fort walls. We parked the cab near Sangameshwara Matha, vehicles cant go any further. The monastery temple seemed ancient but we did not go in. We had to walk about ¼ km to reach this gateway.

Gateway as seen from inside. That's Ravi looking at something to his right and in the passage is Mohan mama. Our guide Amarappa had gone ahead and waiting for us to catch up. Malatesh was lagging behind making videos.

A short climb to the summit. There's a gateway at the end of the wall.

We pass through the gateway to see another layer of wall!! To our right is a narrow passage.

I guess the passage is made narrow for security purpose. I pas through it, turn right and climb the wall to get a good view of the ravine below.

That's the left fork of river Krishna. Jaladurga falls in Yadgiri district. Mohan mama was really impressed by this place, he kept telling we must come back to see when the river is full. Yes, that would be a sight to see. I asked Amrappa is knew about the other island fort downstream. Yes, he knew but he did not know the name.

The summit is not a small area but well utilized by the engineers. these are some of the ruins, perhaps officers' living quarters. End of the path is a small temple and the house of the temple priest. Just one little house at the top of the hill ..what a place to have a house :-)

We are looking towards the west, point where river Krishna splits. Upstream is Narayanpur dam. To the right is the only turret in this direction.

That's our guide Amarappa Hadpad and Mohan mama.

This turret sits on the edge of the hill overlooking the ravine. Folks mentioned that death sentences were carried out on here. We are standing over the rampart walls. To the right, the white structure concealed behind trees is the priest's house.

This is the tomb of a Hindu saint, I cannot recall the name. Note the structure design is Islamic. In fact it looks like a mosque but it is a temple.

Right next to the temple is a deep pit, its an open well, a dry one. Beyond the well are ruins.

On the southern edge is this high rise structure. No doubt it is a tower built to provide unrestricted view of the fort and the island. From here I could see a number of streams joining river Krishna, of course most were dry. I really wish to come back here during August or September.

View of the turret and the temple.

Since the fort ruins are spread way down till the river, it would be a daunting task to explore the ruins  fully, especially at the end of a hectic day. We trekked back to the cab. I was eager to look down into the ravine, I walked right to the edge of the hill. An amazing sight it was. See the water carved rocks in the riverbed. Those shafts are caused by whirlpools. Amarappa told us those shafts are huge, he gave us a measure in farmer's language. Those shafts can hold 200 quintal sacks or more. In layman terms those shafts might be 10' diameter x 20' deep. A little further downstream we could see three men bathing and washing clothes- so there's a way down. This reminds me of Mekedatu near Kanakapura.

View of the one of the gateways, as seen from inside.

Just outside the gateway we stopped to explore the surroundings. Only Malatesh and I went exploring while Ravi got busy with his evening ritual of cleaning the front wind-shield followed by lighting incense. Mama and Amrappa were chatting away about agriculture and rains.

About 100m away from the road we found a gateway. There was a sculpture of Lord Hanuman leaning on a tree (see inset). One day I want to come back and spend a night on this island and explore the fort ruins top to bottom.

Back at the cab, Ravi's evening ritual (symbolic cleaning of car & lighting incense) was in progress, I decided to walk towards the village and asked the gang to catch up. This is a part of the the outer walls with square bastions. Surely this fort was an important one. Some sources say that the fort was built by Adil Shahi sultans but I feel a fort did exist much before Adil Shahi rule. Next to the road, on the right hand side I saw a small structure (see inset) which is clearly a Islamic tomb. It might be a tomb of some officer serving Adil Shahi army.

I kept walking and reached the village too but no sign of my gang. I tried calling them mobile signal was too weak. Well, I waited at the village chatting with folks. After 5 mins the cab arrives. Someone in the group had imagined I had gone exploring the ruins ..terrific! Anyway, had regrouped; we had tea at Amrappa's tea-shop and thanked him. We noted his postal address to send his pictures and said bye to Jaladurga.

Jaladurga fort coordinates: 16°15′09″N 76°25′10.3″E
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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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