| Firoz Shah palace complex | |
|---|---|
 Inner courtyard of Firoz Shah Palace | |
| Location | Hisar,Haryana,India |
| Coordinates | 29°09′59″N75°43′14″E / 29.166306°N 75.720587°E /29.166306; 75.720587 |
| Settled | 1357 |
| Founded | 1354 |
| Built | 14th century |
| Built for | Firoz Shah Tughlaq |
| Demolished | 1398 |
| Restored by | Archaeological Survey of India |
| Architectural style | Islam |
| Governing body | Archaeological Survey of India |
  Location in western Haryana, India | |
Firoz Shah palace complex (Hisar-e-Firoza) is an archaeological complex located in modern-dayHisar, in theHaryanastate ofIndia, built byFiroz Shah Tughlaq of theDelhi Sultanate in 1354 AD.[1] It is maintained by theArchaeological Survey of India.[2]
The original town of Hisar was a walled settlement inside of the fort. TheJahaj Kothi Museum, a past residence ofGeorge Thomas, sits inside the Firoz Shah palace complex. The complex contains the Lat ki Masjidmosque and anAshokan pillar.[3]Gurjari Mahal, another palace nearby, was also built by Firoz Shah for his wife Gurjari in 1356.[4]
The palace, known asHisar-i-Firuza, is located at a strategic point where the oldDelhi Multan Road branches towardsKhorasan, a historic region northeast ofIran.
Construction began in 1354 CE, supervised by Firoz Shah. Stone was brought from the hills ofMahendragarh to build the ramparts, which were surrounded by a protectivemoat. A tank inside the complex was used to refill the moat. The complex was completed in 1356 after two and a half years, and Firoz Shah ordered his courtiers to build their palaces within the walls of the fort.[5]
Restoration work began on the palace in 1924 and has gradually continued since. The complex has been declared a Centrally Protected Monument by theArchaeological Survey of India.
The palace complex consists of a mosque, aDiwan-e-Aam, a palace for the Shah's wife, underground apartments, and agranary.[4] The artwork in the fort synthesizesIslamic andIndian architecture. The palace is built ofred sandstone.
The palace complex within the fort had one royal entrance. The protectiveramparts around the fort originally had four main gates.[1][5]
TheShahi Darwaza, or Royal Gate, entrance faces west and is still standing. Roughly seven meters tall, the single-story arched gateway has small built-in guard rooms on each side.
TheTalagi Gate faces west and leads from the palace to the ancientAgroha Mound and toSirsa. The gate stands across from the main bus station of Hisar.Bastions with slanted narrow niches to shoot arrows at attacking enemy armies still exist.[1]
TheNagauri Gate, now gone, led south toNagaur and on toJodhpur inRajasthan viaSiwani,Jhumpa Khurd,Rajgarh andChuru. TheBansi Lal government demolished this gate in order to widen the entrance to the market. TheBritish Raj built a two-story clock tower on the site which was demolished as well.
TheMori gate, now gone, faced east. A water channel, now also vanished, entered the fort complex through a hole (Hindi:mori) in the fort bastion to supply water. The gate provided access toMultan in Pakistan,Kandahar in Afghanistan,Mashhad in Iran, andAshgabat in Turkmenistan. The gate is long gone and unmarked. The current ramp and road link the fort complex and the auto market.[1]
TheDelhi gate, located at currentMehta Nagar here near Shaheed Bhagat Singh Chowk, faced east but is now gone. It led toDelhi on theDelhi Multan Road. It stood near the current Gandhi statue inside the market.[1][2]
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The royal palace is a rectangular three-storied building with two floors above ground and one underground. The king resided here with his entourage. In the past, it had two more floors above the current structure. The ruined pillars of the historical third floor still lie horizontally on the roof of the current structure. They supported a two-story structure of wood and stone.
The palace is built of rubble masonry and lime mortar. The palace building has between one and three rooms on the north, west, and east sides, but it is several rooms deeper on the south side where the bulk of the structure lies. The north and west sides have arched passages built into the fort's bastion and have no windows. The west and south sides of the structure were renovated by theArchaeological Survey of India and still stand with a flat roof and arched gateway and passages.[1][2]
On the far northwest side of the complex, there is a watch tower with three stories above ground and one underground, that doubles as a staircase and connects all floors of the palace and serves as a corner passage between the north and west sides of the building. This is the tallest structure in the complex.[1][2]
The west side structure remains in good condition and still has a roof. It has undergroundtehkhana[definition needed] chambers withhammam, or steam baths. There are two doorways on the ground level and three on the second floor which open into theDiwan-e-khas, a central courtyard that served as a private audience hall. The underground apartments were used for sleeping during periods of intense summer heat, as shown by the underground presence of ahammam.[1][2]
The south side, being the longer side of the rectangular palace complex, has seven doorways on the ground level, and nine doorways on the second story opening into the central rectangular courtyard.[1][2]
The east and north sides are in ruins and only the remains of the ground floor, with no roof, still exist today.[1][2]
The stables are semi-underground and located between thetehkhana structure to the east of the main royal palace building and theJahaj Kothi Museum.[2]
To the right of the royal gate is theDiwan-e-Aam, or audience chamber. It is an L-shapedliwan, 5 to 6 metres (16 to 20 ft) high, with avaulted ceiling under a flat roof and an open courtyard. TheLat ki Masjid is within the courtyard, and theAshoka pillar, orlat, is in the middle. An L-shaped ablution pool lies in the south corner of the courtyard.
Three rows of 50 red stone pillars line the longer western arm of the L-shaped liwan, which has 18 vaults in the ceiling. Ten pairs of double pillars face east, opening into the courtyard and forming seven doorways. A row of ten single pillars runs down the middle of the hall. A row built into the back wall to the west also has ten pillars. Each chamber in this back wall has three red sandstone niches on the lower half, one outer rectangular niche, and two arched niches inside. The upper portion of the liwan is built with rubble masonry covered with white lime mortar. The flat roof of the longer arm of the liwan is topped with twofalse domes, one each on the north and south sides.[1][2]
The shorter north-facing arm of the liwan has three vaulted chambers on three pillars at the front, opening south into the courtyard, and three pillars built into the back wall on the north side.[1][2]
In the north-west corner of the liwan is a raisedTakht-i-shahi orMuluk-khana platform on four smaller red stone pillars, where the throne of the king used to be. The throne can be reached by five red sandstone steps. Under the platform is a dried-up well. This platform also has a north-west facingqibla wall (towardsKaaba inMecca) in themihrab.[1][2]
| Lat ki Masjid | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Religion | |
| Affiliation | Islam |
| Ownership | Archaeological Survey of India |
| Location | |
| Location | Hisar,Haryana,India |
 Interactive map of Lat ki Masjid | |
| Architecture | |
| Type | Mosque |
| Established | 1354 |
| Specifications | |
| Minaret height | 20 feet |
| Materials | Red sandstone |
At the south-east end of the complex is the square Lat ki Masjid, a one-story, one-domed mosque made of red sandstone. Doors pave the way in each direction, with a stonejali (a perforated latticed stone screen) above each door. The roof has stone brackets that can be seen from outside the building. The roof has been altered with the later addition of a brick wall. The ceiling is vaulted and the roof is flat, with a single lime-plastered dome.[1][2] To the south of the dome lies an above-ground masonry pond with an underground narrow passage connecting it to the basement of the Lat ki Masjid.[1][2]
Theqibla of the mosque has been carved inside the prayer hall of the adjacent liwan hall.[1][2]
The mosque is divided into three parts: the central dome, the pillar, and the prayer hall. An L-shaped ablution tank is also located south of the mosque, a couple of feet away. To the southwest, the square mosque building has an exterior staircase to the roof. The mosque also has a narrow underground taircase in its northern wall, which emerges on the south-western edge of the ablution tank in the courtyard.[1][2]
The mosque got its name fromLat, a column located in the northeast part of its courtyard. TheLat was once part of anAshokan pillar, one of the rock-cutedicts of Ashoka dating to 250–232 BCE. This has been proven by the inscriptions inBrahmi script on the pillar, deciphered in 1837 byJames Prinsep, an archaeologist, philologist, and official of theEast India Company.[6] The Ashokan pillar, likely taken from its nearby original location at theAgroha Mound, was cut for ease of transportation. Four of the pieces were rejoined here, and the remaining bottom portions are at theFatehabad mosque. The four upper portions of the Ashokan pillar here aretapering registers with afinial topped by an iron rod.[1][2]
Close to the mosque lies a mound which most likely houses the ruins of an olderIndus Valley Civilization town.[1][2]
Underground apartments can be found inside the complex in good condition. A passage is embedded in the western wall of the palace leading to the terrace. Archery holes can still be observed in the bastion wall, once surrounded by a water-filled protective ditch, now filled in.[7]
गुर्जरी महल | |
 Interactive map of Gurjari Mahal | |
| Location | Hisar,Haryana,India |
|---|---|
| Material | Rubble andMortar |
| Beginning date | 1354 |
| Completion date | 1356 |
| Dedicated to | Gurjari (Mistress ofFiroz Shah Tughlaq) |
| The palace is a part of Firoz Shah Palace Complex | |
Gurjari Mahal is the name of the palace built byFiroz Shah Tughlaq for his queenGurjari. The palace is located outside the fort complex to the east and was built as an outlying portion of it. Between the Gurjari Mahal and the main fort complex, there was once an Islamic garden, which now marks the location of modern-dayJindal Park, which flies a 207 ft (63 m) highFlag of India.[1]
Gurjari, the mistress of Firuz Shah Tughlaq, was a local resident girl ofHisar who belonged to theGurjar tribe.[8]
One day when Tughlaq was on a hunting expedition he suddenly felt parched. As he was unable to find water nearby, he began to faint. Fortunately, a Gurjari who was a milkmaid and used to sell milk happened to pass by and offered him milk, reviving the sultan. After this, he started visiting this place often. Whenever the sultan went for hunting, he would visit the Gurjar colony.[9][10] Soon, Emperor Firoz Shah Tughlaq and Gujari became good friends. Grateful and captivated by her beauty, Firoz Shah Tughlaq proposed marriage to her. The Gurjari accepted his proposal but declined to accompany him to Delhi as she thought she may not be treated well by sultan’s other queens. Determined to be with his beloved, Firoz Shah Tughlaq shifted his royal seat to Hisar in Haryana and built the majestic Gurjari Mahal in her honor and built his own palace complex around it. Later, Gurjari became the most favourite wife of Firoz Shah Tughlaq and they had 2 sons and 1 daughter.[11][12]
The palace was built usingrubble andmortar.
Only a small portion of the Gurjari Mahal palace's main building remains. The palace is built on a rectangular platform and can be approached using a ramp that leads to the upper level. The building has been declared a Centrally Protected Monument by theArchaeological Survey of India.[13] To the north, there were once gardens, but they no longer exist, and modern houses have taken their place. The palace is closed to the public.[citation needed]
The most visible part of what still remains of the palace is thebaradari on the upper level, so named for the twelve doorways, three on each side. It was used for social gatherings. Four pillars inside the chamber support the roof.
Three underground apartments are located below the platform. One of them is a tank and is believed to have served as ahammam.[4]
On the upper level are a total of nine graves. Five aresarcophagi on an open-air platform nearly three feet higher, and two are sarcophagi on a separate nearby open-air lower platform (less than 1 foot (0.30 metres) from the bottom). The last two are brick shrines inside a brick structure that no longer has a roof. All of them date back to the 17th or 18th centuryMughal Empire era.[4]
On the upper level, there is a small secondary apartment in the corner of the structure.
Jahaj Kothi Museum, a later era building that was originally aJain temple which was later used as residence byGeorge Thomas, is located inside the Firoz Shah palace complex and is maintained byArchaeological Survey of India.[2]
NearbyHaryana Rural Antique Museum is in Gandhi Bhawan, and exhibits the evolution of agriculture and vanishing antiques.[2] TheRakhigarhi Indus Valley Civilisation Museum is located inRakhigarhi, which is anIndus Valley Civilisation site 60 km (37 mi) away, and is established by the state government.[14]
A largeBritish Raj] era historic building in the complex, to the northeast, was used as a residence for thesuperintendent of theGovernment Livestock Farm, Hisar (c. 1809).[2]
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