01The old fort
Juna-gadh means the old fort. The Mauryas had a provincial seat here: Rudradaman’s inscription of 150 CE says the Sudarshana lake was made under Chandragupta’s governor and fitted with conduits under Ashoka, and Skandagupta’s record of 456–57 tells how his governor Parnadatta’s son rebuilt its burst dam. In Uparkot, the upper fort, are Buddhist caves of the second and third centuries cut in two storeys. When the Maitrakas moved the capital to Valabhi the old fort was lost to the forest, and the Chudasama king Graharipu cleared and rebuilt it in the tenth century. Its walls rise twenty metres; inside are the Adi Kadi stepwell and the Navghan well cut deep into the rock.
02Mandalik, Narsinh Mehta and 1947
The Chudasamas ruled Saurashtra from Junagadh for five centuries; an inscription of Ra Mandalik of 1450 is set over the Uparkot gate. In the fifteenth century the poet-saint Narsinh Mehta sang to Krishna in Junagadh, and his Vaishnava jan to was later Gandhiji’s favourite bhajan. Mahmud Begada of Gujarat besieged the city and took it around 1470, and Ra Mandalik III was the last Chudasama king. In 1947 the Nawab, Mahabat Khan III, ruling a population that was mostly Hindu, acceded to Pakistan on 15 September. A provisional government of Junagadh’s people under Samaldas Gandhi was formed in Bombay, the Nawab fled, and India took over the administration on 9 November 1947. A plebiscite on 20 February 1948 went overwhelmingly for India.
The life of this place
- 150 CERudradaman records the repair of the Sudarshana lake on the Junagadh rock.
- 456–57Skandagupta’s governor rebuilds the lake’s dam.
- c. 1470Mahmud Begada takes Junagadh; the Chudasama kingdom ends.
- 9 November 1947India takes over Junagadh after the Nawab’s accession to Pakistan and flight.
- 20 February 1948A plebiscite confirms Junagadh’s place in India.
