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Evolving alongside the rival powers of Delhi’s earliest rulers, Purana Qila exists as a window into the true – and the mythical – histories of India’s capital city.
Delhi, the capital of India has a strong historical background, as it was ruled by some of the most powerful emperors in Indian history. The history of the city dates back to the epic Mahabharata. The town was known as Indraprastha, where Pandavas used to live. In due course eight more cities came alive adjacent to Indraprastha: Lal Kot, Siri, Dinpanah, Quila Rai Pithora, Ferozabad, Jahanpanah, Tughlakabad and Shahjahanabad. These were fortified settlements, established by various rulers between the 11th and 17th centuries, now swallowed by the sprawling city of today.
Purana Qila is one the oldest forts in Delhi. Its current form was built by the Afghan king Sher Shah Suri, on a site which was perhaps that of Indraprastha, the legendary capital of the Pandavas. Sher Shah raised the citadel of Purana-Qal'a with an extensive city-area sprawling around it. It seems that the Purana-Qal'a was still incomplete at Sher Shah's death in 1545, and was perhaps completed by his son Islam Shah , although it is not certain which parts were built by whom. There are monuments in Delhi older than the Qila – and there are certainly more impressive ones. But it’s unlikely there exists another place in the city where history runs as deep. Excavations in the fort show the area was inhabited in five preceding Delhis, and even earlier, reportedly back to 300 BC.
Purana Qila is where Humayun's capital Din Panah was located. Later it was renovated and named Shergarh by the first Afghan emperor of India, Sher Shah Suri. The Hindu king Hemu was crowned there after defeating Akbar's forces in the Battle of Delhi (1556) on 7 October 1556. The Fort was supposed to be unlucky for rulers who occupied the site; Humayun, Sher Shah Suri, and Hemu all had but relatively brief tenures ensconced there - Humayun on two separate occasions, having lost the fort to Sher Shah only five years after erecting it, and dying within a year of recapturing it 15 years later. Akbar did not rule from here and Shahjahan built a new fort in Delhi known as Lal Qila. When Edwin Lutyens designed the new capital of British India, New Delhi in the 1920s, he aligned the central vista, now Rajpath, with Purana Qila. During the Partition of India, in August 1947 the Purana Qila along with the neighbouring Humayun's Tomb, became the site for refuge camps for Muslims migrating to newly founded Pakistan.
The walls of the Qila, and the few structures within – a stepwell, a squat tower used as a library-cum-observatory, and a fine mosque – are attributed to the Mughal emperor Humayun and the Afghan Sher Shah Suri (‘The Lion King’), rivals who ruled Delhi in the mid-16th century. Humayun’s construction began in 1533, but was deposed after a few years by Sher Shah. Humayun recaptured the fort 15 years later, but soon after tripped down the stairs of the library and died. A Mughal chronicler from the time mentions that Humayun’s fort was built on the hallowed site of Indraprastha, a story that sits in the shimmering realm between myth and history.
The Purana Qila in Delhi never ceases to confound the visitor. Take its northern gate which is known as the Talaqi Darwaza. Some say it means Forbidden Gate; others think it is the gate of special entry. Built by Sher Shah Suri, it has a panel showing a man fighting a lion, considered unusual in a Moghul-era monument. Perhaps the panel commemorates the fight Sher Shah had when, as a young man he killed a ‘Sher’. Since then Farid Khan came to be known as Sher Afghan.
But why was this scene carved on the Forbidden Gate? It was Humayun who built his capital Dinpanah here over the ruins of an old fort, below which lay the legendary city of Indraprastha. When Sher Shah ousted Humayun and built his own fort, he probably retained the gate marked ‘Forbidden’ by Humayun; forbidden because only the emperor, his children and the ladies of the harem could enter or leave through the gate. The marble panels are more than the tale of Sher Shah and his fight with the king of beasts. Such depictions were a common feature in ancient Babylon. The lion, besides man, is among the four living creatures (one ‘full of eyes in front and behind’) that are believed to surround the highest seat of heaven. This is part of the Semitic story of creation and the panel of the Talaqi Darwaza may well have been inspired by it, though Sher Shah killed a tiger, not a lion.
The Qila was a living part of the city until 1914, when a village within the fort walls was found incompatible with the Qila’s new-found grandeur, and was cleared. Later, the fort became the site of several temporary settlements. During the second world war, there was a camp of nearly 3,000 Japanese civilians from across British-ruled Asia. After the partition of India in 1947 and the ensuing violence, the Qila sheltered thousands who were fleeing Delhi, as well as those who had moved there. Some of these new settlers remained until the early 1960s. From then on, the Qila has stood in a landscaped stupor. Today, the fort is surrounded by a zoo, and the moat is a spot for boating and zorbing. Aside from history enthusiasts and couples seeking privacy from the crowded city, few enter the red sandstone gate between the fort’s stout bastions.
The crumbling walls have been built and rebuilt, the trees that glow near them perhaps germinated from earlier ones. Lingering before those hallowed walls one could see the stones and crevices highlighted by the strong lights that illuminate them. An owl flew in circles till it found a perch on the ruined citadel of mighty empires which once drew awe and wonder because of the superpowers who ruled them. Night imparts its own strange hues to buildings old and new. At the Purana Qila it seems to merge with hoary time and you begin to hear the sound of trumpets, the battle-cry of the warriors, the clash of swords, the whiz of a thousand arrows, the neighing of horses, the thunderous trumpeting of elephants and the piteous moans of the fallen being trampled upon by man and beast.
Here, history is unfolded before the eyes. You see emperor and clown for what they really were, and you hear the perennial song of humanity — of wars and conflicts, peace and tranquility, power and glory, and then neglect and decay.
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