Malang gad is a hill fort located in the Matheran Hill Range,
Thane District
Thane district (Pronunciation: ʰaːɳe previously named Taana or Thana) is a district in the Konkan Division of Maharashtra, India. At the 2011 Census it was the most populated district in the country, with 11,060,148 inhabitants; however, ...
,
Maharashtra.
History
Malanggad was built by the King Naladev of the Maurya Dynasty in the seventh century.
The fort was initially captured by the
Marathas
The Marathi people ( Marathi: मराठी लोक) or Marathis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are indigenous to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language. Maharashtra was formed as a ...
in the 17th century and was later conquered over by the British.
Nearby Kalyan East 15 km, the reinforcements arrived in early October as Colonel Hartley and Captain Jameson and their troops advanced on Malanggad and finally defeated the Marathas.
Major features
Malanggad is built on three levels. The lowest level is a plateau which is 1000 feet broad and 2500 feet long on which stands the
Dargah
A dargah ( fa, درگاه ''dargâh'' or ''dargah'', Turkish: ''dergâh'', Hindustani: ''dargah'' दरगाह درگاہ, bn, দরগাহ ''dorgah'') is a shrine or tomb built over the grave of a revered religious figure, often ...
of a
Sufi saint - Haji Malang. At the other end of the plateau is the Panchi Pir which lies almost at the edge of the rock and is named after the five pirs who accompanied Shree Malang Gad.
This plateau is called Pir Machi.
The next higher level is called the Sone Machi as it is the lower part of the fort. This is a projection of rock that is 70 feet broad and 100 feet long. It is shaped like an elephant trunk.
Malang Gad is different from other forts in Maharashtra. Whereas other forts have several gates and multiple watchtowers, the art of the main gate itself. With a wall with no
machicolations
A machicolation (french: mâchicoulis) is a floor opening between the supporting corbels of a battlement, through which stones or other material, such as boiling water, hot sand, quicklime or boiling cooking oil, could be dropped on attackers at t ...
to fire at the enemy and no fortifications, Malang Gad is one of the few forts to depend completely on natural aspects of the hill to defend itself.
Further reading
Haji Malang
References
Forts in Maharashtra
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