'Shahi Fort' of Jaunpur, India: Does It Stand on an Artificial Mound Or A

Open Access e-Journal Earth Science India- www.earthscienceindia.info Popular Issue, VIII (III), July, 2015, p. 1-9 The ‘Shahi Fort’ of Jaunpur, India: does it stand on an artificial mound or a natural escarpment ? Arun Kumar The statement of the Archaeological Survey of India that the mound over which the Shahi Fort of Jaunpur was built was artificial i.e. man-made leads to few questions which are very difficult to satisfactorily answer………………..However, the presence of escarpments (or mounds) all along both sides of the Gomati River is a well-known fact. The Shahi Fort is located on the left bank of the river in almost at the center of Jaunpur. The term ‘mound’ used by the Archaeological Survey of India is known as escarpment in geological literature. In April 2015, I along with my family spent one week in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh, India, the city of my birth. This city is located in eastern Uttar Pradesh fifty five km west of Varanasi. My ancestors belonged to a small town called Kerakat, a tehsil headquarter in district Jaunpur (Figure 1). Although I grew up in Lucknow, my summer vacations were mostly spent with my extended family in Jaunpur. It is a historical city with several architecturally distinct monuments, among them the Shahi Bridge (also known as Akbari Bridge) is an architectural gem and the Shahi Fort is the most famous. During my childhood I remember that the Shahi Fort was not maintained and generally people avoided visiting it due to its poor maintenance. Now it is very well maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India and tourists are charged a nominal entry fee. I along with my son Anshuman visited the fort and spent a few hours there. Geologically, the most notable feature of this fort is its situation on top of a ten meter high mound. At present there are no such mounds visible anywhere in Jaunpur city. During my stay in Jaunpur, I asked several people what could be the origin of this mound over which this fort was built. Was this mound natural or man-made? Most people thought it was man-made; however, few thought it was natural. I was also informed that few other smaller mounds existed earlier but were eventually demolished to make way for constructing homes and other buildings. One such mound was the firing range for target shooting near T. D. College which was subsequently demolished. A signboard (Figure 2) inside the Shahi Fort reads “THE GATEWAY THE MAIN ENTERANCE TO THE FORT IS IN THE SOUTEAST FACE APPROACHED FROM WITH-IN BY A STEEP PASSAGE CUT THROUGH THE ARTIFICIAL MOUD.” I think this is an authentic reference that the fort was built on top of an artificial i.e. man-made 1 Open Access e-Journal Earth Science India- www.earthscienceindia.info Popular Issue, VIII (III), July, 2015, p. 1-9 mound (not MOUD as written in the signboard). This article disputes the statement made here by the Archaeological Survey of India and explains that the mound over which the Shahi Fort is built is actually natural and not man-made. Figure 1: Geographical map of district Jaunpur in eastern Uttar Pradesh showing the locations of cities and town. The Red Star indicates location of the Shahi Fort. A brief history of Jaunpur Singh and Singh (2005) describe the history of Jaunpur as follows: “The City of Jaunpur came into prominence around 1388 when Firoz Shah Tughluq, the Sultan of Delhi, entrusted the governance of his eastern (Sharqi) areas to Malik Sarwar, a powerful eunuch noble, and declared Jaunpur as its provincial capital. Malik Sarwar was also bestowed with the title of Khwaja Jahanby Firoz Shah Tughluq. The invasion of Delhi by Mongols, led by Timur, caused political confusion in north India. Taking advantage of the fluid situation, Malik Sarwar broke loose from the Delhi Sultanate in 1394 and proclaimed himself an independent king and acquired the title of Malik-ush-Sharq. He established his headquarters at Jaunpur. He and his successors came to be known as Sharqi Kings. 2 Open Access e-Journal Earth Science India- www.earthscienceindia.info Popular Issue, VIII (III), July, 2015, p. 1-9 During their rule Jaunpur attracted many poets, artists and craftsmen who were fleeing from Delhi after the attacks of Mongols. Besides this, the fact that the Sharqi, kings of Jaunpur, were great patrons of learning helped Jaunpur in becoming an important centre where art and architecture flourished, so much so that Jaunpur was now being referred to as the Shiraz of India. Jaunpur was attacked by Sikandar Lodi, who demolished most of the buildings except mosques. These mosques of Jaunpur are now the sole reminders of the once famed Sharqi style of architecture. Themost impressive mosques such as Atala Mosque, Lal Darawaja Mosque and Jami Mosque are amongst the finest monuments of Jaunpur erected in pre- Mughal days. These were constructed between 1394 and 1478. They were built on the ruins of many old temples and are notable for their odd composite style of architecture. After the defeat of Lodisby Mughals, Jaunpur became part of the Mughal Empire. Mughal emperor Akbar appointed Muhammad Munim Khan as Governor of Jaunpur in 1567. Munim Khan extensively refurbished the city of Jaunpur, which had been ravaged by the Lodis. He supervised construction of the Shahi bridge over Gomati and made additions to the older fort. Jaunpur remained the most important eastern seat of the Mughal Empire until the army of Akbar conquered further territories of Gangetic plains in eastern India.” Figure 2: The signboard narrating the history of the Old Shahi Fort. 3 Open Access e-Journal Earth Science India- www.earthscienceindia.info Popular Issue, VIII (III), July, 2015, p. 1-9 The Shahi Fort Singh and Singh (2005) write about the Shahi Fort as, “At the eastern end of the bridge, on the banks of the river Gomati stands the Jaunpur Fort. The fort was constructed in 1360 by Firozshah Tughluq in the area known as Kerar Kot. Further additions and alterations continued during the reign of Sharqi and Mughal rulers. The fort of Jaunpur, although not a hill fort, was constructed on an artificial mound at a strategic location.” These authors most likely got this information from the signboard describing the history of the Old Shahi Fort (Figures 3, 4 and 5) thus reaffirming that the fort was built on an artificial mound. The walls of this fort stand on about a 10 m high mound with a slope of about 350 to 400 covered by a variety of grasses, herbs, shrubs and trees. The soil of the mound is compact and hard enough to sustain a vegetation of mature and tall trees and minimizes wind and water erosion. Fluvial incision of Gomati River and formation of escarpments Fluvial refers to the natural processes by which rivers interact with their underlying land resulting in rock or sediment erosion and deposition and forming various types of landforms. Fluvial incision is the vertical down cutting of a river into underlying rock or alluvium caused mainly by the movements within the earth (tectonic) and/or past climate changes or both. The volume of water flowing through a river at any given time is controlled by climate, thus a fast moving river with higher volume of water will cut down the underlying rock or alluvium much more effectively than a slow moving river with lesser water, and thus is climatically controlled. Down cutting of land by rivers is also caused by the uplifting of land due to tectonic movements. Best example is the Grand Canyon of Arizona in the USA, where Colorado River has down cut a sequence of large number of rock formations which has gradually been uplifting for several million years. The down cutting by a river, whether caused by tectonic uplift or climate change, forms escarpments (or mounds) of various heights all along its course of flow. Various geological aspects of rivers Ganga and Gomatihave been published by Kumar and Singh, (1978) and Singh, (1996). Thakur et al.(2009) studied the fluvial incision of River Gomati and the geological information in this article is primarily basedon their work. The 900 km long Gomati River (Figure 6) originates from Gomath Tal (Hindi for lake) south of the Himalayan foothills and flows fromNW towards SE direction through the incised valley before meeting Ganga Rivernear Saidpur in Varanasi district. The river forms large numbers of escarpments on both sides along its way. This river is divided into three prominent zones based on river valley morphological features; their downstream distances are: Zone A - 200- 300 km; Zone B - 400-575 km, and Zone C - 675-775 km. The escarpment height varies along the course of the river and the maximum height recorded is 25 m in the middle zone of the river.The low escarpment height in the zone A indicates that incision in the upper zone of the river is low, and maximum in the middle zone, while moderate levels of incision in the lower zone were also observed. There is a general downstream trend of increasing escarpment heights which is related to the incision of the rivercontrolled by lowering of the base level of the Ganga River. 4 Open Access e-Journal Earth Science India- www.earthscienceindia.info Popular Issue, VIII (III), July, 2015, p. 1-9 There is an alternative suggestion that incision of rivers in the Ganga Plain is primarily related to the climate change that has occurred during the past 100,000 years, and uplifting of the Ganga Plain has nothing to do with river incision (Gibling et al.

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