ASIANOVERLAND.NET SYDNEY TO LONDON  DAY 334/100/12: GWALIOR, INDIA

August 1980 and “DAY 12. 29-9-80"

Only 120 km from Agra on the road to Khajuraho is Gwalior, which has one of the best preserved forts in India.

Gwalior was founded in 8 CE after a local chief, Suraj Sen, was cured of leprosy from a drink given to him by a holy man called Gwalipa. After Suraj recovered from leprosy, he built a town and fort named after Gwalipa.

Gwalior occupies a strategic location in northern India, and its fortress has been ruled by various northern Indian kingdoms from the 10th century. High rocky hills surround the fort from all sides, and the fort itself is atop a large rocky hill.

The Jain Sculptures at Gwalior Fort were built by Man Singh Tomar, who made his dream palace, the Man Mandir Palace at Gwalior Fort. Babur, who founded the Mughal Empire, described it as "the pearl in the necklace of forts of India and not even the winds could touch its masts".

The capital of the Delhi Raj was moved from Delhi to Gwalior in 1545.

Gwalior was conquered by the Mughal Empire, and subsequently the British.

A tour of the historic Gwalior Fort is like a time capsule back through history, as the local guides take you through one of the most structurally sound forts in India, called “the Gibraltar of India” by the British.  The Fort tour goes through the outer Fort walls layer by layer, until the inner sanctum of the local Maharajah. The ultimate inner sanctum features a deep pit into which the local Queen and princesses were encouraged to jump, rather than be captured alive by the invading Mughals, and in more recent times, by the British. It was better to die than to be captured by invaders, the Mughals being infamously known for skinning their prisoners alive, or worse.

Gwalior was the winter capital of the state of Madhya Bharat which later became a part of the larger state of Madhya Pradesh.

Prior to Indian independence on 15 August 1947, Gwalior remained a princely state of the British Raj with the Scindia as the local rulers.

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