Place · Chandela hill fort · India
Kālinjar Fort
Also known as Kalinjar, Kalanjara
A Chandela fortress on an isolated Vindhyan spur, one of the strongest in India and among the last to fall — Mahmud of Ghazni failed at it, Qutbuddin Aibak took it, Humayun failed, and Sher Shah Suri was killed here in 1545 when a rocket exploded against the wall he was besieging.
- Function
- Military & resistance
- Patron dynasty
- Chandela
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 25.017, 80.483
Worth knowing
The rock is cut with Shaiva sculpture and a tank called Koti Tirth, and an inscription of Paramardideva. Sher Shah's death here ended the Sur interregnum's momentum: he had ruled five years, built the Grand Trunk Road and reformed the currency, and his successors lost it all within a decade.
Connections (3)
- Imperial administration ofVidyādhara Chandela
Kālinjar and Ajaygarh were the Chandela strongholds and Vidyādhara's refuge when Mahmūd of Ghazni came twice into Bundelkhand. The dynasty's temples stand in the open at Khajurāho and its power sat on these two rocks — the building and the defending done seventy kilometres apart. Kālinjar held out against Mahmūd twice and against Sher Shah Sūri four centuries later, who died beneath its walls in 1545 when a rocket burst in his own magazine.
- Imperial administration ofKhajuraho
Ajaygarh and Kālinjar are the Chandela forts behind the Chandela temples — rock citadels holding the routes into Bundelkhand while Khajurāho was built undefended in open country seventy kilometres away. Kālinjar held out against Mahmūd of Ghazni and later against Sher Shah Sūri, who died beneath its walls in 1545.
- CampaignSasaram
Sher Shah Suri was killed at Kalinjar in May 1545 when a rocket he was directing against the wall burst among his own stores. He had ruled five years, rebuilt the Grand Trunk Road, introduced the silver rupiya and reorganised the revenue on measured yield; his tomb at Sasaram stands on the road he built. His successors lost the empire within a decade, and the Mughals came back and inherited all three of his reforms.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Kalinjar Fort”. Epigraphia Indica for the Chandela and Pratihara inscriptions; Devangana Desai, The Religious Imagery of Khajuraho (1996).
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