Place · hill fort · India
Panhala Fort
The largest fort in the Deccan by circuit, some seven kilometres of wall on a plateau above Kolhapur, with three enormous vaulted granaries, a Bahmani gateway and a double-walled trace. It was Bahmani, then Adil Shahi, then Maratha from 1659, then Company, and it later became a hill station.
- Date
- 1178 onward
- Function
- Military & resistance
- Patron dynasty
- Maratha
- Tradition
- Deccan archaeology and Maratha history
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 16.810, 74.120
Worth knowing
Shivaji was besieged here in 1660 and escaped at night through a sally-port while Baji Prabhu Deshpande held the Pavan Khind pass behind him to the last man; both the port and the pass are shown. The Ganga Kothi granary holds about twenty-five thousand tonnes and is built with ventilation shafts, which is why the fort could outlast a siege.
Connections (1)
- Shivaji campaignVishalgad, Kolhapur
Shivaji was besieged in Panhala by the Bijapuri general Siddi Johar in 1660 and broke out at night in the monsoon with a few hundred men. Baji Prabhu Deshpande held the pass at Pavan Khind with half of them until the guns at Vishalgad signalled that Shivaji was inside, and died there. The two forts are sixty kilometres apart over a ridge, and the escape between them is the founding story of Maratha guerrilla warfare.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Panhala Fort”. Sabhasad Bakhar and the Shivaji chronicles; UNESCO nomination file for the Maratha Military Landscapes of India (2025).
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