Akola fort along with the Narnala

Narnala

Narnala also known as "Shahanur Fort" is an Indian hill fortress in Maharashtra, India. Narnala was one of the thirteen sarkar of Berar Subah...

 and Akot forts forms the major fortifications of the Akola district

Akola District

Akola is a district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. The city of Akola is the district headquarters. Akola district forms the central part of Amravati Division, and was a former British Raj Berar Province.Area of the district is 5,431 km²...

, Maharashtra

Maharashtra

Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...

, India.

History

In its earliest form of mud made by one Akol Singh to protect the village . He saw a hare chasing a dog and considering this to be an auspicious sign, he built an earthen wall here to protect the village. Akola was fortified majorly in 1697 CE during the reign of Aurangzeb

Aurangzeb

Abul Muzaffar Muhy-ud-Din Muhammad Aurangzeb Alamgir , more commonly known as Aurangzeb or by his chosen imperial title Alamgir , was the sixth Mughal Emperor of India, whose reign lasted from 1658 until his death in 1707.Badshah Aurangzeb, having ruled most of the Indian subcontinent for nearly...

 by Asad Khan, from whom the fort took its name (Asadgad). In 1803, Arthur Wellesley

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...

 camped here before proceeding to win the Battle of Argaon

Adgaon

Adgaon, known as Argaon during the period of the British Raj, is a village located in the Telhara tehsil near Akot in the Akola district of Maharashtra, India...

 in the Second Anglo-Maratha War

Second Anglo-Maratha War

The Second Anglo-Maratha War was the second conflict between the British East India Company and the Maratha Empire in India.-Background:...

. The fortress was dismantled by the British Raj

British Raj

British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...

 in about 1870. It was reported in 1910 in a district gazetteer that the central part of the fort (the hawakhana) was used as a school.

Major features

Akola fort is notable in that it is bereft of any decorative embellishments.

There are several inscriptions on the fort. An inscription on the Dahi handa gate gives its date of constructions as 1114 AH (1697 CE), 'during the reign of emperor Aurangzeb when Nawab Asad Khan was minister.' Another on the Fateh Buruj bastion has no exact date. It too mentions the same minister but a different emperor (Shah Alam). One on the Eidgah

Eidgah

Eidgah or Idgah is an open-air mosque usually outside the city to perform Eid ul-Fitr and Eid al-Adha salah.It was a practice of Prophet Muhammad to perform Eid Salaah in Eidgah at the outskirts of the city...

, contains texts and statement that the building was finished by Khawja Abdul Latif in 1116 AH (1698 CE). On the Agarves gate an inscription in Marathi reads that Govind Appaji in 1843 CE constructed the fort. The latter statement contradicts all the other inscriptions.

Shri Raj Rajeshwar Mandir

Akola’s oldest Shiva

Shiva

Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...

 temple is Rajeshwar Mandir. While king Akolsingh was living in the Asadgad Fort, the famous story is associated with this payas temple. Every night his queen went to this temple to worship Lord Shiva at midnight. She had deep belief in Lord Shiva. Once king Akolsingh thought that his queen is going for a wrong reason in the midnight, so he followed her with a sword; the queen came to know that King Akolsingh was following her and thinking that she is walking in the midnight not for worship but for illicit work. She feel gloomy and guilty. She straight went to the Shiva temple and pleaded the god that her husband the king was thinking wrong about her, and that it was insulting that he was having no faith in her loyalty and her character, so that she pleaded "kindly get me into your Pind (Shiva Ling

Lingam

The Lingam is a representation of the Hindu deity Shiva used for worship in temples....

)", and suddenly the Shiva ling broke in two parts and the queen jumped into that ling and then it is closed. The king understood his mistake and could not forgive himself. Still the Shiva ling in this temple has a little crack which shows and proves the reality of ancient story. This temple is the base aastha of this Akola city.