The Imprisoning FortressArticle
Crafted in GwaliorArticle
Urdu Poetry in GwaliorArticle
Invisible ArchitecturesArticle
Gwalior
Displaying 1 - 10 of 13
Gwalior, with its massive fort, emerged as a prominent city in modern times at the beginning of the nineteenth-century, when it became the capital of a state ruled by the Scindia (Shinde) dynasty. Located at a strategic point, between northern India and the Deccan, the city has long been shaped by…
in Article
The hill fortress of Gwalior in northern Madhya Pradesh has an illustrious history spanning one and a half millennia. Monumental construction on the hilltop is first attested in the sixth-century CE and proliferated from the eighth-century onwards. Since this initial phase of the city’s development…
in Article
The fort in Gwalior, built atop a plateau, dominates the skyline, no matter where one stands in the city. The urban landscape seems to have grown outwards from it, making it the centre of Gwalior. The image of the Man Mandir — a fifteenth-century palace built by Man Singh Tomar — is arguably the…
in Article
The history of commemorative architecture in the Indian subcontinent is a journey from the sacred to the sovereign. While funerary practices varied across cultures, the transition from simple burial to "celebratory remembrance" found its early known monumental expression in the Stupa. Originally…
in Article
In most books on the history of Hindi Sahitya (literature), Vishnudas and his compositions are given negligible space. Similarly, underdiscussed is the language he employed for writing his epic stories: the word ‘Gvaliyari’ appears infrequently. George Abraham Grierson, in many volumes of…
in Article
Nestled below the fort, standing amidst one of the oldest areas in the city of Gwalior is the tomb of Muhammad Ghaus (1500–1562). The sacred and archaeological site is around a kilometre away from Kila Gate (literally, the gate to the fort). Reaching there is supposed to be easy: it is afterall…
in Article
On the crafts map of India, Gwalior is not prominent. Amidst the sheer diversity of craft practices in the region of Madhya Pradesh — Chanderi and Maheshwar saris, Bagh prints, Bhopal’s Zari or Zardozi work — Gwalior is not considered a centre of crafts. Whether this is a result of poor marketing…
in Article
The history of Gwalior’s music is famous, but what is less recognised is the Urdu poetry that continues to find a home in the city. More recent history has witnessed figures such as Jan Nisar and Javed Akhtar, both born in Gwalior, who are widely known for their works as lyricists and writers in…
in Article
Gwalior is not only made up of its fort and palaces, but also of its smaller, less visible geographies — its lanes and neighbourhoods that continue to shape everyday life in the city. These spaces, often overlooked in formal histories, offer a different way of reading the city: through its people,…
in Article
When we turn to the history of a city such as Gwalior, narratives tend to coalesce around its monumental architecture — its fort, palaces, and temples — structures that articulate the authority and aspirations of ruling elites. This emphasis produces what may be described as a vertical…
in Article