Travel Guide Daulatabad

17 kilometers northwest of Aurangabad, the fort of Daulatabad dominates the Deccan plain from the top of its rocky peak. At its foot lies the fortified city, of which little remains.Originally, the city was called Devagiri, which literally means "Hills of the Gods". Shiva is said to have resided in the surrounding hills, and ancient Buddhist caves have been discovered here. In the 6th century, Devagiri was a prosperous town, traversed by numerous caravans on their way to the ports of Gujarat. The many medieval wars between Marathi lords and Muslim emperors seeking control of the Deccan plunged Devagiri into oblivion, and the town rapidly shrank to the size of a village. At the end of the 12th century, Bhillama V, the founding prince of the Yadava dynasty, renounced his alliance with the Chalukya dynasty and chose Devagiri to establish his power. In 1327, the Sultan of Delhi Muhammad bin Tughluq moved the capital to Devagiri, renaming it Daulatabad. The entire population of Delhi moved to Daulatabad, against its will. 8 years later, the lack of water in the Deccan capital and numerous instabilities on the sultanate's borders forced Muhammad bin Tughluq to return to Delhi. The city's fortification walls were built from the 15th century onwards by the Nizam Shahs of Ahmednagar, but this did not prevent the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan from seizing the fort and the city in 1632. The fort and town fell into oblivion with the disintegration of the Mughal empire, after Aurangzeb's death in 1707.