Excursions in Ellora
Grishneshwar
This Shiva temple a kilometre away from the Ellora Caves is one of the 12 jyotirlingas
or the lingas of light that are held in deep reverence by Hindus.
Khuldabad
The little town of Khuldabad, 3 kms from Ellora is held holy by Deccan Muslims.
It is also the burial place of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, who eschewed elaborate
mausoleums for a plain timb in the compound of a Sufi saint's dargah.
Daulatabad
A further 13 kms down the road back to Aurangabad stands the hill fort of Daulatabad.
Eariler a stronghold of the Hindu dynasty of the Yadavas and known as Devgiri,
it ws renamed Daulatabad in the 12th century by Sultan Mohammed bin Tughlaq,
who made a futile attempt to relocate his capital from Delhi to this Deccan
town.
Rising high out of a small hill whose sides had been hewn to steepness, the
Daulatabad fort was said to be almost impregnable. Not only did it have three
concentric circles of fortifications, it also had a series of ingenious mazes
and a string of booby traps.
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