Dhar (IAST Dhār, Hindi धार) is a city located in Dhar district of the Malwa region in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. The city is the administrative headquarters of the Dhar district. Before Indian independence from Great Britain, it was the capital of the Dhar princely state.
Location Dhar is situated between 21°57' to 23°15' N and 74°37' to 75°37' E. The city is bordered in the north by Ratlam, to the east by parts of Indore, in the south by Barwani, and to the west by Jhabua and Alirajpur. The town is located west of Mhow. It is located above sea level. It possesses, alongside its old ramparts, many buildings which contain records of cultural, historical and national importance.
Historic places and monuments
The most visible parts of ancient Dhar are the massive earthen ramparts, which are best preserved on the western and southern sides of the town. These were most likely built at beginning of the 9th century. Wall remains show that the city was circular in plan and surrounded by a series of tanks and moats, similar to Warangal in the Deccan. The circular ramparts of Dhar, unique in north India and an important legacy of the Paramāras, are unprotected and have been slowly dismantled by brick-makers and others using the wall material for construction. On the north-east side of the town, the ramparts and moats have disappeared beneath modern homes and other buildings. There are many stepwells of various periods in Dhar which are dried or filled with sewage and trash. Till now, 46 stepwells are listed in the Dhar premises, and a work of reviving those stepwells is an ongoing plan for the year 2024.
Fort
The historic parts of Dhar are dominated by an impressive sandstone fortress on a small hill. The fortress is thought to have been built by Muhammad bin Tughluq, the Sultan of Delhi, most likely on the site of the ancient Dhārāgiri mentioned in early sources.K. K. Lele, in Dikshit, Pārijātamañjarī, p. xxi, n. 1, One of the gateways, added later, dates to 1684–85 in the time of 'Ālamgīr.Annual Report on Indian Epigraphy (1971-72): 81, no. D. 72. Inside the fort there is a deep rock-cut cistern of great age, and a later palace of the Mahārāja of Dhar that incorporates an elegant pillared porch from the Mughal period, possibly built in the mid-17th century. The palace area houses an outdoor museum with a small collection of temple fragments and images dating to medieval times.
Museum Inside the fort, a large number of sculptures and antiquities from Dhar and its neighbourhood are kept in utilitarian buildings constructed in the late 19th century. Some pieces from the collection have been moved to Mandu where the Department of Archaeology, Museums and Archives has created a museum with a range of displays in the 'Barnes Koti', a Sultanate-period building used by Captain Ernest Barnes, the political agent of the Bhopawar agency.
Tomb of Shaykh Changāl On the overgrown ramparts of the medieval city, overlooking the old moat, is the tomb of Shaykh Abdullah Shāh Changāl, a warrior saint. The earliest evidence for the tomb comes from an inscription of 1455; the building was entirely rebuilt in the second half of the 20th century.G. H. Yazdani, 'The Inscription on the Tomb of 'Abdullah Shāh Changāl at Dhār' Epigraphica Indo-Moslemica (1909-10): 1-5.
Iron Pillar One of the most significant historical attractions at Dhār is the ancient iron pillar. Fragments of it are at the Lat Mosque where the three surviving portions are displayed outside the mosque on a platform thanks to the conservation efforts of the Archaeological Survey of India. The pillar, which was nearly 13.2 m high according to the most recent assessment, carries several inscriptions, the most important recording a visit by the Mughal emperor Akbar in 1598 while on a military campaign in the Deccan. The pillar's original stone footing is displayed nearby.
Lat Mosque
The Lat Masjid, or 'Pillar Mosque', located to the south of the town, was built as the Jami' Mosque by Dilawar Khan in 1405.Annual Report on Indian Epigraphy (1971-72): 81, no. D. 73 It derives its name from the iron pillar ("lāṭ" in Hindi), which lies in the immediate campus of the mosque.
Kamāl Maulā Campus The Kamāl Maulā is a spacious enclosure containing a number of tombs, the most notable being that of Shaykh Kamāl Mālvī or Kamāl al-Dīn (circa 1238–1331).The death date given as 4 Zilhaj 731, the corresponding day being 8 September 1331, in Hasan Kashani, Dargah Sharif in India (np, 2022): 161, available online at archive.org. Kamāl al-Dīn was a follower of Farīd al-Dīn Gaṅj-i Shakar (circa 1173–1266) and the Chishti saint Nizamuddin Auliya (1238–1325) and migrated to Malwa with his brother in the late 1200s. His descendants have served as custodians of Kamāl al-Dīn's tomb in an unbroken line for 700 years.The key modern works in Rām Sevak Garg, Hazrat maulānā kamāluddīn ciśtī rah. aur unkā yug (Bhopāl, 2005).
Bhoj Shala Except for the Mihrab and Minbar, which were purpose-built for the monument, the hypostyle hall immediately next the tomb of Kamāl Maula is made of recycled temple columns and other architectural parts. It is similar to the Lāṭ Masjid, but was built earlier, as an inscription from 1392 described records of repairs by Dilāwar Khān.Luard, Dhar and Mandu (Bombay, 1916): 9; U. N. Day, Medieval Malwa (Delhi, 1969): 15, n. 2. The text is in Zafar Hasan, “The Inscriptions of Dhār and Māndū,” Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica (1909–10): 6-29, available online: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15170381 In 1903, Sanskrit and Prakrit inscriptions from the time of Arjunavarman (circa 1210–15) were found in the walls of the building by K. K. Lele, Superintendent of Education in the Princely State of Dhar. The engraved inscriptions are displayed inside the entrance. One text includes parts of a drama called Vijayaśrīnāṭikā composed by Madana, the king's preceptor, who bore the epithet Bālasarasvatī.S. K. Dikshit, ed., Pārijātamañjarī alias Vijayaśrī by Rāja-Guru Madana alias Bāla-Sarasvatī (Bhopal, 1968). Other tablets noted by Lele include a slab inscribed in Prakrit with two versions of the Kūrmaśataka – verses in praise of the Ādī Kūrma, the primordial or foundational tortoise in Hindu tradition. The inscription contains a colophon ascribing it to king Bhoja. These finds prompted Lele to name the building Bhoj Shala, or 'Hall of Bhoja', in reference to King Bhoja (circa 1000–55), the author of several works on poetics, grammar and aesthetics, most notably the Śṛṅgāra Prakāśa.Other works mentioned in R. Birwé, 'Nārāyaṇa Daṇḍanātha's Commentary on Rules III.2, 106-121 of Bhoja's Sarasvatīkaṇṭhābharaṇa', Journal of the American Oriental Society 1964; 84: 150-62. C. E. Luard, writing in 1908, does not use the term Bhoj Shala but mentions traditions describing the building as 'Raja Bhoja's school'.C. E. Luard, Western States (Mālwā). Gazetteer, 2 parts. The Central India State Gazetteer Series, vol. 5 (Bombay, 1908): part A, pp. 494-500; also Luard, Dhar and Mandu, p. 9
Cenotaphs and Old City Palace The old city palace of the Pawar clan, a branch of the Marathas that claims descent from the Parmar Rajputs of Malwa, is now used as a school. It is a plain, medium-sized building built around 1875. A marble statue of the Jain goddess Ambikā, discovered on the site of the palace in 1875, is now in the British Museum.Kirit Mankodi, 'A Paramāra Sculpture in the British Museum: Vāgdevī or Yakshī Ambikā?’, Sambodhi 9 (1980-81): 96-103. Of the same time period as the palace are a collection of domed cenotaphs of the Pawar rulers on the edge of the large tank known as Muñj Talab. The name of the tank was probably derived from Vākpati Muñja (10th century), the first Paramāra king that entered Mālwa and made Ujjain his main administrative seat.H. V. Trivedi, Inscriptions of the Paramāras, Chandellas, Kachchhapaghātas and Two Minor Dynasties, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, volume 7 (New Delhi, 1978-91): 9.
Tomb of Shaykh Zahīr al-Dīn Qādirī The tomb said to be that of Shaykh Zahīr al-Dīn Qādirī, a contemporary of Kamāl-al-Dīn, stands in the fields on the western side of the old circular city.see रामसेवक गर्ग, हज़रत मौलाना कमालुद्दीन चिश्ती रह. और उनका युग (भोपाल: आदिवासी लोक कला अकादमी, प्रदेश संस्क्रिति परिशद, २००५): 149-50.
Tomb of Bugḍe Pīr On the east side of the old town the tomb of Tāj al-Dīn 'Aṭā'ullah. Popularly known as Bugḍe Pīr, the building is a small domical structure of the seventeenth century.see Mukhtar Ahmad Khān, बुजुर्गानदीन-ए-मालवा (Dhār, 1994): 56. 'Aṭā'ullah was born in 1578-79 and enjoyed the patronage of Nur Jahan.
Agency House Another colonial era building at Dhar, located outside the old town on the road to Indore, is the Agency House. It was built by the Public Works Department during British rule and was the center of the administration of Dhar State and the Central India Agency.The only documentation is here: Agency House The building has been abandoned and is now in ruins.
Jheera Bagh
In the 1860s, the Powars built a palace at Hazīra Bāgh, adjacent to the road to Māṇḍū. Known as the Jheera Bāgh Palace, the complex was renovated by Mahārāja Anand Rao Pawar IV in the 1940s and is now run as a heritage hotel. Designed in an unpretentious art deco style, it is considered to be one of the most elegant and forward-looking examples of early modern architecture in North India.
Political history