Bidar

• 1. City of Whispering Monuments

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  Bidar, a city in the Indian state of Karnataka, goes by the nickname City of Whispering Monuments. A state book called Bidar Heritage, published by the Department of Archaeology, Museums and Heritage, lists 61 monuments here. About 30 of them are tombs in and around the city, and that quiet company of the dead gave Bidar its nickname.

  The city's fort, known as Bidar Kote, sits on the Deccan Plateau. It is more than 500 years old and remains upright today.

  Several questions run through this story. Why did a sultan abandon one capital to rule from this plateau? How did a city on stubborn rock find drinking water for its people and its soldiers? And why is the metal craft that made Bidar famous now losing its makers?

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• 2. Names and Legends

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  Bamboo may lie behind the city's name. Bidar appears to come from the Kannada word bidiru, which means bamboo. The place was also called Bhadrakot.

  A legend links the city to Vidarbha, an ancient kingdom named in early Hindu literature. The Malavikagnimitra, the Mahabharata and the Harivamsa mention it, as do the Bhagavata and several other Puranas. The link seems to rest on how alike the two names sound. Firishta's writings mention the connection.

  Traditional tales add two more stories. One says that Vidura lived here, so the place was once called Viduranagara. Another makes it the spot where Nala and Damayanti met. Damayanti was the daughter of Raja Bhima, the king of Vidarbha.

  Recorded history begins in the third century B.C., when the area belonged to the Mauryan Empire. After the Mauryas came the Satavahanas, the Kadambas, the Chalukyas of Badami and then the Rashtrakutas. The Chalukyas of Kalyana and the Kalachuris later regained the territory. For a short period it passed to the Seunas of Devagiri and the Kakatiyas of Warangal.

  Under the later Bahmani sultans, the city would carry yet another name, Muhammadabad.

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• 3. The Bahmani Capital

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  A prince named Ulugh Khan is tied to the earliest recorded mention of Bidar as a small, strong fort, in 1322. After him the fort passed to the Tughlaq dynasty. Before that, the Delhi Sultanate had reached the region, first under Allauddin Khilji. Later Muhammed-bin-Tughluq took control of the whole Deccan, Bidar included.

  In the middle of the 14th century, officers of the Sultan of Delhi posted in the Deccan rebelled. Their revolt produced the Bahmanid dynasty in 1347, centred at Gulbarga, which was also called Hasanabad and is today's Kalaburagi. The Bahmanids fought the Vijayanagara kingdom frequently. Ala-ud-Din Bahman Shah Bahmani occupied Bidar in these early years.

  The fort seen today is credited to Sultan Ahmed Shah Wali Bahmani. In 1427 he moved his capital from Gulbarga to Bidar, drawn by a gentler climate and fertile, fruit-bearing land. Under Ahmad Shah I the old fort was rebuilt. Madrasas, mosques, palaces and gardens rose around it.

  Mahmud Gawan became prime minister in 1466 and is remembered as a notable figure in the city's story. The Barid Shahi dynasty later held Bidar until the Bijapur Sultanate conquered it in 1619.

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• 4. Water Underground

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  More than 3 km long and fitted with 21 air vents, the Bidar karez dates to the 15th century. A karez, also called a qanat, is an underground network of aqueducts. Its canals connected buried streams and carried drinking water to townspeople and to the garrison inside the fort. Rocky soil made digging wells difficult, so the builders went underground instead. These systems are believed to be the earliest in India and belong to the Bahmani period.

  Gulam Yazdani documented three karez systems in Bidar. They are Naubad, Shukla Theerth and Jamna Mori. Shukla Theerth is the longest, and its origin well was found near Gornalli Kere, a historic embankment. Jamna Mori mainly worked as a distribution network inside the old city, with many channels crossing the streets.

  The ground itself explains the design. The plateau's upper crust is laterite, a soft, porous rock that runs from 100 ft to 500 ft deep. Beneath it lies a harder bed of trap that water cannot easily pass through. Monsoon water filters down, stops at the trap, and forms springs along the line where the two layers meet. The karez follows a geological fracture where laterite meets basalt, and such fractures yield spring water.

  Restoration began in 2014 with desilting and excavation of the Naubad karez. The work revealed 27 vertical shafts connected to it in 2015. In 2016, crews digging for a sewage line uncovered a seventh line of the system, in a city still short of water.

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• 5. Palaces and Towers

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  Five gateways open into the pentagonal wall that rings Bidar's city fortification. The main citadel, built on the brink of the plateau, held the royal palaces, other mahals and a mosque. The city for ordinary people lay to its south. Both parts had their own defensive walls, and the citadel was the stronger. Engineers and architects from various countries were employed on the design and construction. A museum inside the fort displays old armor and sculptures.

  Rangeen Mahal stands near Gumbad Darwaza and is known for coloured tiles and fine wood carving. Mother-of-pearl of the finest quality is inlaid in jet-black stone on its walls, alongside floral patterns and calligraphy. The Barid Shahi rulers rebuilt it, and its design blends Hindu and Muslim architecture. Rooms lie in its basement.

  Tarkash Mahal is said to have been built for the sultan's Turkish wife. Surviving wall ornament suggests the Barid Shahi sultans built or extended it. They kept a large harem of women from different nationalities.

  Gagan Mahal began under the Bahmani kings, and the Barid Shahi rulers altered and added to it. Its outer court housed male staff and guards. The main building served the sultan and his harem.

  Takht Mahal, the royal palace, was built by Ahmed Shah as the royal residence. It had two side pavilions with lofty arches and a spacious hall, behind which lay the sultan's room. Several Bahmani and Barid Shahi sultans were crowned there.

  Solah Khamba Mosque, also called Solah Sutoon Ki Masjid, was built by Qubil Sultani between 1423 and 1424. Its name comes from the 16 pillars lined across its front. It is popularly known as the Zanana Masjid. The mosque is about 90 metres long and 24 metres wide, and a large well lies behind its southern wall.

  In the middle of the city rises Chaubara, a cylindrical watchtower 22 meters tall that faces four directions. A winding staircase leads to the top, which gives a view across the plateau. A clock on top can be seen from all four sides. Near it stands Jama Masjid, a large mosque without minarets.

  On the outskirts, a hillock called Habshi Kot holds the tombs of Abyssinian noblemen who served in the Bahmani and Barid Shahi courts.

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• 6. Gunpowder and Sieges

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  In 1635, Khan Dauran ravaged Bidar. The next major blow came from Aurangzeb, whom his father, the emperor Shah Jahan, had appointed Prince of Deccan. At the end of 1656, Aurangzeb himself entered Mahmud Gawan Madrasa.

  The madrasa was Mahmud Gawan's own creation, built in the late 15th century. It worked as a multi-disciplinary university with a library of around 3,000 valuable manuscripts. Its plan and general style make it a unique monument in India. Aurangzeb's cavalry used it as barracks. Gunpowder was stored in a room near its left minar, and an accident set it off. The blast destroyed about one-fourth of the building, including the tower and the entrance.

  Historians of the time describe how Aurangzeb went on to a mosque built about 200 years earlier under the Bahmani sultans. There he ordered the khutba read in his father's name. In 1656 he took Bidar Fort from the Adil Shahis after a war of 21 days. Bidar became part of the Mughal dynasty for the second time. It was made a subah, an imperial top-level province, that same year, and the Telangana Subah was merged into it the following year.

  In 1724, Bidar became part of the Asaf Jahi Kingdom of the Nizams. Salabat Jang, the third son of the first Nizam, ruled from Bidar fort from 1751 to 1762. His brother Nizam Ali Khan then imprisoned him in the fort. He was killed there on the 16th of September 1763.

  A railway link to Hyderabad arrived in the early 20th century. After independence, in 1956, all Kannada-speaking areas were merged into the new Mysore State, and Bidar joined it. That state is now called Karnataka.

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• 7. The Silver Craft

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  Bidriware and its artisans were part of the Karnataka tableau at the 2011 Republic Day Parade at Rajpath in New Delhi. The craft is among the rarest and most intricate art forms in India and is now unique to Bidar. It holds a Geographical Indications registry. Pieces made by Bidar's artists centuries ago are now displayed in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the National Museum in New Delhi and the Indian Museum in Kolkata.

  Bidri has also served as an official gift. Every dignitary and guest at the XIX Commonwealth Games in 2010 received a mememto crafted in the art. The Union government chooses it as the souvenir for the World Economic Forum in Davos. The owner of the Kingfisher company, Vijay Mallya, has a bidri dining table with floral designs made from nearly 3.5 kg of silver.

  Rehaman Patel carried out extensive research on Bidri art at Gulbarga University. He published a book on it in Kannada in 2012 and an English version in 2017.

  The craft's future is shaky. Rising prices of materials, especially silver, and falling sales mean many hereditary artisans no longer work in production. Cotton and oil-ginning mills once gave the city many cottage industries, yet few industries now draw on local raw materials or skills.

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• 8. Bidar Today

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  On the 8th of October 2013, Bonnie Burnham, president of the World Monuments Fund, announced the 2014 World Monument Watch list in New York. Bidar's historic city made the cut. The fund received 741 proposals from 166 countries and chose 67 sites in 41 countries. Two other Indian sites joined Bidar, the house of Sheikh Salim Chisti in Fatehpur Sikri and Juna Mahal in Rajasthan.

  The fund named several threats. Conservation and maintenance are not integrated, pollution is a problem, and new developments and roads encroach on the historic fabric. Current land use rules also endanger many residents' livelihoods. It hoped that listing would prompt documentation and better planning that protects both the heritage and the people. One tourism count puts Bidar's monuments at 98, with four protected nationally by the Archaeological Survey of India and 14 by the state. The sites have lately drawn film crews from Bollywood and the Kannada film industry.

  Gurudwara Nanak Jhira Sahib makes Bidar one of the holiest places for Sikh pilgrims in India. It is believed that the first Sikh Guru, Shri Guru Nanak Dev Ji, visited the site during a famine in the region.

  Bidar also holds the second biggest Indian Air Force training centre in the country. At IAF Station Bidar, prospective fighter pilots take advanced jet training on BAe Hawk aircraft.

  Sit on the plateau at 2300 ft above sea level and the weather can surprise you. The lowest temperature ever recorded in Karnataka, 2.9 C, was measured at Bidar on the 5th of January 1901. The hottest reading, 44 C, came on the 8th of May 1931. December is the coldest month and May the hottest. During the 2025-26 cold wave, Bidar set record lows for November and December and recorded 5.3 C in January.

  The 2011 census counted 216,020 people. Literacy stood at 85.90%, and 52.23% of residents spoke Kannada as their first language, with 33.32% speaking Urdu. For 2009-10, Bidar ranked 22nd among the cleanest cities in India and 5th in Karnataka.

  In February 2025 Bidar was upgraded from a City Municipal Council to a City Corporation. The state cabinet first approved the change on the 17th of September 2024. Surrounding villages were added to reach the required population of over three lakh. A 30-day window for objections follows the final approval before the corporation formally comes into existence.

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