Mud Fort, Abohar

The Mud Fort stands in Abohar’s Jammu Basti, near the main water works. The mound is about 60 ft high and covers 9 acres on the dry bed of the Ghaggar river. The ASI lists it as a Monument of National Importance and has protected it since 1941. No walls stand. What remains is mud brick, large baked bricks and loose pottery. Mud-brick walls of the Kushan period survive in the mound, so the first fortification dates to about the 2nd century CE. Glazed early medieval pottery has also washed out of the rainwater gullies. Many historians claim that is a Harappan Site. If true, that dates the fort to 5,000 years ago. The mound’s history is traced back to the Indus Valley Civilisation. It has large flat mud bricks and sits on the dry bed of the Ghaggar, where many Harappan settlements lie, including Kalibangan to the south in Rajasthan. Abohar lay on the Multan-Delhi highway and was a military and trade stop in the Sultanate period. With Bhatner (Hanumangarh) and Tabarinda (Bathinda) it formed part of the frontier line that Balban and later sultans strengthened against Mongol raids. In the 13th-14th centuries Abohar was a principality under the Rajput ruler Rana Mal Bhatti. The pastures around the fort bred cattle and horses, and the Bhatti rulers grew rich on the horse trade. Clay toy horses and mules found in the gullies show this trade. Feroz Shah Tughlaq’s mother, Bibi Naila, came from Abohar, and his historian Shams-i-Siraj Afif lived here. Ibn Battuta reached Abohar in 1333 and called it the first town of India proper. Leaving at midday with 22 horsemen, his party was attacked in the desert by about 80 men on foot and two horsemen. They killed 12 footmen and one horseman, and Ibn Battuta was hit by an arrow but not badly hurt. They hung the heads of the slain on the wall of a fortress. Finds from the mound include a stone inscription of 1232 recording a well repair under Iltutmish (now in Kolkata) and a pot of copper coins from Muhammad Ghori to Akbar, found in 1939 (now in Lahore). In 2008 an object first taken for a temple conch shell was identified as a medieval explosive, a predecessor of the hand grenade, probably of the 13th or 14th century and perhaps Mongol. The mound has never been excavated. Refugees built houses on it after Partition. Fencing in 2001–02 was poorly kept, and houses were pulled down in 2009. In 2010 the ASI sanctioned Rs 22.5 lakh for new fencing, with about 55 per cent of the area cleared and the rest in court. Local tradition names Abheraj Bhatti (12th century), Raja Abhay Singh Bhati and King Harishchandra as founders of the town.