AHMEDABAD Ahmedabad, the capital of Gujarat will always be a city of interest as containing some of the most perfect and the most characteristic forms which Saracenic architecture assumed in India. It has also a history which has an interest, studied on the spot, among the monuments of the city. The province of Gujarat was for centuries the seat of very flourishing Hindu dynasties, and the story of their rise and fall is being traced by European and native scholars (with their newly created respect for historical accuracy) from inscriptions engraved on sheets of copper, on coins, and carved on stones. These have been compelled to yield up the secrets which ture disdained to preserve. The Hindu writers, who in ancient days wrote historical legends, inform us that Vama Raja, in the eighth century, about the time the Mercians were conquering Wessex, founded the Chavada dynasty and built the famous capital about sixty miles north-east of Ahmedabad on the limpid stream of the Saravasti. It was his minister who erected the renowned town of Champanir, thirty miles from Baroda. The house of Vama Raja reigned over Gujarat for upwards of a century. It was succeeded by the Solanki family, whose greatness was founded by Mula Raja, said by an illustrious sage to be " the benefactor of the world. He was minded, full of all good qualities. All kings worshipped him as they worshipped the sun, all subjects who abandoned their own country found a happy residence under his pro tection." Mula Raja was succeeded by his son, Chamunda (A.D. 997), and during his reign Mahmud of Ghazni burst into India, penetrated into Gujarat, and took the capital Anahelavada. He then attacked the far-famed temple of Somnath, desecrated the beloved Pagan shrine, and stripped it of its treasures. The story of Mahmud striking the idol of Somnath with his mace and the jewels run ning out is however one of the mock pearls of history. The real object of worship at Somnath was not an image but a simple cylinder of stone—a lingam. It is described as five cubits high, two of which were set in the ground, and it was destroyed by a fire lighted round it to split the hardness of the stone. For a year Mahmud of Ghazni lingered in Gujarat, delighted with the garden of Western India ; and its broad fertile plains, adorned with magnificent trees, were so great a contrast to his rocky and barren home that he entertained the thought of settling there, but on mature deliberation determined to return to his own dominions. His invasion was but a passing inroad. After he left, Gujarat enjoyed many years of peace and prosperity, and the splendour of its capital increased. It was during the reign of Sidh Raja the Magnificent that the province reached the zenith of its glory. Then Anahelavada was said to be the richest town in India, and marvellous stories are told of its markets, its palaces, its schools, and its gardens, where, amidst sweet-scented trees, the learned studied and taught philosophy and religion. Sidh Raja ranks high
among Hindu monarchs and he is described by his chroni clers as " the ornament of Goojat-land." Of his character we are told that he was " the receptacle of all good qualities, as great in kind actions as he was in war ; the tree of deserts to his servants." Sidh Raja reigned for forty-nine years (A.D. 1094-1143), and on his death, as he left no son, the throne passed to a distant relative. The last of the line was Bhima Deva, who repelled an invasion made by Muhammad Ghori, but Kulub-ud-din, a favourite Turkish slave, revenged his master's defeat by driving Bhima Deva from his capital. The Muhammadans however did not remain in Gujarat, and Anahelavada continued to be the capital of a Hindu king dom.
It was not till a century later that Gujarat was conquered by the Muslims and passed under the rule of the Viceroys of the Emperor of Delhi. These Viceroys in course of time grew more and more powerful and Gujarat became the seat of an independent Muhammadan dynasty. The second Sultan of this house, Ahmed Shah, founded in 1411 the capital Ahmedabad on the banks of the Saburmati and on the site of several Hindu towns. He built a citadel of much strength and beauty and he laid out his city in broad, fair streets. Bringing marble and other rich building materials from a long distance he raised magnificent mosques, palaces and tombs, and by encouraging merchants, weavers and skilled craftsmen he made Ahmedabad a centre of trade and manufacture. Under able rulers the kingdom increased in riches and power. The splendid buildings at Ahmedabad and the ruins of Champanir testify to the wealth of the sovereign, and travellers from beyond the sea bore witness to the prosperity of the kingdom. The Portuguese traveller Duarte Barbosa, who visited Gujarat in A.D. and A.D. 1514, informs us that " inland he found the capital Champanir a great city, a very fertile country of abundant provisions, and many cows, sheep, goats and plenty of fruit, so that it was full of all good things " ; and Ahmedabad " still larger, very rich and well supplied, embellished with good streets and squares with houses of stone and cement." The Sultans of Gujarat gradually enlarged their territory and the sway of Bahadur Shah extended from Somnath to Bijapur. He died fighting the Portuguese, who had be come the masters of the sea that washed his dominions. After his death the power of his successors began gradually to wane and the kingdom was impoverished and harassed by the constant quarrels of the turbulent nobles. In 1572, a party of them called on the great Akbar, who, meeting with little opposition, entered Gujarat and made Ahmeda bad a province of his empire and appointed a Viceroy. With the annexation of the province by Akbar there began a time of far less architectural splendour but of incompar ably better government and well-being.