Just before reaching Mandu/Mandav proper, one encounters the Nilkanth Mahal, a redstone palace of Islamic design but featuring a Shiva Temple inside it. It is firmly entrenched in the tourist circuit for we never meant to go to this place but our driver just stopped here out of habit. We decided to have a look purely out of curiosity piqued by the glimpses of a structure peering at us from fairly down below. Today, I'm thankful to our driver but for whom we might have overlooked this treasure.
To start with, Nilkanth Mahal is characterized by a deep sense of split personality. It was originally the site of a Shiva shrine dating to Rajput times which was later ransacked and destroyed in one of the many invasions this region suffered. Then, it appears that Akbar had a pleasure palace built here for one of his queens (possibly Jahangir's mother Mariam-uz-Zamani) and had it christened Imarat-i-Dilkhusha (roughly, pleasure palace). Not stopping there, he had the earlier shrine reinstated within the temple! Today, the place is a buzzing shrine which attracts devotees from afar who go about their prayers in what is distinctly an Islamic palace with all the insignia!
Here's more. Mandu houses the tomb of the man who contributed the most in terms of building to this once "City of Joy" - Hoshang Shah. The tomb, upon first glance, is immediately discernible as the influence for the Taj Mahal. Indeed, Mandu because of the hand of history, was shaped first by Afghan invaders who must've naturally ventured further east after Gujarat. That means Mughal architecture in Delhi drew much from Mandu. What's weird about the Nilkanth Mahal is that it is a later day Mughal monument in Mandu, the fountainhead for its own style.
Now all of that represent confused identity.
Upon approaching the place, we found that this is not a place for the elderly as there are a lot of steps (61) to descend before one reaches the court of the palace with structures on all sides except the north which results in wonderful views of the Vindhyas and the Malwa Plateau upon which Mandu is situated. This is the most immediately discernible feature here. The next thing that draws attention is the water spiral cistern located in the centre of the court which must've been installed to draw water from a greater height and then channel it into a tank. Today, people take a sip from attaching some kind of holiness to it. The shrine itself is a bare bones sanctum sanctorum entered through a large, pointed arched gateway. That it still draws the faithful even today is proof of the prominence location (and its assumed, inherent sanctity) enjoys in the popular Hindu imagination.
Mostly though, owing to the terrain on which the palace-temple is situated and the various levels of the structure, groups of teens have a field day in clambering up and down for every manner of selfie. This is not a major detractor but it does get in the way of absorbing the place with all its inherent paradoxes.
In sum, Nilkanth Mahal lays out the perfect introduction to Mandu through two of its own virtues: beautiful and full...
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