Raigad Fort

En un regard

Le château en bref

Perched on an isolated massif of the Sahyadri some twenty-five kilometres from Mahad, Raigad was the political capital of Shivaji and the setting of his coronation in 1674. The former fort of Rairi, seized from the More clan in 1656, was entirely remodelled under the direction of the architect Hiroji Indulkar, whose devotion is recalled by an inscription on a step. Steep cliffs serve as the rampart along most of the perimeter; humans fortified only the few weak points, such as the great Maha Darwaja flanked by two bastions, the dizzying Hirkani Buruj, or the tip of Takmak Tok. On the summit plateau stretch the remains of a true royal city: palace foundations, the throne hall of which the Nagarkhana survives, a market street about a mile long, the Jagdishwar temple and the samadhi of Shivaji, as well as the artificial lake of Ganga Sagar. Part of the UNESCO World Heritage property "Maratha Military Landscapes of India", the site is today accessible by cable car or by a long flight of steps.