A
hmedabad was founded in 1411 AD on thesite of two much older settlements,Ashaval and Karnavati. It has some of thefinest Indian Islamic monuments andexquisite Hindu and Jain temples. Its carvedwooden houses are a unique architecturaltradition.
A
special feature of the walled city ofAhmedabad is its numerous
pols
– self-contained, enclosed neighbourhoods,each entered through a gate that could beclosed at night and in times of unrest.The Sanskrit word for such a gate is
pratoli
, from which comes the word
pol
.
T
he
pols
house large numbers of people.Some
pols
are virtually small villages.Narrow streets crisscross them, usuallyterminating in squares with community wellsand
chabutaras
for feeding birds. Besides thegates, the
pols
had culs-de-sac and secretpassages, known only to theresidents, which offered further security.
This painting by Amit Ambalal alludes to the legend ofSultan Ahmed Shah of Gujarat (late-14th – early-15thc.). Hunting on the banks of the Sabarmati, he wasamazed to see a hare chasing a hound. Convinced thatsuch a place must possess some miraculous quality, heset up on the site a new city – Ahmedabad – to whichhe shifted his capital from Patan in North Gujarat.
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