Hindola Palace, Mandu, Madhya Pradesh India

This audience hall has sloping walls that resemble the trestles of a swing: ‘hindola’ means swing. For all its massive bulk it is esthetically austere as a monastic shrine with soaring windows filled with stone grilles. The external pillars aligned with the sloping walls are buttresses to counteract the thrust of the arches that once supported the high roof. Only the arches now remain to show where the roof once covered the great hall. In spite of Ghiyathud-Din’s apparent change of lifestyle, he could not abandon the women of his court; they wouldn’t know where to go if he died. The transverse projection to the far end of the hall seems to have been meant to provide safe access to the hall for the king and his women; a flight of sloping stages allowed women to be carried up in palanquins, or to ride up on horses and elephants.

Most of the women have lived with the Sultans, the ruler, in a complex of buildings a little away from the Hindola Mahal. These are now ruins standing on the right back of the lake as seen from the Jahaz Mahal. Visitors should treat with care when exploring these buildings because many of them are subterranean and at lake level. There passages have been ingeniously aligned to trap cool winds blowing off the lake and into a step-well, or baoli. It is called the Champa Baoli because its water was said to have had the fragrance of the Champak, or Magnolia, flower. It seems to have lost its perfume with the decline of Mandu. Such wells, and the labyrinths of rooms and passages leading off them, were designed to provide cool, slightly damp, retreats from the hot, dry winds of summer. There is also a haman, or bath, or bath-house, in this living complex. It has apertures like stars cut into its ceiling.