Stories in stone: Champaner, Gujarat’s 'forgotten city'

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. I first visited Champaner as a student of architecture in 1998. The sun was beating down as we settled in to sketch the imposing Jami Masjid, which became a model for mosque architecture across the subcontinent.

I returned to Gujarat’s forgotten city last month, two decades later, to find it the way we had left it: peaceful, picturesque, and deserted. Spread over 3,280 acres, the Champaner-Pavagadh Archaeological Park is located around a historical city founded in the 8th century by Vanraj Chavda, the most prominent king of the Chavda dynasty. Located 49km from Vadodara, it was designated a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2004.

The fortifications, monuments, mosques, tombs, arches, stepwells, tanks, cemeteries and gates, a perfect blend of Indo-Saracenic architecture, span the 8-14th centuries. “(Champaner) is 2,000 years of history," says architect Karan Grover, who was on the committee lobbying for Unesco Heritage status. Chirag Munjani, who has been organising heritage walks in and around Vadodara for the last 12 years, says Khichi Chauhan Rajputs conquered the area and built a settlement on top of Pavagadh Hill, adding fortification along the plateau in the 13th century.

“In 1484, Mahmud Begada, the most prominent sultan of the Gujarat Sultanate, conquered the region after a 20-month siege and made Champaner his new capital. And that was the start of the small town’s historic heyday," he says. By the 15th and 16th centuries, Champaner became a critical post along the trade route linking the state with Malwa in western India.