Bidar

History

The recorded History of the city goes back to the third century B.C. when it was a part of the Mauryan Empire. After the Mauryas, Satavahanas, Kadamba and Chalukyas of Badami and later the Rashtrakutas reigned over Bidar territory. The Chalukyas of Kalyana and Kalachuris of Kalyanis also regained the area. For a short period after Kalyani Chalukyas the area of Bidar was under the rule of Seunas of Devagiri and Kakatiyas of Warangal. The Delhi Sultanate invaded the area first by Allauddin Khilji, and later, Muhammed-bin-Tughluq took control of entire Deccan including Bidar. In the middle of the 14th century, the Sultan of Delhi's officers that were stationed in Deccan rebelled and this resulted in the establishment of Bahmanid Dynasty in 1347 A.D. at Gulbarga/Hasanabad (present Kalaburagi). There was frequent warfare between the Bahmanids and the Vijaynagar Kingdom. The history of the present fort at Bidar is attributed to the sultan Ahmed Shah Wali Bahmani, the sultan of the Bahmani dynasty till 1427, when he shifted his capital from Gulbarga to Bidar since it had better climatic conditions and was also a fertile and fruit-bearing land. The earliest recorded history of its existence as a small and strong fort is also traced to prince Ulugh Khan in 1322, whereafter it came under the reign of the Tughlaq dynasty. With the establishment of the Bahmanid dynasty (1347), Bidar was occupied by Sultan Ala-ud-Din Bahman Shah Bahmani. During the rule of Ahmad Shah I (1422–1486), Bidar was made the capital city of Bahmani Kingdom. The old fort was rebuilt and madrasas, mosques, palaces, and gardens were raised. Mahmud Gawan, who became the prime minister in 1466, was a notable figure in the history of Bidar. Bidar remained under the Barid Shahi dynasty until conquest by the…

Geography

Bidar is located at , lies at a central position in Deccan, a plateau at an elevation of 2300 ft from the sea level. It has common boundaries with Maharashtra and Telangana which is, with the districts of Nizamabad and Medak in Telangana on the East and the districts of Latur, Nanded and Osmanabad in Maharashtra on the west. On the south lies the district Gulbarga of Karnataka. The upper crust of the plateau is of laterite, a soft porous rock with limonitic surface. This crust varies in depth from to and rests on a bed of trap, which is of much harder texture and less pervious to water. The volume of water filtered during the monsoons through the laterite stratum is arrested by the trappean bed, and a nursery of springs is formed whose natural level of effluence is the line of contact of the two strata along the base of the cliffs of the plateau. The water in course of time frets out for itself an orifice and macerates and loosens portions of its rocky channel till a rift is produced. The rift gradually dilates into a ravine, and the ravine expands into a vale. The Karez System is built along a geological fracture. Such fractures are formed at the intersection of laterite and basalt rocks and form lineaments or springs that yield water. Bidar soils are deep (>100 cm), well-drained gravelly red clayey soils developed on plateaus of laterites. They are slightly acid to neutral (pH 6.6) in reaction with low cation exchange capacity. They are highly gravelly soils with gravel content (60 to 10%) that decrease with depth. The winter season is from November to middle of February. Bidar is one of the coldest cities (by southern standards) in Karnataka as the minimum temperature during winter nights regularly hovers around 11-12 during December, which is…

Most-observed species

• Red-vented Bulbul

  Pycnonotus cafer (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  485
• Saxicoloides fulicatus (Linnaeus, 1766)

  Saxicoloides fulicatus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  425
• Green Bee-eater

  Merops orientalis Latham, 1801 · Aves
  417
• Laughing Dove

  Spilopelia senegalensis (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  414
• Ashy Prinia

  Prinia socialis Sykes, 1832 · Aves
  400
• Eurasian Collared-Dove

  Streptopelia decaocto (Frivaldszky, 1838) · Aves
  392
• Black Drongo

  Dicrurus macrocercus Vieillot, 1817 · Aves
  364
• Purple Sunbird

  Cinnyris asiaticus (Latham, 1790) · Aves
  361