50 Fun Facts About Indian Monuments

Which Mumbai waterfront landmark saw the last British troops leave the country in 1948?

The Gateway of India was built to welcome the empire in and ended up waving it out: the Somerset Light Infantry marched through with a 21-gun salute on 28 February 1948. Its design was approved only in 1914 and finished in 1924.

Who was meant to watch Jaipur's streets unseen through the Hawa Mahal's 953 latticed windows?

Women of the royal household observed purdah, so the lattice was designed in 1799 to let them watch everyday life and festivals in the street below without being seen. The five-storey facade is shaped like a honeycomb.

Delhi's Lotus Temple, built from 27 marble-clad petals grouped into nine sides, serves which faith?

Baha'i houses of worship admit everyone and forbid sermons, so the Lotus Temple's hall hosts only readings of scripture. Iranian architect Fariborz Sahba designed it, and it opened to the public on 1 January 1987.

Whose statue filled India Gate's canopy in 2022, empty since George V's was removed in 1968?

Subhas Chandra Bose first appeared there as a hologram in January 2022, and the granite statue followed that September. The marble George V had been moved to Coronation Park in 1968, so the canopy stood empty for 54 years.

The Charminar, built in 1591 at the heart of Hyderabad, sits on the official emblem of which state?

Telangana put the Charminar on its emblem beside the Kakatiya Kala Thoranam when the new state was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014. The monument is widely held to commemorate the end of a plague.

Which Indian banknote carries the Konark Sun Temple, the stone chariot of Odisha, on its reverse?

₹10 is the note the Sun Temple rides on, chosen to signify its place in India's cultural heritage. The temple is a 30-metre stone chariot with 24 carved wheels, each nearly 3.7 metres across.

What was British officer John Smith doing in 1819 when shown the entrance to Ajanta's Cave 10?

Hunting a tiger led Smith of the 28th Cavalry to the caves on 28 April 1819, and he left his name and the date scratched on a wall painting. The 30 Buddhist caves had been cut between the 2nd century BCE and about 480 CE.

Where were the bronze panels that clad the 182-metre Statue of Unity cast?

China's Jiangxi Tongqing foundry cast the bronze panels for the world's tallest statue, which were shipped to the Narmada and fitted over a steel frame. It was inaugurated on Sadhu Bet island on 31 October 2018.

What is the 27-metre Samrat Yantra at Jaipur's Jantar Mantar, said to tell the time to two seconds?

A sundial 27 metres tall casts a shadow that moves visibly, which is how the 'great king of instruments' reads Jaipur time so finely. The observatory's 19 instruments were completed in 1734 and listed by UNESCO in 2010.

What studs the walls and ceiling of Amer Fort's Sheesh Mahal so it glitters under candlelight?

Convex mirrors backed with coloured foil and paint cover the hall, so a little candlelight is thrown back from every surface. Raja Man Singh I began the fort in 1592, and it joined UNESCO's Hill Forts of Rajasthan listing in 2013.

Which building stands opposite the Taj Mahal's mosque purely to keep the complex symmetrical?

The Jawab, meaning 'answer', matches the red sandstone mosque across the platform but has no mihrab, so it was never used for prayer. Its floors carry inlaid patterns instead.

Which poet called the Taj Mahal 'a teardrop on the cheek of time'?

Rabindranath Tagore devoted two poems to Shah Jahan and the Taj Mahal; in one, a solitary tear 'would hang on the cheek of time in the form of this white and gleaming Taj Mahal'.

Which city gives its name to the Red Fort gate the prime minister speaks from every 15 August?

Lahore was a Mughal city when the fort rose in 1639, and its Lahori Gate has framed every Independence Day address since 1947. Shah Jahan commissioned the fort after moving his capital from Agra to Delhi.

Which sultan began a tower by the Qutb Minar meant to be twice its height, abandoned at one storey?

Alauddin Khalji planned a 145-metre Alai Minar, but work stopped at the 25-metre first-storey core soon after his death in 1316 and none of his successors took it up. The stump still stands in the complex.

Which sultan rebuilt the Qutb Minar's top after lightning struck in 1369, making it two storeys?

Firuz Shah Tughlaq replaced the damaged fourth storey with a smaller one and added a fifth, which is why the minaret has five storeys today. Lightning remains a standing hazard for a 72.5-metre tower.

Which 7th-century Hampi shrine to Shiva stayed in worship after the city was destroyed in 1565?

Virupaksha's history runs unbroken from about the 7th century CE, so it outlived the empire that enlarged it and remains the one gathering place of Hindus among the ruins. It stands on the bank of the Tungabhadra.

Which avatar of Vishnu does Hampi's 6.7-metre monolith, carved seated in a yoga posture, depict?

Narasimha, Vishnu's man-lion form, sits 6.7 metres tall in a yoga posture, and the damage done to the monolith still shows. Vishnu took that shape to kill the demon Hiranyakashipu, who could be slain by neither man nor beast.

Which dynasty built the Khajuraho temples, famed for their erotic carvings, between 885 and 1000?

Chandela kings raised the temples in their Bundelkhand heartland, and the largest survivor, Kandariya Mahadeva, dates from the reign of King Vidyadhara. The site is in Chhatarpur district.

Historical records list 85 temples at Khajuraho by the 12th century; roughly how many still stand?

About 25 survive of the 85, spread over some six square kilometres in western, eastern and southern groups. The western group holds the biggest and best-known shrines.

How many horses are carved pulling the stone chariot of Odisha's Konark Sun Temple?

Seven horses pull the 30-metre chariot, and each of its 24 carved wheels is nearly 3.7 metres across. The whole temple was conceived as the chariot of the sun god Surya.

Sanchi's Great Stupa, begun by Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE, is in which state's Raisen district?

Madhya Pradesh holds the stupa on a hilltop above the town of Sanchi, where four carved toranas were added in the 1st century BCE. It is among the oldest stone structures in the country.

A Sanchi inscription credits a torana's carvings to the ivory-workers of which nearby ancient city?

Vidisha's ivory-workers signed their stone: the inscription reads 'The ivory-workers from Vidisha have done the carving.' The four toranas were added in the 1st century BCE, long after Ashoka's original mound.

Which stories predominate in Ajanta's murals, painted between the 2nd century BCE and about 480 CE?

Jataka legends describe the previous births of the Buddha, and the painters told them at such length that the caves read like a picture library of the canon. Thirty caves were cut in two phases, the later one under the Vakataka kings.

Which Ellora temple, Cave 16, was cut from a single rock under the Rashtrakuta king Krishna I?

Kailasa was excavated rather than built, the masons working down through the basalt so that the finished temple stands free inside its own quarry. Krishna I reigned from 756 to 773.

Ellora's 34 caves were cut by followers of Buddhism, Hinduism and which third faith?

Jainism claims the last five caves, numbers 30 to 34, after 12 Buddhist and 17 Hindu ones, so a walk along the cliff moves through three religions in order. The caves lie 29 km northwest of Aurangabad.

Which dynasty ruled the Kingdom of Mysore from the palace Henry Irwin completed in 1912?

Wadiyar rulers made the palace their official residence and the seat of the Kingdom of Mysore, and the complex is lit by roughly 100,000 bulbs on each of the nine nights of Navaratri.

What destroyed the old wooden palace at Mysore in 1897, prompting Henry Irwin's replacement?

A fire after a wedding, the ceremony of Jayalakshmi Ammanni, gutted the northern part of the old palace. Construction of the replacement began the same year and finished in 1912.

Which fifth ruler of Hyderabad's founding dynasty built the Charminar in 1591 as a plague ended?

Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah had just moved his capital from the old fortress to his new city of Hyderabad, and the Charminar went up at its centre. Each of its four minarets rises 56 metres with a double balcony.

Which architect of New Delhi designed India Gate, inscribed with 13,300 names of the war dead?

Edwin Lutyens modelled the gate on Roman triumphal arches, and it honours 74,187 Indian Army soldiers who died between 1914 and 1921, far more than the names it has room for.

Which sculptor designed the Statue of Unity, inaugurated on Sadhu Bet island on 31 October 2018?

Ram V. Sutar designed the 182-metre figure, the tallest statue in the world, which faces the Narmada Dam from 3.2 km away. Its island base sits in the river itself.

Which Mughal capital of 1571 to 1585, said to have run dry, holds the 54-metre Buland Darwaza?

Fatehpur Sikri was Akbar's 'City of Victory' from 1571 until a Punjab campaign drew him away in 1585, and the failure of its water supply is the usual reason given for abandoning it for good in 1610.

Which Tamil Nadu city's temple honours the fish-eyed goddess Meenakshi with 14 towering gopurams?

Madurai's temple pairs Meenakshi, a form of Parvati, with her consort Sundareswarar, and its tallest gopuram, the 16th-century southern tower, rises 52 metres. The thousand-pillared hall actually has 985.

Whose 1830 gift of gold leaf for the sanctum gave Amritsar's Harmandir Sahib its English name?

Maharaja Ranjit Singh, ruler of the Sikh Empire, donated the gold that overlaid the sanctum, and the Golden Temple name followed. Guru Arjan had placed the first copy of the Adi Granth inside it in 1604.

Which Chola emperor built Thanjavur's Brihadisvara Temple, capped by a single 80-ton granite block?

Rajaraja I built it between 1003 and 1010, and the vimana above the shrine, 63.4 metres high, is among the tallest in South India. It is one of the Great Living Chola Temples on UNESCO's list.

Which dynasty carved Mahabalipuram's monolithic ratha chariot-temples between 630 and 668?

Pallava kings turned the coast 60 km south of Chennai into a sculpture yard, and its Descent of the Ganges is one of the largest open-air rock reliefs in the world. UNESCO listed the site in 1984.

Which white-marble Kolkata landmark of 1906–21 carries a 4.9-metre bronze angel on its dome?

Victoria Memorial was William Emerson's design, raised by the British Raj in white Makrana marble, and its bronze angel was cast by H.H. Martyn & Co. of Cheltenham.

Which Gujarat stepwell, raised for the Solanki king Bhima I and now on the ₹100 note, is designed as an inverted temple?

Rani ki Vav has been on the ₹100 note since July 2018, its stepped shaft of carved panels sunk into the ground as an underground shrine to the sanctity of water. UNESCO listed it in 2014.

Which Rajasthan fort's 36-km wall, built in the 1400s for the rulers of Mewar, is among the world's longest?

Kumbhalgarh's wall runs 36 kilometres around the Mewar stronghold, and the fort is the birthplace of Maharana Pratap. Like Amer, it joined UNESCO's Hill Forts of Rajasthan listing in 2013.

Which 280-hectare Rajasthan fort on a 180-metre hill holds the nine-storey Vijay Stambha?

Chittorgarh's tower of victory was raised by Rana Kumbha between 1458 and 1468 to mark his 1440 defeat of the Sultan of Malwa, and it rises 37.2 metres in nine storeys. Three sieges of the fort ended in jauhar.

Which country's tree supplied the cutting Alexander Cunningham planted at Bodh Gaya in 1881?

Sri Lanka's Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi at Anuradhapura had itself grown from a branch of the original tree, carried there by Ashoka's daughter Sanghamitta around 288 BCE, so the cutting came home. UNESCO listed the Mahabodhi Temple in 2002.

Which 340-room Delhi residence, once the Viceroy's House, renamed its Mughal Gardens in 2023?

Rashtrapati Bhavan's gardens became Amrit Udyan in January 2023, in the 75th-anniversary year of independence; the house was finished in 1929 for the viceroy, with 340 decorated rooms over 200,000 square metres.

At which Deccan fort does a clap at the gate carry to a pavilion almost a kilometre away?

Golconda's Fateh Darwaza was built so that a clap below its dome reverberates up to the Bala Hisar pavilion, the citadel's highest point, and the nearby Kollur mine made it the trade centre for the large stones known as Golconda diamonds.

Which Port Blair prison, dreaded as Kala Pani, held political exiles in wings laid out like spokes?

Cellular Jail took its name from its design: wings of solitary cells radiating from a central watchtower like spokes, a version of Jeremy Bentham's panopticon. Morarji Desai dedicated it to the nation in 1979.

Which fort's Chaturbhuj Temple holds one of the oldest known inscriptions of the numeral zero?

Gwalior's inscription is the second-oldest known record of zero used with a place value, behind only the Bakhshali manuscript, and it has earned the shrine the nickname Zero Temple. The fort crowns a sandstone hill above the city.

Which Amritsar garden, where troops fired on a crowd on 13 April 1919, still preserves bullet holes?

Jallianwala Bagh's monument, designed by American architect Benjamin Polk, was inaugurated in 1961, and it keeps the wounded and killed of Baisakhi Day in view through walls that still bear the bullet holes.

Which Old Goa church, consecrated in 1605, holds the body of St Francis Xavier?

Basilica of Bom Jesus keeps the saint's preserved body and brings it down for public veneration only once every 10 years. Construction began in 1594, and UNESCO lists it among the churches and convents of Goa.

Which Mumbai station, finished in 1887 in Queen Victoria's jubilee year, was listed by UNESCO in 2004?

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus was designed by Frederick William Stevens in an exuberant Indo-Gothic style and finished in 1887, the year of the queen's golden jubilee, under the imperial name it carried until March 1996.

Which Rajasthan fort, begun by Rao Jodha in 1459, rises about 122 metres above the plains?

Mehrangarh's founder had a hermit's curse to contend with, 'May your citadel ever suffer a scarcity of water', and a volunteer named Raja Ram Meghwal was buried alive in the foundations to make the site auspicious.

Which island temple town in Tamil Nadu has the Hindu temple with the longest corridor in India?

Rameswaram's outer corridors, reputed to be the longest in the world, run some 640 feet on the north and south over about 1,212 pillars; tradition holds Rama worshipped the lingam here before crossing the sea by Rama Setu.

Which Ahmedabad landmark's stone lattice, the city's unofficial symbol, inspired the IIM-A logo?

Sidi Saiyyed's jali, carved with intertwined trees and a palm motif, belongs to a Habshi nobleman's mosque of 1572–73, and the window is now better known than the building. It has ten such carved stone screens.