Ausa

Ausa is a fortified town in the Marathwada country of the Deccan. Its stone fort stands within a deep moat and became a stronghold contested by the successors of the Bahmani Sultanate. The town is older than the fort: Ausa appears in inscriptions and Jain writings from earlier centuries.

After the Bahmani kingdom broke apart, Ausa passed among the Barid Shahi and Adil Shahi rulers before Malik Ambar took it for the Nizam Shahis of Ahmadnagar. He attempted to rename the town Amarpur, although the older name survived. In 1636 the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan’s conquest of the region brought the fortress under Mughal control. A Persian inscription at the town’s Jami Masjid records its construction in 1688 during the reign of Aurangzeb.