Ujjain

Ujjain stands on the east bank of the Shipra River in western Malwa. For two thousand years it has been one of the seven sacred cities of the Hindus and a seat of astronomy, where tradition placed the prime meridian of Indian astronomers. Its Mahakaleshwar temple, one of the twelve jyotirlinga shrines of Shiva, draws pilgrims, and every twelve years the Simhastha fair fills the river banks.

After Iltutmish of Delhi plundered the city in 1235 and wrecked the temple, Ujjain passed to the Delhi sultans and later to the Malwa sultans, who ruled from Mandu. Akbar's armies conquered Malwa in the 1560s, and Ujjain became the principal city of the province and a military headquarters of the Mughals. In the early eighteenth century Sawai Jai Singh II of Jaipur, governor of Malwa, built an observatory of masonry instruments here, one of five he constructed. Maratha power took over after 1731, when Ranoji Scindia made Ujjain his capital. A Maratha minister rebuilt the Mahakaleshwar temple around 1734, restoring a shrine that had been broken in the thirteenth century. In 1810 the Scindia capital moved to Gwalior, but Ujjain remained an important religious and regional centre.