Sinhagad = Sinha (lion) + Gad (fort) in Marathi.

The different names of this fort were: KONDANA after Sage Kaundinya & SINHAGAD. It is interesting to note that Sage Kaundinya was a Buddhist monk and a follower of Gautam Buddha & lived during 6th century BCE.

The famous battle fought between Narveer Subhedar TANAJI MALUSARE and Mughal army led by Udaybhan Singh Rathod in 1670, was heroically won by the Maratha Sardar of Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s side. Tanaji Malusare recaptured this fort by scaling the steep cliff walls of this fort with the help of monitor lizard named Yashwanti, known locally as ghorpad. 500 Maratha soldiers against 5000 of the Mughal army were outnumbered, yet emerged victorious.

There is a anecdote that upon hearing of Tanaji’s death, Shivaji Maharaj expressed his remorse with the words: “Gadh aala, pan sinha gela” – “We won the fort, but lost the lion”.

HOW TO GO?

Sinhagad is easily identified by two tall towers installed over the tallest mountain in Pune. You will find it here on Google Maps.

Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML) bus number 50 starts from Shaniwarwada in Pune and goes till Sinhagad Paytha / foothills. You can get the bus time table in this P-Indicator app, P standing for Pune.

Those who wish to trek should get down at the last stop of this bus, i.e.- Payatha. Those who wish to hire a shared cab/ jeep should get down at second-last stop, i.e. – Golewadi.

Rs. 50/- per passenger in an overcrowded jeep of 13 passengers and 1 driver is the cost of 1-way journey.

Private vehicles like cars or bikes can also take this road by paying a fee of Rs. 100/- around and Rs. 40/- around, respectively in May 2017.

Now I am going to take you on a virtual journey through this fort. I want to show you the historic symbols that are sculpted in the rock walls of this fort. There is Wikipedia and numerous blogs for the rest of the things at Sinhagad. The pictures are in a sequence of the places that you will pass, if you go south-west-north-east (clockwise) according to the map below.

THINGS TO MUST-SEE AT SINHAGAD:

↓ First and foremost the MAP of Sinhagad ↓

it will be obvious from the above map, that 3 forts are visible from Sinhagad: Fort Purander, Fort Rajgad and Fort Torna. 

There are 2 gates at Sinhagad: Pune Darwaja – 3 and Kalyan Darwaja – 2. Darwaja means door / gate in Marathi.

There is a Hanuman temple, installed by Swami Samarth Ramdas too!

There are numerous water cistern, but only 1 now provides potable drinking water for the people on the fort and that cistern is known as Dev taki (tank).