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An account of an unknown Greek merchant who made a
voyage to India in the second half of the first century AD. The Periplus
talks of a city called Ozene to the east of Barygaza (Broach) which fed all
commodities to trade like onyx, porcelain, fine muslin and quantities of
ordinary cottons, spikenard , costus bodellium to this important port and to
other parts of India.
The earliest known epigraphic record of the
Paramaras, the Harsola Granth, issued at the beginning of the 10th century
AD, maintains that the kings of the Paramara dynasty were born in the family
of the Rastrakutas in the Deccan The early Paramara chiefs of Malwa were
probably vassals of the Rastrakutas. The Udaypur Prasati, mentions Vakpati
Vakpati I as the king of Avanti and it was probably in his region that the
Rastrakuta Indra III halted at Ujjain while advancing with his army against
the Pratihara Mahipala I. Malwa was lost in the time of Vakpati's successor,
Vairisimha II, to the invading forces of Mahipala I who avenged his defeat
at the hands of Indra III by invading the empire of Rastrakuta. Mahipala and
his Kalachuri confederate Bhamanadeva are said to have conquered the
territory up to the banks of the Narmada including Ujjain and Dhar. The
Paramara sovereignty in the Malwa ceased until AD 946 when Vairsimha II
became dominant in the area. It is in his son Siyaka II's reign that the
independent Paramara rule in Malwa began. It is believed that it was this
time that the capital was shifted to the area of the Mahakala Vana in Ujjain.
From the 9th to the 12th centuries, the Paramaras
became so identified with Ujjain that subsequent tradition has converted
Vikramaditya into a Paramara. The last Paramara ruler, Siladitya, was
captured alive by the Sultans of Mandu, and Ujjain passed into the hands of
the Muslims.
Thus began a long era of misfortune and decay and
the ancient glory of Ujjayini was lost in a morass of repeated inroads of
attacking hordes. The invasion of Ujjain by Iltutmish in 1234 triggered off
a systematic desecration and despoiling of temples. This tide of destruction
was stemmed only in the time of Baz Bahadur of Mandu. The Mughal rule
heralded a new era in reconstruction. Emperor Akbar put an end to Baz
Bahadur's hegemony over Malwa and had a city wall constructed for the
defense of Ujjain. The Nadi Darwaza, Kaliadeh Darwaza, Sati Darwaza, Dewas
Darwaza and Indore Darwaza were the various entrances to the city.
In 1658 took place a battle near Ujjain in which
Aurangzeb and Murad defeated Maharaj Jaswant Singh of Jodhpur, who was
fighting on behalf of Prince Dara. The actual scene of the battle is
Dharmatpura, renamed Fatehbad by Aurangzeb, after the victory. The cenotaph
of Raja Rattan Singh of Ratlam, who fell in the battle, still stands at the
site.
In the reign of Mahmud Shah, Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh was made the Governor
of Malwa, a great scholar of astronomy, he had the observatory at Ujjain
reconstructed and built several temples.
At the beginning of the 17th century, Ujjain and
Malwa went through another period of seize and invasion at the hands of the
Marathas, who gradually captured the entire region. The Maratha domination
of Malwa gave impetus to a cultural renaissance in the region and modern
Ujjain came into being. Most of the temples of Ujjain were constructed
during this period.
It was during this time that Ujjain became the
meeting ground of painters of the Poona and Kangra styles. The impact of the
two different styles of painting is distinctive. The examples of Maratha
style are found in the temples of Ram Janardan, Kal Bhairava, Kalpeshwar and
Tilakeshwar while the traditional Malwa style can be seen in the Sandipani
Ashram and in many large houses of the local seths.
In the Maratha period, the art of wood work also
developed. Wood carvings were done on the galleries and balconies. But many
excellent examples have either been sold as junk or destroyed.
Ujjain finally passed into the hands of the Scindias in 1750 and until 1810,
when Daulat Rao Scindia founded his new capital at Gwalior, it was the chief
town of his dominions.
The shifting of the capital to Gwalior led to a
decline in the commercial importance of Ujjain. But the opening of
Ujjain-Ratlam-Godhra branch of the Bombay-Baroda line corrected the balance.
A considerable volume of trade mainly with Bombay, existed in cotton, grain
and opium during the British Indian period.
There is much to demonstrate that in the
perspective of India's long history, Ujjain enjoyed great importance in the
battle for the empire and the constant struggle for supremacy. Political
importance was compounded by the economic factor of Ujjain being situated on
the main artery of trade between the North, the South and the West. This in
turn contributed to Ujjain acquiring a cultural splendour of its own which
is equaled by very few other cities in India.
The names of Kalidasa and Ujjayini are
inextricably linked together in the Indian traditions. It is in Meghdoot, a
poem of a little over hundred verses, describing the anguish of a yaksha,
separated from his beloved by a curse, sending a message to her in the city
of Alaka through a rain cloud from his exile in Ramagiri (now identified as
Ramtek near Nagpur) that Kalidasa's love of Ujjayini finds full expression.
The poet describes the imaginary passage of the cloud over Ujjayini, and it
is almost as if he is loath to move on, for in 12 verses (27-38), there is a
lyrical description of the city and the people which conjures up a vivid
picture of a civilized attractive society, a leisured class, intensely
practical and yet imbued with deeply religious and philosophical
preoccupations.
Aurangzeb gave numerous grants to temples
belying tales of intense religious bigotry, which are preserved to this day
by the families of the priests. He is said to have issued a firman giving
blanket protection to Dara Shikoh's guru, Kavindracharya Saraswati, after he
killed his brother. Several manuscripts signed by Kavindracharya Saraswati
are preserved in the Scindia Oriental Institute to this day.
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