Bappa Rawal takes Chittor

01What tradition says

The Mewar account makes Bappa a boy raised among cowherds near Nagda, who served the sage Harita Rashi at the shrine of Ekalingji and received his blessing. Grown to manhood, he went to Chittor, then held by the Mori ruler Man, a kinsman on his mother’s side, and in time took the fort from him. The Ekalinga Mahatmya says Bappa gave up the kingdom to his son and took to renunciation, and gives a year equal to 753 CE for it.

02What history can confirm

Bappa is named as an ancestor in the Guhila inscriptions from the tenth century on, including the Ekalingji temple inscription of 971, and gold coins bearing the name Shri Voppa have been attributed to him, though the reading is debated. A Mori ruler named Manabhanga is known from a Chittor inscription of 713. Some historians link Bappa’s rise with the resistance to the Arab raids of the 730s; that link is a reasoned guess, not a recorded fact.

Dynasty · c. 6th century–1949 CEGuhilas and Sisodias of MewarFrom Bappa Rawal to Maharana Pratap, the house of Mewar held its hills against every power that came from Delhi. It is among the longest-ruling royal lines in the world.Read →