Battle of Giri Sumel

01The forged letters

The armies faced each other for about a month near Sumel. Abbas Khan Sarwani, Sher Shah’s historian, says letters were dropped near Maldeo’s camp, written as if his chiefs had promised to hand him over. Maldeo believed them and fell back towards Jodhpur. His commanders Jaita and Kumpa, stung by the suspicion, took a few thousand Rathores and fell on the Afghan army at dawn.

02“A handful of bajra”

The charge broke into the Afghan lines and nearly carried the day before reinforcements under Jalal Khan turned it. Every Rathore commander on the field was killed. Persian writers report that Sher Shah said afterwards he had almost lost the empire of Hindustan for a handful of bajra, the millet of Marwar’s dry country. He then occupied Jodhpur, which Maldeo won back after Sher Shah’s death.

Dynasty · 13th century–1949 CERathores of MarwarRao Siha’s clan came into the desert in the thirteenth century; Rao Jodha built Mehrangarh in 1459. In the war after 1679 the Rathores, led by Durgadas, saved their infant king from Aurangzeb and fought for him for nearly thirty years.Read →