By Mewar’s account Kumbha routed the Malwa army and took Mahmud Khalji prisoner to Chittor; the Malwa chronicles tell it differently.
01The Mewar account
The Kumbhalgarh prashasti of 1460 and the inscriptions of Kumbha’s reign claim a great victory at Sarangpur. Mewar tradition adds that the Sultan was brought a prisoner to Chittor and set free after some months without ransom. To mark the victory Kumbha raised the nine-storey Vijay Stambh on Chittor fort, its walls carved with the gods of the Puranas and topped with the names of its builders.
02Two sides, two stories
The Persian histories of Malwa and Firishta do not admit a capture and describe the long war between Kumbha and Mahmud as a run of raids and counter-raids, each side claiming wins. What is not in doubt is that Mahmud Khalji never took Chittor and that Kumbha kept Mewar whole through some thirty years of war with Malwa and Gujarat. The exact course of Sarangpur should be read with both accounts in view.
The victory is carved into the Vijay Stambh, still the signature of Chittor’s skyline.