Mughal capture of Orchha

01Chauragarh

Jujhar Singh was the son of Bir Singh Deo, the Bundela raja who had served Jahangir and built palaces and temples at Orchha and Mathura. Jujhar had rebelled once before, in 1628, and submitted. In 1634 he attacked the Gond raja Prem Narayan of Chauragarh, killed him and took his treasure. Shah Jahan demanded the treasure and a fine. Jujhar refused, and in 1635 three Mughal armies, with the sixteen-year-old Prince Aurangzeb in nominal command, entered Bundelkhand.

02The fall of Orchha

Jujhar Singh abandoned Orchha and fell back to Dhamoni and then Chauragarh, which he blew up before fleeing south into the Gond forests. The Mughals occupied Orchha. Jujhar and his son Vikramajit were killed by Gonds while in hiding, and their heads were sent to Shah Jahan. Lahori’s Padshahnama records that the emperor came to Orchha and had the great temple Bir Singh Deo had built beside his palace pulled down and a mosque raised in its place. The Bundela Champat Rai kept up the resistance in the forests.

Dynasty · 1531–1731 CE (princely states until 1948–50)Bundelas of Orchha and PannaThe Bundela Rajputs founded Orchha on the Betwa in 1531 and gave their name to Bundelkhand. Vir Singh Deo built the Keshav Dev temple at Mathura, and a century later Chhatrasal fought the Mughals for fifty years and made Panna an independent kingdom.Read →