01The old general’s last camp
After Panipat, Malhar Rao spent his last five years putting Maratha power in the north back together, campaigning in Bundelkhand and along the Chambal against the Jats and the Rohillas. He was past seventy. In the spring of 1766 his camp stood at Alampur, a small place in the ravine country of the Sindh and Pahuj rivers, north-east of Gwalior, and there he died on 20 May. His only son Khanderao had been killed at Kumher in 1754, so the Holkar lands passed to his grandson Male Rao and then into the hands of Ahilyabai.
02Ahilyabai’s chhatri
Ahilyabai, who had grown up under Malhar Rao’s eye and whom he had kept from becoming a sati when Khanderao died, raised a domed chhatri over his remains at Alampur and endowed it with villages for its upkeep. It is built in the Maratha manner of the time, a shrine-like memorial on a raised platform within a walled enclosure, and lamps are still lit there. It is one of the few Holkar monuments in the Gwalior country, far from Indore and Maheshwar.
The life of this place
- 1754Khanderao Holkar is killed at Kumher; Malhar Rao stops Ahilyabai from committing sati.
- 20 May 1766Malhar Rao Holkar dies in camp at Alampur.
- after 1767Ahilyabai, now ruling the Holkar state, builds and endows the chhatri.
