Chittorgarh

011303: Alauddin Khalji

Alauddin Khalji sat down before Chittor in January 1303 and took it after about eight months, in August. Amir Khusrau, who was with him, wrote in the Khazain-ul-Futuh that the sultan ordered thousands of Hindus killed in a day and renamed the fort Khizrabad after his son. The ruler was Rawal Ratan Singh. The account of Rani Padmini and her jauhar comes from Malik Muhammad Jayasi’s Padmavat of 1540 and the bardic tradition of Mewar; the Persian histories of the day do not name her. Within about two decades Rana Hammir of the Sisodia branch won Chittor back.

02Kumbha’s tower

Rana Kumbha defeated Mahmud Khalji of Malwa in 1437 and marked it with the Vijay Stambh, a nine-storey tower of 37 metres finished in 1448. It is dedicated to Vishnu, and its inner walls are a carved catalogue of Hindu deities with their names cut beside them. Nearby stands the older Kirti Stambh, a 12th-century tower raised by a Jain merchant to Adinatha. On the fort are the temple of Kalika Mata, the Kumbha Shyam temple and the small temple where Meerabai worshipped.

031535 and 1568

In 1535 Bahadur Shah of Gujarat stormed the fort; Rani Karnavati, widow of Rana Sanga, led the second jauhar. In October 1567 Akbar laid siege. The defence was led by Jaimal Rathore of Merta and Patta Sisodia while Udai Singh II withdrew to the hills. On the night of 22–23 February 1568 Jaimal fell to a musket shot from Akbar himself, the jauhar fires were lit, and at dawn the fort was stormed. Abul Fazl’s Akbarnama records that about 30,000 people were killed in the general massacre that followed. Mewar’s capital moved to Udaipur and Chittor was never again its seat.

The life of this place