हिंदीOn this day
Standing

Kishtwar

A town on a high shelf above the Chenab, once the seat of its own rajas, from which Zorawar Singh led the Dogra army over the passes into Ladakh in 1834. The Machail Mata yatra climbs up from its district every summer.

Built: Old hill capital on a plateau above the Chenab; under Jammu from 1821Where: Jammu and Kashmir33.31° N, 75.77° E
  1. 1821
  2. 1834
Photo: Pradeep Parihar (website) · CC BY-SA 4.0

01Zorawar’s road

Kishtwar was a small kingdom of the Chenab gorges until Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu brought it under his rule in 1821. He made Zorawar Singh Kahluria its governor. From here, in 1834, Zorawar took a Dogra force up the side valleys and over the high passes into the Suru valley and Zanskar, the first of the campaigns that by 1840 had brought Ladakh and Baltistan under Jammu. The route was used again and again for supplies, through country where snow closes the passes for half the year.

02Machail and the Chowgan

The town is built round the Chowgan, a broad green ground where the rajas once played polo. The district is known for its saffron and for the Paddar valley, where the shrine of Machail Mata, a form of Durga worshipped as Chandi, draws lakhs of pilgrims on foot each summer, most of them from Jammu. The Sarthal Devi temple stands on a ridge above the town.

The life of this place

  1. 1821Gulab Singh of Jammu annexes Kishtwar.
  2. 1834Zorawar Singh marches from Kishtwar into Ladakh.

People

Zorawar Singh KahluriaWarrior
1784–1841 CE

Zorawar Singh Kahluria

Dogra general who won Ladakh and Baltistan

Nearby

Sudh Mahadev, ChenaniStanding
Vedic Rishis and the Itihasa

Sudh Mahadev, Chenani

A Shiva temple in the hills beyond Patnitop, where pieces of a great trishul are kept and worshipped. The Shravan Purnima mela here is one of the oldest fairs of the Jammu hills.

Martand Sun TempleRuined
The Age of Great Kingdoms

Martand Sun Temple

The great Surya temple of Kashmir on the Mattan plateau, built by the Karkota emperor Lalitaditya Muktapida and destroyed on the orders of Sultan Sikandar in the late 14th or early 15th century.

Sukrala Mata Temple, BillawarStanding
Vedic Rishis and the Itihasa

Sukrala Mata Temple, Billawar

The Devi of the Kathua hills, worshipped as Sharada who came down from Kashmir. Dogra families of the Billawar area count her their kuldevi.

Mata Vaishno DeviStanding
Independent Bharat

Mata Vaishno Devi

The cave of the Devi in the Trikuta hills above Katra, where she is worshipped as three natural rock pindis, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi and Mahasaraswati. It is among the most visited tirthas of Bharat.