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Chitor
Chittorgarh (also Chittor or Chittaurgarh) is a major city in Rajasthan state of western India. It lies on the Berach River, a tributary of the Banas, and is the administrative headquarters of Chittorgarh District. It was a major stronghold of the Rajput State of Medapata. (modern Mewar) The city of Chittorgarh is located on the banks of river Gambhiri and Berach. Chittorgarh is home to the Chittor Fort, the largest fort in India and Asia. It was sacked thrice; first in 1303 by Alauddin Khalji, again in 1535 by Bahadur Shah of Gujarat, and lastly by the Mughal Emperor Akbar in 1568. Its Hindu Rajput rulers fought fiercely to maintain their independence. On all three occasions when faced with a certain defeat, the men fought to death, while the women committed suicide by jauhar (mass self-immolation). Chittor also has been a land of worship for Meera, It is also known for Panna Dai and Rani Padmini. History Originally called Chitrakuta, the Chittor Fort is said to have ...
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Rani Padmini
Padmini, also known as Padmavati, was a 13th–14th century Rani (queen) of the Kingdom of Mewar, Mewar kingdom of present-day India. Several medieval texts mention her, although these versions are disparate and many modern historians question the extent of overall authenticity. The Jayasi text describes her story as follows: Padmavati was an exceptionally beautiful princess of the Sinhala Kingdom, Sinhalese kingdom (in Sri Lanka). Ratnasimha, Ratan Sen, the Rajput ruler of Chittor Fort, heard about her beauty from a talking parrot named Hiraman. After an adventurous quest, he won her hand in marriage and brought her to Chittor. Ratan Sen was captured and imprisoned by Alauddin Khalji, the Sultanate of Delhi, Sultan of Delhi. While Rattan, Ratan Sen was in prison, the king of Kumbhalgarh, Kumbhalner Devapal became enamoured with Padmavati's beauty and proposed to marry her. Ratan Sen returned to Chittor and entered into a duel with Devapal, in which both died. Alauddin Khalj ...
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Bahadur Shah Of Gujarat
Qutb-ud-Din Bahadur Shah, born Bahadur Khan was a sultan of the Muzaffarid dynasty who reigned over the Gujarat Sultanate, a late medieval kingdom in India from 1526 to 1535 and again from 1536 to 1537. He ascended to throne after competing with his brothers. He expanded his kingdom and made expeditions to help neighbouring kingdoms. In 1532, Gujarat came under attack of the Mughal Emperor Humayun and fell. Bahadur Shah regained the kingdom in 1536 but he was killed by the Portuguese on board a ship when making a deal with them. The army of Bahadur Shah included the Koli tribe and Abyssinians. The Kolis of Gujarat attacked the Humayun in the help of Bahadur Shah at the Gulf of Khambhat. Early years Bahadur Shah's father was Shams-ud-Din Muzaffar Shah II, who had ascended to the throne of the Gujarat Sultanate in 1511. Muzaffar Shah II nominated Sikandar Shah (Bahadur Shah's elder brother) as the heir apparent to the throne. Bahadur Khan's relationship with his brother and father ...
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Siege Of Chittorgarh (1303)
In 1303, the Delhi Sultanate ruler Alauddin Khalji captured the Chittor Fort from the Guhila king Ratnasimha, after an eight-month-long siege. The conflict has been described in several legendary accounts, including the historical epic poem ''Padmavat'', which claims that Alauddin's motive was to obtain Ratnasimha's beautiful wife Padmini; this legend is considered historically inaccurate by most historians. Background The Mewar region in north-western India was ruled by the Guhila dynasty, whose seat was located at the Chittor Fort (''Chittorgarh''). In 1299, Alauddin's general Ulugh Khan had raided the Mewar region on his way to Gujarat. However, this appears to have been a light raid rather than a serious invasion. The Guhila king Samarasimha protected his country from the raiders, possibly by paying a tribute. In 1301, Alauddin conquered Ranthambore, which was located between Delhi and Chittor, and then returned to Delhi. The same year, Ratnasimha ascended the throne ...
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Rajasthan
Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern side, where it comprises most of the wide and inhospitable Thar Desert (also known as the Great Indian Desert) and shares a border with the Pakistani provinces of Punjab to the northwest and Sindh to the west, along the Sutlej- Indus River valley. It is bordered by five other Indian states: Punjab to the north; Haryana and Uttar Pradesh to the northeast; Madhya Pradesh to the southeast; and Gujarat to the southwest. Its geographical location is 23.3 to 30.12 North latitude and 69.30 to 78.17 East longitude, with the Tropic of Cancer passing through its southernmost tip. Its major features include the ruins of the Indus Valley civilisation at Kalibangan and Balathal, the Dilwara Temples, a Jain pilgrimage site at Rajasthan's only hill stat ...
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Siege Of Chittorgarh (1567–1568)
Siege of Chittorgarh (23 October 1567 – 23 February 1568) was a part of military expedition of Mughal Empire under Akbar against the Mewar kingdom that began in 1567 in which the Mughals successfully captured the fort of Chittorgarh after a hard-pressed siege that lasted for several months. Akbar, as part of his expansionist policy, besieged the politically important Sisodia capital of Chittor in October 1567 and gave a religious colour to the struggle by declaring it as a Jihād against the infidels. On Akbar's advance, Sisodia ruler Rana Udai Singh fled to the mountainous principality of his kingdom (on advice of his war councils) and placed the fort under the command of Jaimal Rathore. After over four months of seesaw action in which the Mughal forces suffered heavy casualties, the battle eventually break the deadloack when Jaimal succumbed to a musket shoot of Akbar on 22 February 1568. The fort was captured the next morning on the day of Holi after a gallant resistance ...
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Jauhar
Jauhar, sometimes spelled Jowhar or Juhar, was a Hindu practice of mass self-immolation by women, in the Indian subcontinent, to avoid capture, enslavement and rape by an invading army, when facing certain defeat during a war. Some reports of ''jauhar'' mention women committing self-immolation along with their children. This practice was historically observed in northwest regions of India, with most famous jauhars in recorded history occurring during wars between Hindu Rajput kingdoms in Rajasthan and the opposing Muslim armies.Malise Ruthven (2007), Fundamentalism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, , page 63;John Stratton Hawley (1994), Sati, the Blessing and the Curse, Oxford University Press, , page 165-166, Quote: "In this she resembles the sati who dies in jauhar. The jauhar sati dies before and while her husband fights what appears to be an unwinnable battle. By dying, she frees him from worry about her welfare and saves herself from the possible rape by ...
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Rajput
Rajput (from Sanskrit ''raja-putra'' 'son of a king') is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Rajput covers various patrilineal clans historically associated with warriorhood: several clans claim Rajput status, although not all claims are universally accepted. According to modern scholars, almost all Rajput clans originated from peasant or pastoral communities. Over time, the Rajputs emerged as a social class comprising people from a variety of ethnic and geographical backgrounds. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the membership of this class became largely hereditary, although new claims to Rajput status continued to be made in the later centuries. Several Rajput-ruled kingdoms played a significant role in many regions of central and northern India from seventh century onwards. The Rajput population and the former Rajput stat ...
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Panna Dai
Panna Dai was a 16th-century nursemaid to Udai Singh II, the fourth son of Rana Sanga. She was a Rajput of Kheechi Tribe. In Hindi, ''Panna'' means "emerald," and ''dai'' means "nurse." Udai Singh was left in care of Panna, after Rani Karnavati committed Jauhar in 1535. When Udai was attacked by his uncle Banvir, Panna Dai sacrificed her own son's life to save him. Biography Panna Dai was the nurse of Rani Karnavati, who was the wife of Rana Sanga. In 1531, Vikramaditya, the second son of Rana Sanga, succeeded the throne after his brother Rana Ratan Singh II. He was known for being insolent and arrogant. In 1535, Chittor was attacked by Bahadur Shah, causing Karnavati to call nobles and ordinary soldiers to defend Chittor. Those who were forced to leave Mewar or were disgruntled, joined. Unfortunately, the battle was lost, leaving Chittor sacked. However, Rajputs occupied the fort as soon as Bahadur Shah left. With the fort back in Rajput control, Vikramaditya came back fro ...
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Meera
Meera, better known as Mirabai and venerated as Sant Meerabai, was a 16th-century Hindu mystic poet and devotee of Krishna. She is a celebrated Bhakti saint, particularly in the North Indian Hindu tradition. Mirabai was born into a Rathore Rajput royal family in Kudki (modern-day Pali district of Rajasthan) and spent her childhood in Merta. She is mentioned in ''Bhaktamal'', confirming that she was widely known and a cherished figure in the Bhakti movement culture by about 1600 CE.Catherine Asher and Cynthia Talbot (2006), India before Europe, Cambridge University Press, , page 109 Most legends about Mirabai mention her fearless disregard for social and family conventions, her devotion to Krishna, her treating Krishna as her husband and being persecuted by her in-laws for her religious devotion. She has been the subject of numerous folk tales and hagiographic legends, which are inconsistent or widely different in details.Nancy Martin-Kershaw (2014), Faces of the Feminine ...
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Mughal Emperor
The Mughal emperors ( fa, , Pādishāhān) were the supreme heads of state of the Mughal Empire on the Indian subcontinent, mainly corresponding to the modern countries of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The Mughal rulers styled themselves as "padishah", a title usually translated from Persian as "emperor". They began to rule parts of India from 1526, and by 1707 ruled most of the sub-continent. After that they declined rapidly, but nominally ruled territories until the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The Mughals were a branch of the Timurid dynasty of Turco-Mongol origin from Central Asia. Their founder Babur, a Timurid prince from the Fergana Valley (modern-day Uzbekistan), was a direct descendant of Timur (generally known in western nations as Tamerlane) and also affiliated with Genghis Khan through Timur's marriage to a Genghisid princess. Many of the later Mughal emperors had significant Indian Rajput and Persian ancestry through marriage alliances as emperors w ...
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Gujarat
Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth-most populous state, with a population of 60.4 million. It is bordered by Rajasthan to the northeast, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu to the south, Maharashtra to the southeast, Madhya Pradesh to the east, and the Arabian Sea and the Pakistani province of Sindh to the west. Gujarat's capital city is Gandhinagar, while its largest city is Ahmedabad. The Gujaratis are indigenous to the state and their language, Gujarati, is the state's official language. The state encompasses 23 sites of the ancient Indus Valley civilisation (more than any other state). The most important sites are Lothal (the world's first dry dock), Dholavira (the fifth largest site), and Gola Dhoro (where 5 uncommon seals were found). Lothal i ...
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Siege Of Chittorgarh (1535)
The siege of Chittorgarh took place in 1535, when Sultan Bahadur Shah of Gujarat attacked Chittor Fort, after the death of Rana Sanga, with the aim of expanding his kingdom. The forts defense was led by the Widows of Sanga. Background Rana Vikramaditya was an unpopular ruler, mainly due to his short temper and arrogance. He had insulted several nobles and courtiers which caused many nobles to leave his court. The Sultan of Gujarat took advantage of this situation and made plans to attack Mewar in 1532, however Rani Karnavati had the siege lifted by paying a ransom. The ransom kept the sultan satisfied for a few years but he once again attacked Mewar in 1534. Upon knowing of the invasion, Rani Karnavati requested the people of Mewar to come to the defense of Chittor. Hundreds of Commoners as well as nobles came to her call of arms, however the Gujarati army still greatly outnumbered the Mewari's. Siege The Mewari army was able to fend off attacks till March 1535, after which the ...
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