Chetak or Cetak is the name given in traditional literature to the horse ridden by

Maharana Pratap Pratap Singh I, popularly known as Maharana Pratap (c. 9 May 1540 – 19 January 1597), was a king of Mewar from the Sisodia dynasty. Pratap became a folk hero for his military resistance against the expansionism of the Mughal Empire under A ...

at the

Battle of Haldighati The Battle of Haldighati was a battle fought on 18 June 1576 between the Mewar forces led by Maharana Pratap, and the Mughal forces led by Man Singh I of Amber. The Mughals carried the day after inflicting significant casualties on Mewar fo ...

, fought on 18 June 1576 at Haldighati, in the Aravalli Mountains of

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 si ...

, in western India.

The story

Chokha, Battle of Haldighati, painted 1822, detail

Historical sources do not name the horse ridden by

at the

on 18 June 1576, nor do they attribute any unusual feat or achievement to it. According to tradition, the horse was called Chetak. Although wounded, he carried Pratap safely away from the battle, but then died of his wounds. The story is recounted in court poems of

Mewar Mewar or Mewad is a region in the south-central part of Rajasthan state of India. It includes the present-day districts of Bhilwara, Chittorgarh, Pratapgarh, Rajsamand, Udaipur, Pirawa Tehsil of Jhalawar District of Rajasthan, Neemuch and Man ...

from the seventeenth century onwards. The horse is first named Cetak in an eighteenth-century ballad, ''Khummana-Raso''. The story was published in 1829 by Lieutenant-Colonel

James Tod Lieutenant-Colonel James Tod (20 March 1782 – 18 November 1835) was an officer of the British East India Company and an Oriental scholar. He combined his official role and his amateur interests to create a series of works about the his ...

, a

colonial Colonial or The Colonial may refer to: * Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology) Architecture * American colonial architecture * French Colonial * Spanish Colonial architecture Automobiles * Colonial (1920 au ...

officer who had been political officer to the Mewari court, in the first volume of his ''Annals and Antiquities of Rajast'han or the Central and Western Rajpoot States of India''. His account was based on the ''Khummana-Raso'', and became the most commonly followed version of the tale. In it, the horse is named Chytuc, and is once referred to as the "blue horse". Pratap is at one point called the "rider of the blue horse". The story spread beyond

, to

Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

and elsewhere. There, Pratap was seen as a symbol of resistance against invasion and, by extension, of

nationalist Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...

resistance to British colonial occupation.

Commemoration

Several statues and monuments to Pratap and Chetak have been raised. An

equestrian statue An equestrian statue is a statue of a rider mounted on a horse, from the Latin ''eques'', meaning 'knight', deriving from ''equus'', meaning 'horse'. A statue of a riderless horse is strictly an equine statue. A full-sized equestrian statue is a d ...

was placed in

Moti Magri Park Moti Magri ("Pearl hill") is a hill in India. It overlooks the Fateh Sagar Lake in the city of Udaipur, Rajasthan. Atop the Moti Magri or Pearl Hill is the memorial of the Rajput hero Maharana Pratap, which has a bronze statue of the Maharana a ...

Udaipur Udaipur () (ISO 15919: ''Udayapura''), historically named as Udayapura, is a city and municipal corporation in Udaipur district of the state of Rajasthan, India. It is the administrative headquarter of Udaipur district. It is the historic capit ...

by Bhagwant Singh of Mewar ('' r''. 1955–1984); another overlooks the city of

Jodhpur Jodhpur (; ) is the second-largest city in the Indian state of Rajasthan and officially the second metropolitan city of the state. It was formerly the seat of the princely state of Jodhpur State. Jodhpur was historically the capital of the Ki ...

. The

Chetak Smarak Chetak Smarak, also called Chetak Samadhi, is a memorial to Maharana Pratap's famed steed Chetak, in the Indian state of Rajasthan. The horse died of battle wounds after helping the Rana effect a miraculous escape from the Battle of Haldighati ...

at Haldighati in

Rajsamand District Rajsamand District is a district of the state of Rajasthan in western India. The city of Rajsamand is the district headquarters. The district was constituted on 10 April 1991 from Udaipur district by carving out 7 tehsils - Bhim, Deogarh, Amet, ...

marks the spot where Chetak supposedly fell.

References

{{reflist, refs= Chetak Samadhi
Archaeological Survey of India, Jaipur Circle. Accessed April 2017. Elizabeth Thelen (2006)
''Riding through Change: History, Horses and the Reconstruction of Tradition in Rajasthan''
(senior thesis). Seattle, Washington: University of Washington. Accessed April 2017. James Tod (1829)
''Annals and Antiquities of Rajast'han or the Central and Western Rajpoot States of India''
volume I of II. London: Smith, Elder.
Udaipur India. Accessed April 2017. Individual warhorses History of Rajasthan Maharana Pratap Horses in India