The Garha Kingdom, also called Garha Mandla or Garha Katanga was northern part of

Gondwana Gondwana () was a large landmass, often referred to as a supercontinent, that formed during the late Neoproterozoic (about 550 million years ago) and began to break up during the Jurassic period (about 180 million years ago). The final stages ...

History

The first Gond king of Garha-Mandla was Jadurai. He became king after disposing the Kalchuri Rajputs of Garha-

Mandla Mandla is a city with municipality in Mandla district in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It is the administrative headquarters of Mandla District. The city is situated in a loop of the Narmada River, which surrounds it on three sides, and ...

, where earlier he worked in court. The Garha-Mandla kingdom was earlier a small territory which witnessed rapid expansion under the rule of

Sangram Shah Sangram Shah was a king of the Garha Kingdom of Gondwana, in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. Sangram Shah, who belonged to the Gond Dynasty in central India, was the 48th and most well known ruler of the dynasty, and during his reign he had c ...

, the 48th king, He captured territories like Narmada Valley, Bhopal, Sagar, Damoh and most of the Satpura hills. He conquered 52 forts called Garh to strengthen and spread the Gond territory. The Chouragrh Fort in

Narsinghpur Narsinghpur is a city in Madhya Pradesh in central India. It comes under Jabalpur division. Narsinghpur has a large temple dedicated to Lord Narsingh As of 2001, Narsinghpur is the most literate district of the state. History Prehistory ...

was built in the honour of conquering 52 forts. Sangram Shah is best known as a patron of arts and literature and he had great knowledge of

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

. ''Rasratnamala'' was written by Sangram Shah. At the time of Sangram Shah the capital of Garha kingdom was Singhorgarh. His successor

Dalpat Shah Dalpat Shah was the 49th ruler of the Garha Kingdom, which controlled the Indian region of Gondwana. His reign was short, he died in 1550, leaving the kingdom in the hands of his able wife Rani Durgavati, acting as a regent for their son Vir Naray ...

, was married to Rani Durgawati who was a

Chandela The Chandelas of Jejakabhukti was an Indian dynasty in Central India. The Chandelas ruled much of the Bundelkhand region (then called ''Jejakabhukti'') between the 9th and the 13th centuries. They belonged to the Chandel clan of the Rajputs. ...

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 Ra ...

princess. Rani Durgavati moved her capital to Chouragarh because it was safer than Singhorgarh. Rani Durgawati made the kingdom extremely propserous, it was said that the people paid their taxes in gold in her reign. She battled against

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 t ...

Akbar Abu'l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (25 October 1542 – 27 October 1605), popularly known as Akbar the Great ( fa, ), and also as Akbar I (), was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Hum ...

's forces lead by

Asaf Khan I Asaf Khan I was a Muslim Tajik nobleman of the Mughal Empire during the reign of Akbar. He was governor of Ilahabad Subah and participated in many Mughal military expeditions, leading the Mughal conquest of Garha in 1564 and serving in the Bat ...

in 1564. Though she lost, she is remembered as a war-heroine and is still praised in the areas of the former Garha kingdom. The Mughals acquired immense booty, including thousands of elephants from this victory. After 25 years of Mughal rule, the kingdom was restored to Chandra Shah, another son of

and half-brother of

. He was recognized as the successor of

Rani Durgavati Rani Durgavati (5 October 1524 – 24 June 1564) was the ruling Queen of Gondwana from 1550 until 1564. She was born in the family of Chandel Rajput king Salibahan at the fort of Mahoba. She was married to Dalpat Shah the son of the king San ...

on accepting Mughal suzerainty and ceding 10 of the garhas. He was followed in succession by Madhukar Shah and Prem Narain.

Jhujhar Singh Jhujhar Singh was a Raja of the Orchha region in India during the 17th century. Jhujhar Singh was the first-born son of Vir Singh Deo and the senior of his three queens. In 1626, he succeeded his father as ruler and determined not to remain a ...

Orchha Orchha is a town, near city of Niwari in Niwari district of Madhya Pradesh state, India. The town was established by rajput ruler Rudra Pratap Singh some time after 1501, as the seat of an eponymous former princely state of covering parts of c ...

deposed Prem Narain, however, Mughal intereference restored the kingdom to Hridayshah. Hridayshah maintained friendly relations with the

Mughals The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

, he spent days at the imperial court in Delhi as well. He moved his capital from Chouragarh to

Ramnagar Ramnagar may refer to the following places: Bangladesh * Ramnagar, Bangladesh, a village in Chittagong Division * Ramnagar Union, Jessore Sadar India Jammu and Kashmir * Ramnagar, Udhampur, a town in Jammu and Kashmir ** Ramnagar Fort Udha ...

district.

Decline

Hriday Shah was the last great king of Garha-Mandla. After his death, no great ruler appeared and court intrigue was common, greatly weakening the state. It ceded away portions of its territory and its revenues were spent to buy off its enemies. One of its feudatories, the Gond rajas of Deogadh, took advantage of the kingdom's weakness subsequent to the temporary Mughal conquest in the early 17th century and annexed a large part of its territories.

Bakht Buland Shah Bakht Buland Shah was a ruler of the Rajgond dynasty. He added to his kingdom, the territories of Chanda and Mandla, and portions of Nagpur, Balaghat, Seoni, Bhandara and the adjoining Rajput kingdom of Kherla/Khedla. The present districts of ...

, the Gond raja of Deogarh, was ceded the district of Seoni, Chauri, Dongartal and Ghansour by Narendra Shah of Mandla for his aid against the latter's cousins. By the time of Maharaj Shah (1732-1742), the kingdom held only 29 out of the initial 52 forts held by his ancestor

. In 1742, ''peshwa''

Balaji Baji Rao Baji Bajirao (8 December 1720 – 23 June 1761), also known as Nana Saheb I, was the 8th Peshwa of the Maratha Confederacy in India. He was appointed as Peshwa in 1740 upon the death of his illustrious father, the Peshwa Bajirao I. During ...

attacked Mandla and killed Maharaj Shah. His son, Shivraj Singh, ascended he throne on the condition that he would pay an annual tribute of 4 lakhs to the Marathas. In 1781 or 1780, Narhar Shah of Mandla was defeated by the Maratha king of Nagpur,

Mudhoji Bhonsle Madhoji Bhonsle was the ruler of the Nagpur kingdom from 1772 to 1788. Reign He reigned from 1772 to 1788. In 1785 he added Mandla Mandla is a city with municipality in Mandla district in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It is the ad ...

and sent to spend the rest of his days at Khurai fort in Saugor. In 1817, Mandla came under British rule. The anthropologist Stephen Fuchs describes- "In 1781 the last Gond ruler of Mandla, Narhar Shah, was tortured to death by the Maratha general Moraji, and Mandla became a dependency of the Saugor Marathas. In 1799 Mandla fell to the Bhonsla king of Nagpur, till in 1818 the British took over and assumed the rule also over Mandla." Shankar Shah, a pensioner of the British, descendent of the rajas of Garha-Mandla and his son Raghunath Shah were arrested of a plot to murder the English residents of

Jabalpur Jabalpur is a city situated on the banks of Narmada River in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. According to the 2011 census, it is the third-largest urban agglomeration in Madhya Pradesh and the country's 38th-largest urban agglomeration. J ...

during the

Revolt of 1857 The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the fo ...

and were executed by

blowing from a gun Blowing from a gun is a method of execution in which the victim is typically tied to the mouth of a cannon which is then fired, resulting in death. George Carter Stent described the process as follows: Blowing from a gun was a reported mean ...

Emblem of Gondwana State

For over a millennium in South Asia, the visual trope of a triumphant lion vanquishing one or several elephants has been common in architectural sculpture, both in the round and in relief. In the rather limited scholarship on this motif, diverse interpretations have been offered. Although its presence has remained fairly stable through time, there exist many minor variations on this motif, including the use of leonine creatures variously described as vyālas or yālīs, and the incorporation of other fantastic creatures known popularly as makaras in such combats. In South India, the myth of the fantastic composite animal called the Śarabha takes this imagery yet further. Yet, the simple image of a lion victorious over one or more elephants was situated very strategically within certain architectural programs for given periods and places. For example,

Gondwana Kingdom Gondwana Kingdom was the ruling kingdom in Gondwana region of India. The Gondwana region includes core region of eastern part of the Vidarbha of Maharashtra, Garha Kingdom the parts of Madhya Pradesh immediately to the north of it, and parts o ...

forts, Deccani forts constructed between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries carried this representation on their barbicans and gateways . While tracing the history of this visual motif.

Administration

Administration of Gondwana was becoming centralised. The kingdom was divided into ''garh'', each ''garh'' was controlled by particular Gond clan. This was further divided into units of 84 villages called ''chourasi''. The ''chourasi'' was further subdivided into ''barhots'' which are made up of 12 villages each.

53 Garh of Gondwana

List of Rulers

Independent rulers

* Kharji (1440-1460) * Gorakshakdas (1460-1480) * Sukhandar (1480-1500) * Arjun Das (150-1513) *

also known as Aman das (1513-1543) *

(1543?-1550) * Rani Durgawati (1550-1564) * Chandra Shah (c. 1589 -?) * Madhukar Shah * Prem Narain * Hridayshah (1634-1668) * Chhatra Shah (1668-1685) * Kesari Shah (1685-1688) * Narendra Shah (1688-1732) * Shahi (1732-1742) * Shivaraj Shah (1742-1749) * Durjan Shah (1749) * Mahipal Shah (1749-1776) * Narhari Shah (1776-1778) * Sumedh Shah (1778-1781)

References

{{Reflist *https://thewire.in/rights/adivasi-religion-recognition-census Ancient empires and kingdoms of India