![Map rajasthan mewar](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Map_rajasthan_mewar.png)
Mewar or Mewad is a region in the south-central part 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 s ...
state of India. It includes the present-day districts of
Bhilwara
Bhilwara () is a city, administrative headquarters in Bhilwara district of the Mewar region of Rajasthan, India. It has been termed as 'Textile city'.
History
Stone Age tools dating from 5,012 to 200,000 years were found in Bundi and Bhil ...
,
Chittorgarh
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 stronghol ...
,
Pratapgarh,
Rajsamand
Rajsamand is a city, located in Rajsamand district of Rajasthan, western India. The city is named for Rajsamand Lake, an artificial lake created in the 17th century by Rana Raj Singh of Mewar. It is the administrative headquarters of Rajsam ...
,
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 cap ...
, Pirawa Tehsil of Jhalawar District 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 s ...
,
Neemuch
Neemuch or Nimach is a town in the malwa region. Neemuch crowns the north western part of MP. It has been also referred to city of Nature and Peace. The town shares its northwestern border with the state of Rajasthan and is the administrati ...
and
Mandsaur
Mandsaur is a city and a municipality in Mandsaur district located on Border of Mewar and Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh state of central India. It is the administrative headquarters of Mandsaur District. The ancient Pashupatinath Temple is l ...
of Madhya Pradesh and some parts of Gujarat.
For centuries, the region was ruled by
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 ...
s. The
princely state of
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 cap ...
emerged as an administrative unit during the period of
British East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...
governance in India and remained until the end of the
British Raj
The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent;
*
* it is also called Crown rule in India,
*
*
*
*
or Direct rule in India,
* Quote: "Mill, who was him ...
era.
The Mewar region lies between the
Aravali Range
The Aravalli Range (also spelled ''Aravali'') is a mountain range in Northern-Western India, running approximately in a south-west direction, starting near Delhi, passing through southern Haryana, Rajasthan, and ending in Ahmedabad Gujarat. T ...
to the northwest,
Ajmer
Ajmer is one of the major and oldest cities in the Indian state of Rajasthan and the centre of the eponymous Ajmer District. It is located at the centre of Rajasthan. It is also known as heart of Rajasthan. The city was established as "' ...
to the north,
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 ...
and the
Vagad
Vagad (also known as Vagar, Hindi: वागड) is a region in southeastern Rajasthan state of western India. Its boundaries are roughly defined by those of the districts of Dungarpur and Banswara. Major cities of the region are Dungarpur an ...
region of Rajasthan to the south, the
Malwa
Malwa is a historical region of west-central India occupying a plateau of volcanic origin. Geologically, the Malwa Plateau generally refers to the volcanic upland north of the Vindhya Range. Politically and administratively, it is also syn ...
region of
Madhya Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the seco ...
state to the south and the
Hadoti
Hadoti is a region of Rajasthan state in western India, which was once called the Bundi Kingdom. The biggest cities are Jhalawar and Kota. It includes the districts of Bundi, Baran, Jhalawar and Kota and is bounded on the west by the Mew ...
region of Rajasthan to the east.
Etymology
The word "Mewar" is vernacular form of "Medapata" (
IAST: Medapāṭa), the ancient name of the region. The earliest epigraph that mentions the word "Medapata" is a 996–997 CE (1053
VS) inscription discovered at Hathundi (
Bijapur). The word "pata" or "pataka" refers to an administrative unit. According to the historian G. C. Raychaudhuri, Medapata was named after the Meda tribe, which has been mentioned in
Varāhamihira
Varāhamihira ( 505 – 587), also called Varāha or Mihira, was an ancient Indian astrologer, astronomer, and polymath who lived in Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh, India). He was born at Kapitba in a Brahmin family, in the Avanti region, roughly co ...
's ''Brihat-Samhita''. The 1460
Kumbhalgarh
Kumbhalgarh (literally "Kumbhal fort") also known as the Great Wall of India is a Mewar fortress on the westerly range of Aravalli Hills, just about 48 km from Rajsamand city in the Rajsamand district of the Rajasthan state in western India. I ...
inscription associates the Medas with Vardhana-giri (modern
Badnor in Mewar region). Historian Sashi Bhusan Chaudhuri associates the ancient Medas with the modern
Mer people
Mer, Maher or Mehar ( Gujarati: ISO 15919: ''Mēr, Mahēr'', ''Mēhar'' Sanskrit: मेर, महेर, मेहर; Gujarati: મેર, મહેર, મેહર; IPA: mer, məher, mehər) is a kshatriya caste from the Saurashtra regi ...
.
The 1285 CE (1342 VS)
Mount Abu
Mount Abu () is a hill station in the Aravalli Range in Sirohi district of the state of Rajasthan in western India.The mountain forms a rocky plateau 22 km long by 9 km wide. The highest peak on the mountain is Guru Shikhar at above ...
(
Achaleshwar) inscription of the
Guhila
Gahlot is a clan of Rajputs Guhilot Rajputs ruled number of Kingdom's including Mewar, Banswara, Dungarpur, Pratapgarh, Shahpura, Bhavnagar, Palitana, Lathi and Vala, The variations of the name include Gehlot, Guhila, Gohil or Guhilot.
Hi ...
king Samarasimha provides the following etymology while describing the military conquests of his ancestor
Bappa Rawal
Bappa Rawal (c. 8th century) was a king of the Mewar kingdom in Rajasthan, India. The bardic chronicles describe him as a member of the Guhila Rajput Clan, and some of them consider him to be the founder of the Guhila dynasty. He is credited ...
(Bappaka): "This country which was, in battle, totally submerged in the dripping fat (''medas'' in
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 ...
) of wicked people by Bappaka bears the name of Śrī Medapāṭa." Historian Anil Chandra Banerjee dismisses this as a "poetic fancy", but acknowledges the 'terrible' battles fought between the Rajputs and the Arabs.
Geography
The northern and eastern portions of Mewar are made up of an elevated plateau while the western and southern portions were rocky and hilly with dense forests.
The watershed divide between drainage of the
Bay of Bengal
The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line betwee ...
and drainage of the
Gulf of Khambhat
The Gulf of Khambhat, historically known as the Gulf of Cambay, is a bay on the Arabian Sea coast of India, bordering the state of Gujarat just north of Mumbai and Diu Island. The Gulf of Khambhat is about long, about wide in the north and u ...
runs almost through the centre of Mewar.
The northern and eastern part of Mewar is a gently sloping plain, drained by the Bedach and
Banas River
The Banas is a river which lies entirely within the state of Rajasthan in western India. It is a tributary of the Chambal River, itself a tributary of the Yamuna, which in turn merges into the Ganga. The Banas is approximately 512 kilometre ...
and its tributaries, which empty northwest into the
Chambal River, a tributary of the
Yamuna River
The Yamuna ( Hindustani: ), also spelt Jumna, is the second-largest tributary river of the Ganges by discharge and the longest tributary in India. Originating from the Yamunotri Glacier at a height of about on the southwestern slopes of Ba ...
. The southern and western part of the region is hilly, and marks the divide between the Banas and its tributaries and the headwaters of the
Sabarmati and
Mahi rivers and their tributaries, which drain south into the
Gulf of Khambhat
The Gulf of Khambhat, historically known as the Gulf of Cambay, is a bay on the Arabian Sea coast of India, bordering the state of Gujarat just north of Mumbai and Diu Island. The Gulf of Khambhat is about long, about wide in the north and u ...
through
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 ...
state. The
Aravalli Range
The Aravalli Range (also spelled ''Aravali'') is a mountain range in Northern- Western India, running approximately in a south-west direction, starting near Delhi, passing through southern Haryana, Rajasthan, and ending in Ahmedabad Gujarat. ...
, which forms the northwestern boundary of the region, is composed mostly of sedimentary rocks, like
marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Marble is typically not foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the term ''marble'' refers to metamorphose ...
and
Kota Stone {{unreferenced, date=August 2010
Kota Stone is a fine-grained variety oKota limestone quarried at Kota district, Rajasthan, India. Hundreds of mines are located in or near the town of Ramganj Mandi and in the Kota district.
The greenish-blue an ...
, which has traditionally been an important construction material.
The region is part of the
Khathiar-Gir dry deciduous forests'
ecoregion
An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of ...
. Protected areas include the
Jaisamand Wildlife Sanctuary, the
Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary
Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary is located in the Rajsamand District of Rajasthan State in western India. It surrounds the Kumbhalgarh fortress and covers an area of . The sanctuary extends across the Aravalli Range, covering parts of Rajsamand ...
, the
Bassi Wildlife Sanctuary, the
Gandhi Sagar Sanctuary and the
Sita Mata Wildlife Sanctuary.
Mewar has a
tropical
The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in
the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...
climate. Rainfall averages 660 mm/year, and is generally higher in the southwest and lower in the northeast of the region. Over 90% of the rain typically falls in the period of June to September every year, during the
southwest monsoon
A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal oscill ...
.
See also
*
Baansi
Baansi is a village in Bari Sadri Tehsil of District Chittorgarh in Rajasthan, India. It was ruled by Rajputs of the Shaktawat clan before independence. Its name derives from the abundance of bamboo (called ''bans'' in Hindi). It is 94 km ...
*
Gogunda
Gogunda is a town and tehsil headquarters of Gogunda Tehsil in Udaipur district, located about in north-west from Udaipur city in the Indian state of Rajasthan. It is situated on a high mountain in Aravalli hills and is reached by crossing a d ...
*
Ajmer-Merwara
Ajmer-Merwara, also known as Ajmir Province and as Ajmer-Merwara-Kekri, was a former province of British India in the historical Ajmer region. The territory was ceded to the British by Daulat Rao Sindhia by a treaty on 25 June 1818.
It was u ...
References
External links
Further reading
* ''Mewar through the ages'', by D. L. Paliwal. Sahitya Sansthan, Rajasthan Vidyapeeth, 1970
* ''The Kingdom of Mewar: great struggles and glory of the world's oldest ruling dynasty'', by Irmgard Meininger. D.K. Printworld, 2000. .
* ''Costumes of the rulers of Mewar: with patterns and construction techniques'', by Pushpa Rani Mathur. Abhinav Publications, 1994. .
{{coord missing, Rajasthan
Regions of Rajasthan
Historical Indian regions