Journey
Rajput forts and palaces
Two architectures on one map. The hill forts were built to be held, and one of them was abandoned rather than reoccupied on a vow; the palaces were built after the Mughal settlement, when defence stopped mattering and display began — and then the merchants who financed it all painted their own houses.
Stops (24)
- Chittorgarh · 1303 · 1535 · 1567
The largest fort in India by area and the one Rajput memory of siege is organised around, precisely because it was lost. Sacked by Alauddin Khalji, by Bahadur Shah of Gujarat and finally by Akbar in 1567, after which Mewar's rulers moved to Udaipur and vowed not to return until it was recovered.
- Kumbhalgarh · 15th century
Thirty-six kilometres of wall wrapped around Aravalli hilltops, built by Rana Kumbha. Maharana Pratap was born here, lost it in 1578 and recovered it in the last year of his life. It is the clearest statement of the Mewar method: not a battle line but a country an army cannot afford to occupy.
- Ranthambore Fort · 1301
A plateau fort above forest, taken by Alauddin Khalji from Hammiradeva after a year's siege — the last Chahamana successor state capable of resisting Delhi in the field. Its fall opened Rajasthan and, through it, the routes to Gujarat and Malwa. A jauhar tradition attaches to its fall, and the tiger reserve that now surrounds it is administered by a different department from the fort inside it.
- Gāgron Fort · 1423 and 1532
Gagron, one of the six Hill Forts of Rajasthan, stands on a spur between two rivers with no ditch because it needs none. It fell twice, and it is also where the bhagat Pipa, a Khichi Chauhan ruler who abdicated to follow Ramananda, came from — a fort in the Guru Granth Sahib.
- Jaisalmer Fort · 12th century onward
A fort still densely inhabited by several thousand people, on the caravan route between the Indus and Delhi, built in yellow sandstone that turns gold at either end of the day. Living inside the walls is its distinguishing feature and its conservation problem: piped water has been destabilising the foundations for decades.
- Mehrangarh & Jodhpur · 1459 onward
Mehrangarh on a sheer rock a hundred and twenty metres above Jodhpur, with seven gates in succession and the Rathore palaces built along the inner face of the walls. The blue-washed houses of the old town below it, and the fort's museum of howdahs and palanquins, are both what the Rathores spent Marwar's caravan revenue on.
- Nagaur Fort · Ghurid, Rathore, Mughal
Nagaur, the fort of the hooded cobra, held in turn by the Ghurids, the Rathores and the Mughals, with palaces and gardens inside a double wall on the flat desert. Its water system of channels and fountains inside the enclosure is the reason a fort in the open Thar could be lived in.
- Khimsar Fort, Nagaur · 16th century
Khimsar, a Rathore fort at the edge of the dunes, built in 1523 by a son of Rao Jodha and lived in by the same family since. It is small, and that is its interest: most of Marwar's fortification was at this scale rather than at Mehrangarh's. Most of Marwar's fortification was at this scale rather than at Mehrangarh's, and it is still the family's house.
- Junagarh Fort, Bikaner · 1589–1594
Junagarh at Bikaner, built by Rai Singh, a general of Akbar's, on flat ground rather than a hill and never taken by siege. The interiors are the point: lacquer, gold leaf, Chinese tiles and glass mirror work accumulated over three centuries by rulers whose income came from the caravan trade.
- Amber Fort · 1592 onward
The Kachhwaha seat before Jaipur, and the clearest instance of Rajput and Mughal architecture merged rather than juxtaposed — mirror work, marble jali, a Mughal charbagh in a hill fort. Man Singh, who commanded Akbar's army against Maharana Pratap at Haldighati, ruled from it. Mirror work, marble jali and a Mughal charbagh inside a hill fort, built by the man who commanded Akbar's army at Haldighati.
- Jaigarh Fort · 1726
Jaigarh on the ridge above Amber, the Kachhwaha arsenal and treasury, with its own cannon foundry inside the walls and the Jaivana — among the largest wheeled cannon ever cast — standing on its bastion. Its rainwater tanks hold six million gallons, which is what let an arsenal sit on a dry ridge.
- Nahargarh Fort, Jaipur · 1734
Nahargarh on the Aravalli crest above Jaipur, built by Jai Singh II as the city's watch and retreat, with a row of identical suites for the maharaja's nine queens each with its own kitchen and stair. It was never attacked, and it was used to move the treasury during the 1857 rising.
- Jaipur walled city · 1727
Jaipur's walled city, laid out on a nine-square grid derived from shastraic planning, with colonnaded bazaar streets of uniform height and an observatory inside it. It is the moment Rajput building stops being about defence: a capital placed on open ground with its fortifications on the hills behind. A capital placed on open ground with its fortifications left behind on the hills.
- City Palace, Jaipur · 1729 onward
The City Palace at the centre of Jai Singh's grid, a set of courtyards and pavilions added to by every Sawai since, with two silver urns made to carry Ganges water to England in 1902. The Chandra Mahal is still the family's residence, which is why only part of it is a museum.
- Hawa Mahal, Jaipur · 1799
The Hawa Mahal, a five-storey screen of nine hundred and fifty-three jharokhas built so that the women of the palace could watch the street without being seen. It is one room deep, has no staircase but ramps, and is a facade rather than a building — which is the clearest possible statement of what it is for.
- Jantar Mantar, Jaipur · 1734
Jai Singh II's observatory inside his own city, the largest and best preserved of his five, with a twenty-seven-metre gnomon accurate to two seconds and an instrument for each zodiac sign. A Rajput ruler built it to reconcile Ptolemaic, Islamic and Sanskrit astronomy against observation. A Rajput ruler built it to reconcile Ptolemaic, Islamic and Sanskrit astronomy against his own observations, in masonry rather than brass.
- Udaipur & the City Palace · 1559 onward
Udaipur and its City Palace, founded after Chittorgarh was abandoned, built along the ridge above Lake Pichola and extended by every Maharana for three hundred years. It is the largest palace complex in Rajasthan, and it exists because a fort was given up rather than retaken. It is the largest palace complex in Rajasthan, and it exists because a fortress was given up rather than retaken.
- Lake Palace, Udaipur · 1746
The Jag Niwas island palace on Lake Pichola, built by Jagat Singh II as a summer retreat on a rock in the water. British officers' families were sheltered on it in 1857. It became a hotel in 1963, which is what happened to a great many of these buildings after the privy purses ended.
- Sajjangarh Monsoon Palace, Udaipur · 1884
Sajjangarh on a hill above Udaipur, begun by Sajjan Singh to watch the monsoon clouds and left unfinished when he died at twenty-five. The intention was an observatory with a nine-storey tower; what stands is an empty shell with the best view in Mewar. The intention was an observatory with a nine-storey tower; what stands is an empty shell with the best view in Mewar.
- Taragarh & the Garh Palace, Bundi · 17th–18th century
Bundi, the Hada Chauhan seat in a narrow valley, with Taragarh above and the Garh Palace built in stages down the hillside. Its Chitrashala holds the most complete surviving programme of Bundi-school wall painting anywhere, and the town has fifty or more stepwells in it. Kipling wrote that the palace was the work of goblins rather than of men, and stayed there while writing part of Kim.
- Bhangarh Fort, Alwar · late 16th century
Bhangarh, a Kachhwaha satellite town laid out on a grid below its fort by Madho Singh, brother of Man Singh of Amber, and abandoned within a century or so. It is now known almost entirely for a ghost story, which is a fair illustration of what happens to a planned town that empties.
- Deeg Palace · 1722 onward
Deeg, the Bharatpur Jats' garden palace between two great tanks, with a monsoon pavilion whose roof channels were built to make artificial rain and a marble swing looted from the Red Fort. The Jats were the one peasant-caste power to build a state and a palace architecture on this scale in the Mughal heartland.
- Lallgarh Palace, Bikaner · 1902–1926
Lallgarh at Bikaner, Swinton Jacob's red-sandstone Indo-Saracenic palace for Ganga Singh, with carved jali screens on a European plan and a billiard room. It is the last phase of this architecture: a Rajput ruler building in a style invented by British architects to look Rajput. It is the last phase of this architecture: a Rajput ruler building in a style British architects had invented to look Rajput.
- Shekhawati painted havelis · c. 1830–1930
Several thousand painted merchant houses across Nawalgarh, Mandawa, Fatehpur, Ramgarh and Churu — the largest concentration of painted architecture in the world. The subjects run from Krishna to steam trains, motor cars and Queen Victoria, because the Marwari families paying for them were trading in Bombay and Calcutta and sent back what they saw.