It is always pleasant when, after the publication of the first article, you are asked to continue the topic and give it a continuation. So after the material about the Kumbhalgarh fort, I was asked to tell about the Chittorgarh mentioned in it - a fortress that clearly deserves attention. And here both I and the readers of VO can be said to be lucky. It is always pleasant to write about something, having at hand both photographs and information directly "from there". I myself have not been to Chittorgarh, but a close friend of my daughter's visited it and brought me a whole disk of wonderful photographs. For a long time he lay idle with me, and finally "his hour has come."
Last time at the beginning of the article about the mighty Indian fort Kumbhalgarh (https://topwar.ru/116395-kumbhalgarh-fort-kumbhal-velikaya-indiyskaya-stena.html) it was said that he himself is the second largest after the fort Chittorgarh in Rajasthan, and it was built by the Rajput ruler Ran Kumbha, along with several other fortresses. Moreover, Rana Kubha personally developed plans for 32 of them. But what about the Chittorgarh fort, and who are the Rajputs in general? Let's start with the latter, because their story is very interesting and instructive in its own way.
Fort Chittorgarh. This is how it looks from below from the valley.
But this is a very funny picture: this is the slope of the surrounding area on the outskirts of the fort. The man, apparently, decided to “cut off” his path and went straight up.
The word "rajput" comes from the Sanskrit "raja putra", which means "the son of the rajah", that is, "the son of the lord." As for the question of the ethnic origin of the Rajputs, scholars are still debating about it. Western European historians believe they migrated to India from Central Asia sometime between the 1st and 6th centuries AD. The Indians have their own version, according to which they came from North India and represented the caste of "Kshatriyas" (warriors), and they were called "Rajputs" in the early Middle Ages.
Rajput war elephant. The drawing dates back to 1750–1770 and was made in the city of Kota, Rajasthan.
Be that as it may, the Rajputs were indeed distinguished by their belligerence, and therefore, already from the 9th century, they played an active role in political life in northern India. At the same time, their name was surrounded by an aura of masculinity, since if the situation was hopeless for them, then the Rajputs did not stop before committing jauhar - ritual mass suicide. The only worthy occupation for a Rajput man could only be military affairs. For a real Rajput, neither agriculture nor trade were unworthy, and he was not even recommended to be overly involved in religion. Although the Rajputs were Hindus, they were not only not forbidden, but were obliged to eat meat and drink wine in order to maintain their belligerence. The traditional weapons of the Rajputs were the Khanda broad-bladed swords.
The Rajput sword is khanda.
Already in the early Middle Ages, shortly after the fall of the Gupta empire (647), they owned most of northern India, where they created many small principalities, which were ruled by the leaders of the 36 main Rajput clans.
Rajput helmet from the Albert Hall Museum in Jaipur.
When the Muslim conquerors of the Rajput poured into northern India in the 10th century, due to their fragmentation, they could not provide them with a proper rebuff because of their civil strife. But the conquerors did not manage to Islamize them, and the original Indian religions - Jainism and Hinduism - survived in the Rajput principalities.
18th century warrior outfitfrom Rajasthan: chilta khazar masha (robe of a thousand nails), kuhah hud (helmet), gang base (bracers), tulwar (sword). National Museum of India, New Delhi.
Naturally, this is precisely why the Muslim rulers of the Mughal empire treated the Rajputs extremely negatively (after all, Islam commanded them to kill those who worship many gods, and even more so many-armed and elephant-headed ones!). Therefore, at the beginning of the XIV century, they made an attempt to destroy the Rajput state, or at least to weaken it greatly. The Rajputs were defeated by Babur at the Battle of Khanua (1527), and his grandson Akbar (1568-1569) captured many of their fortresses. Bowing to the strength of the strong, the Rajput feudal lords (with the exception of the rulers of the Mewar region) went into the service of the Great Mughals, but bargained from them for the right to maintain their autonomy within the empire.
Maharana Pratap Singh, legendary ruler of Mevara of the 16th century.
And everything would have been good after that if Sultan Aurangzeb had not turned out to be such a zealous Muslim and had not taken up the forcible conversion of Hindus to Islam. In addition, he introduced a "tax on faith," a tax on Hindu pilgrimages, banned the construction of Hindu temples, and did not begin to convert existing ones into mosques. In addition, he pursued a policy of discriminating against Hindus in the army and squeezing them out of trade and public service, that is, hitting those who were always very dangerous to hurt: merchants and officials. All this caused numerous uprisings throughout the Mughal Empire, which were very difficult to suppress. And then the Rajputs went even further. In exchange for preserving local autonomy and protection from the raids of fierce Afghans, at the beginning of the 19th century, they entered into a treaty with the British and agreed to transfer to British jurisdiction. In 1817 - 1818. the British government gradually entered into such treaties with almost all the Rajput principalities. As a result, British rule spread to the entire territory of Rajputana - that is, the land of the Rajputs, and after India gained independence, Rajputana became the Indian state of Rajasthan. It is interesting that during the years of the Great Uprising, known in Russia as the Sepoy Uprising, the Rajputs supported the British, and not their brothers in faith - the rebels!
Rajput Notable 1775 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
The history of the fort itself Chittorgarh ("garh" just means the fort, it was originally called Chitrakut) is rooted in the depths of centuries. Legends have been preserved that the ruler of Guhila, named Bappa Raval, captured the fortification that was in its place as early as 728 or 734 AD. One of them, however, says that he received it as a dowry. Some historians question the historicity of this legend, arguing that the ruler of Guhila did not yet control Chittor. Whatever it was, but we can assume that already in the VIII century some kind of fortress was here.
Fort Chittorgarh in 1878. Painting by Marianne (1830-1890). The British willingly visited Rajputana, and their artists painted pictures of the exotic there.
And then, from the 8th to the 16th century, Chittorgarh was the capital of the state of Mewar, which was controlled by the Rajput clan of Sisodia. The fortress became the object of attack by Muslim armies three times: in 1303, the troops of the Delhi sultan Ala ad-din Halji approached it, in 1534-1535 it was the Sultan of Gujarat Bahadur-shah, and in 1567-1568 the army of Akbar himself reached Chittorgah Great.
Siege of the fortress of Chittor in 1567. A mine explosion under the wall of the fortress. Mughal miniature from "Akbar-name". 1590-1595 Victoria and Albert Museum, London
And in all these cases, when the fortress was about to fall under the onslaught of the enemy, its defenders preferred death for themselves and ritual self-immolation for all members of their families to surrender at the mercy of the victor. Well, when in 1568 Chittorgarh was thoroughly destroyed by Shah Akbar, the capital of Mewara was moved to Udaipur.
Battle scene. Bhagavata Purana. Central India. 1520-1540, Kronos Collection, New York.
Today Fort Chittor (as the British call it) or Chittorgarh (as the Indians call it) is the largest of all forts in India and is downright a unique monument of medieval Indian architecture and military architecture. Its total territory covers an area of … 305 hectares, and together with the buffer zone - 427 hectares. All Chittorgarh fortifications are located on an isolated rocky plateau about 2 km long and 155 m wide, which in turn rises 180 meters above the plain. As for the length of the walls of the fort, in terms of having the shape of a fish, it is equal to 13 km.
Fort Derawar, which belonged to the Bhatti Rajput dynasty. It is located in the modern Bahawalpur region of Pakistan. Semicircular bastions protruding from the wall were a feature of the Rajput fortress architecture.
It is interesting that almost all the walls, together with semicircular bastions, were erected so that almost sheer cliffs of a rocky plateau went down directly behind them. Therefore, they were not built as powerful as in Kumbhalgarh, and there was no need for this. A winding mountain road more than one kilometer long, leading from the city in the valley to the main gate of the Ram Pol fort, allows you to climb to the fort. There are other roads as well. But not everyone uses it. There is also a road inside the fort, which allows you to get to all the gates and monuments located already inside the fortress walls. In total, there are seven gates leading to the fortress. All of them were built by the ruler of Mewara Rana Kumbha (1433-1468) and are named after the hills located here: Paidal Pol, Bhairon Pol, Hanuman Pol, Ganesh Pol, Jorla Pol, Lakshman Pol and Ram Pol.
View from the fort to the city located at its foot.
Since 2013, it has been one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, so now not only India, but the whole world must take care of preserving it for our future descendants. It is not too difficult to get to as it is located halfway from Delhi to Mumbai and is connected to the national highway number 8 and in addition the railway. The railway station is located six kilometers from the fort, the bus station is three kilometers away.
Rajput Shield.
There are a lot of different interesting structures inside the fort. These are actually its walls and bastions, temples and palaces, but, perhaps, the most amazing thing is … its reservoirs. Here, at an altitude of 180 m, you simply cannot expect to meet such a mass of water. Moreover, in the beginning there were 84 reservoirs, of which only 22 have survived to this day. They are arranged so that they feed on natural drainage basin and precipitation and represent a storage volume of four billion liters, which can fully satisfy the need for water for an army of 50 000 people who could freely hide behind its walls and use the territory of the fort as a base camp!
One of the surviving reservoirs of the fort.
In addition, here you can see and inspect 65 different historical buildings, including four palace complexes, 19 ancient temples, and much more. There is also an interesting museum that houses an impressive collection of Indian weapons, restaurants, souvenir shops - in short, everything a modern tourist needs. True, an Indian will pay only five rupees to enter here, but a foreigner will pay 100!
Surai Pol - gate to the courtyard.
Archaeologists managed to find out that the earliest fortification on one of the hills was built in the 5th century and then was consistently upset until the 12th century. The second part of the defensive fortifications was built in the 15th century. In addition to the palace complex, located at the highest point in the western part of the fort, there are many temples, such as the Kubha Shyam Temple, the Mira-Bai Temple, the Adi Varah Temple, the Sringar Chauri Temple and the Vijaya Stamba Memorial. The walls of the fort, with semicircular bastions built into them, are made of masonry with lime mortar.
The bastions and walls of Chittor do not look as powerful as in Kumbhalgarh, but, nevertheless, they are very interesting for their architecture. With the arrangement of the machicules, they resemble the keep of the Château Gaillard in France. They are built into the wall parapet and allow you to shoot straight down and to the sides. But the stones thrown from them rolled along the wall and then flew off to the sides. There are no gaps between the teeth, but there are loopholes in the teeth themselves.
The gate leaves are seated with spikes …
