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Chittor, 1st sack (1303). The great Mewar fortress, CHITTORGARH, served as the capital of the dynasty for over eight centuries. During the final two hundred and sixty five years of its life, the remarkable fort, still the largest in Rajasthan, suffered three long sieges followed by disastrous sacking. Maharana RATAN SINGH I was on the throne of Mewar at Chittorgarh in 1303, the year of the first sack. In Delhi, ALA-UD-DIN KHILJI had murdered his own uncle and taken the throne of the Muslim Khilji dynasty. His ambition was to add all of India, including Rajputana, to his realm. The legendary reason for his attacking Chittor is now one of Mewar's greatest tales: he wanted to add Ratan Singh's beautiful wife (see PADMINI, RANI) to his harem. However, historically, Chittor was on his planned route of conquest to southern India, also too close for comfort to the overland trade route from the western seaports to his northern capital, and too close to the Muslim holy shrine, the tomb of the Sufi (Muslim saint) CHISTI in Ajmer. Early in 1303, when it was learned that Ala-ud-Din was marching to conquer Mewar, villagers from the surrounding plains sought refuge in the fort. Also, the chiefs of the many Mewar clans and their families assembled there to help defend their capital. Among them was Rana LAKSHA of the SISODIA branch of the royal family. Two of his sons who were with him were Prince Ari Singh and his 12-year-old son, Hamir, and Kunwar Ajai Singh and his two sons. To preserve the family line, the nobles decided Ajai Singh would take his own sons and young Hamir to safety at KELWARA (see HAMIR SINGH I, MAHARANA). When Ala-ud-Din Khilji arrived and camped upon the plain below the fort, Ratan Singh and his subjects prepared to wait out the threat of the Imperial force. There were a few minor skirmishes, when small raiding parties galloped down to inflict brief damage upon the enemy, but Chittor with its restricted entry and its solid battlements remained relatively invincible. There is an old saying, "By the sin of the sack of Chittor" (possibly meaning it was a sin to attack such a magnificent fortress and to destroy its grand temples). Some chroniclers state that the fort was sacked three and a half times. The half was the beginning of Ala-ud-Din's attack. Unable to take the fort, he held out on the plain below until he managed to kidnap Rawal Ratan Singh and hold him to ransom. In the subsequent rescue, Chittor's warriors attacked the Muslim's camp. Although the city fortress was not stormed, many of Mewar's best and bravest warriors died. The Sultan of Delhi returned north, strengthened his army, and again besieged Chittor with even greater determination.
When the new siege entered its sixth month, with the fort's provisions almost depleted, the inevitable outcome was obvious: submit or die. As surrender was anathema to Rajput pride, there could be no alternative. Unfortunately, the real horror they faced lay not in death for the men, which was deemed honourable, but in dishonourable rape of the women before they, too, were slaughtered. The Mewar chiefs made a decision, which led to the goriest event in Mewar's history until that time. A huge pile of logs and kindling was stacked in the middle of a low-walled, open area of the fort (the MAHASATI). All of the fort's women, from royalty to maidservants to villagers, along with the children, took a ritualistic cleansing bath in the nearby reservoir, GOMUKH KUND. The pyre was saturated with ghee (butter) and oil, then torched. As the flames roared high into the night sky, the women, bedecked in their finest garments and jewels, bid their menfolk a tearful farewell, and began to chant a funeral dirge. Possibly sedated with opium to numb their senses, and led by Ratan Singh's wives, they filed into the Mahasati and, in turn, leapt on to the pyre. This ritual of mass self-immolation, JAUHAR, was to set a horrendous precedent at Chittorgarh. Well into the early hours of the morning of August 25, 1303, the men stood by, softly singing holy verses from the Bhagavad Gita, paying their final respects, until the huge fire collapsed into glowing embers. As dawn broke, the warriors prepared for shaka (a fight to the finish): they donned saffron tunics (saffron being the holy colour worn for puja, the ultimate time of becoming one with your Creator either in death or in worship ... and this was a do or die situation.) Some reports have them smearing the ashes of their loved ones on their foreheads. They did, however, place a leaf of the sacred tulsi plant in their mouths (ritualistically put in the mouth of every Hindu who dies), then threw open the fort's gates. Uttering terrifying war cries, they galloped down in wave after wave of suicidal charges. Hacking and thrusting, they killed many of Ala-ud-Din Khilji's men before they themselves were cut down. At the end of the morning's melee, the Muslim Sultan gravely surveyed the bloodied battlefield littered with corpses, including those of Ratan Singh, Rana Laksha, and his son, Prince Ari Singh.
Heading the considerable remnants of his army, Ala-ud-Din rode triumphantly up into the fortress. The Sultan, incensed by the stubborn fight put up by the Rajputs, ordered a general massacre of the remaining populace of Chittor. As with all such conquests, the Imperial soldiers went on a rampage of spoliation of the Hindu temples and their shrines. Chittor, the proud capital of the Mewar Dynasty, was destroyed; as was the Mewar Dynasty itself, or so it appeared. Ala-ud-Din then appointed his eldest son Khizr Khan, as the governor of Chittor, and the fortress town was renamed Khizrabad. Ala-ud-Din then returned to Delhi. In 1311, when the refugee band of Mewar nobles from Kelwara led by Ajai Singh, aided by neighbouring Rajput chieftains began attacking traffic to and from the fort, Ala-ud-Din deemed it safer to replace his son with MALDEO, the Rajput chief of Jalore who had joined the Imperial cause. It was not until 1326 that Hamir Singh, still in Kelwara, having duly been crowned the new ruler and taking the title of Maharana, liberated Chittor from Muslim rule. This sack of Chittor was the first successful assault and capture of the fort of which there is any detailed account. However, it was not the first time, since BAPPA RAWAL (734-753) established it as the capital of Mewar that the bastion had been taken. It is believed that the Paramaras from neighbouring Malwa captured Chittor from Rawal ALLAT (951-953), forcing him to relocate the Mewar capital to the ancient city of AHAR. The Paramaras held Chittor for about two hundred years until Rawal JAITRA SINGH (1213-1253) retook the fortress capital. The second sack of Chittor occurred in 1534. The third and final sack, in 1567/68, ended what had been a glorious existence of this ancient bastion.
Chittor, 2nd sack (1534). The first sack of CHITTORGARH had occurred in 1303, when Sultan Ala-ud-Din Khilji, the Muslim ruler of Delhi captured it in his campaign to control all of India. Although beaten, Mewar managed to regain its prominence in Rajputana. Two hundred and thirty years later, in 1533, a Muslim army again attacked the Mewar capital, this time from the south. At the time, Maharana VIKRAMADITYA II, a son of Maharana Sangram Singh I had been on the throne for two years. It was widely known that there was discord among Mewar's nobles because of their hostile treatment by the teenage Maharana, and it had seriously weakened the government. At the time, Bahadur Shah, the sultan of Gujarat was eager to avenge the earlier defeat and captivity of his predecessor Muzaffar by Kunwar Prithvi Raj. (The prince took Muzaffar back to Maharana Raimal who exacted a large sum of money and seven hundred horses as ransom.) Bahadur Shah decided to take advantage of the division at Chittor and annex Mewar ... also, he was lured by the wealth of Chittor's recently excavated silver mines (see ZAWAR MINES). He launched a full-scale attack against Mewar. It was averted because of the initiative of Rajmata (Queen Mother) KARMAVATI. Temporarily appeased, Bahadur Shah returned to Gujarat. However, the respite was brief. The following year, 1534, he returned with a vengeance, this time supported by Portuguese mercenaries.
Once again, Mewar's chiefs assembled at Chittor to protect their capital. Rawat Bagh Singh came from his capital of Deolia in Pratapgarh province. The heir of Bundi also came with five hundred Haras, as did Sonigira of Jalore and Deora Raos of Mount Abu. As the enemy neared, to ensure the line of succession and to provide the fort with a possible second line of attack, Maharana Vikramaditya and a small band of warriors left the fort and headed north to use the kingdom of Bundi as a staging ground. However, by tradition, as royalty could only defend the capital, the nobles crowned Bagh Singh of Deolia as the temporary representative of the Maharana. Bahadur Shah and his army arrived and the onslaught began. The various Mewar chiefs and their troops were assigned positions inside the fort and at the gateways on the entrance road. Bagh Singh took charge of the second gateway Bhairon Pol, Solanki Bhairondas of Desuri took charge of the third gate, Hanuman Pol, and Jhala Sajja and Siha were on Ganesh Pol, the fourth gateway. Occasional raiding parties stormed down from the fort, inflicted as much damage as they could to the enemy and returned to the fortress. Rajmata Karmavati is alleged to have sent a RAKHI BRACELET to the Mughal emperor, HUMAYUN, begging for his support to save her family and her realm. Bahadur Shah based his hopes of victory on hired European artillerymen and engineers. A Portuguese sapper dug a tunnel into the western escarpment of the hill, reaching a point below the foundations of the major bastion. Explosives were packed into the excavation and were detonated. The force of the explosion shattered a large section of the wall and the bastion where the Hara troops were posted; most of them were killed in the blast. Rao Durga, plus the Choondawat chieftains, Sata and Dudu and their vassals, immediately moved in to defend the breach and repelled many attacks.
Meanwhile, Maharana Vikramaditya and his small force in the north soon came under attack. A force from Mandu (capital of the eastern kingdom of Malwa, another Muslim-ruled State), marched against the Maharana, who was then encamped at Loicha in Bundi territory. Though the enemy was overwhelming, Vikramaditya did not hesitate to give battle. However, he found his mercenary paiks (soldiers) were weak defenders. Also, his Rajput vassals and kin not only kept aloof, but also marched off in a body to defend Chittor and the youngest son of Sanga, Udai, who was still an infant. But nobles in Chittor had already acted in this regard. With the besiegers gaining ground every day, the last council was convened in the fort, eager to save Udai from the imminent peril. During a lull in the fighting, the child was smuggled out of Chittor and taken to safety with the Prince of Bundi, Chakasen Dhundera, Bundi being the original home of the Queen Mother. Several months later, Rajmata Karmavati finally realised her attempt to win support from Emperor Humayun had been in vain and, with the fort's provisions running low, there would be only one outcome.
When all hope was gone, the fort's women committed JAUHAR. Thus, for a second time in the history of Chittorgarh the women (allegedly thirteen thousand of them, led by the Queen Mother) sacrificed themselves in the flames. During the night, the marble palaces, temples and ramparts glowed golden in the light of the funeral pyres, and from this glow the watching Mughals knew that in the morning the Rajput warriors would charge from the fort to die by the sword in their last mortal combat. The following morning, the gates were thrown open and the Deolia chief and the fort's survivors, dressed in their saffron robes, galloped down the zigzag road from the fort, wielding their swords and yelling their spirited war cries. Every clan lost its chief and the majority of their men; thirty-two thousand Rajputs were slain. Among the notable chieftains lost that day were Rawat Bagh Singh of Deolia, Sain Das Choondawat, Hada Arjun, Rawat Satta, Sonagra Mala, Dodiya Bhand, Bhairav Das Solanki, Jhala Sazza, and Rawat Narbad.
Some reports, which undoubtedly consider the rakhi bracelet story to be true, state that Emperor Humayun, true to his pledge, intervened, ousting Bahadur Shah and restoring the citadel to Maharana Vikramaditya, even to investing the Maharana with a sword in the capital. Other chronicles say that Vikramaditya and a force of Mewar's allies stormed their fallen capital, and forced Bahadur Shah to beat a hasty retreat. More likely, two weeks after taking Chittor, Bahadur Shah heard about Humayun's presence in Mewar en route to attack his own kingdom. The Gujarat sultan was forced to abandon the fortress, foiled in his bloody attempt to annex Mewar, and retire ... only to face his own annexation by the Imperial army. Maharana Vikramaditya returned to continue his reign. Unfortunately, he also continued to treat his nobles abominably. He was hated; but his actions were tolerated, superficially, only because, following the widespread slaughter in the recent invasion, there was no other member of the royal family adequate enough to replace him. Twelve-year-old Udai Singh, who had been brought back from Bundi, though next in line for the throne was still too young. Although there had been precedents, those dangerous times demanded the wisdom and leadership of a mature ruler. Sadly for Mewar, Vikramaditya was not mature enough. The third and final sack of Chittor occurred a mere twenty-five years later, and spelled its end as the historic capital of Mewar.
Chittor, 3rd sack (1567-1568), often called 'The Final Disaster for Chittor', an apt appellation. In 1657, the son of Maharana Sangram Singh I, Maharana UDAI SINGH II was ruling Mewar from Chittor; Emperor AKBAR was on throne of Delhi. Mewar and the Mughals had been in direct conflict only once before, at the Battle of KHANWA (1527), when the new Mughal emperor BABUR defeated a Rajput confederacy led by Maharana SANGRAM SINGH I. However, Akbar was determined to unite India, which meant the suppression of Rajputana. Elsewhere he had conquered Hindu kingdoms with "kind words and mild measures", but the hereditary pride of the Rajputs was not so easily overcome. He knew that often the best way to persuade such stubbornness was by physical conquest. Udai Singh left Akbar in no doubt as to his hostility by sheltering Sultan Baz Bahadur when he was driven out of Malwa by the Imperial army. This was the excuse Akbar needed, if an excuse was necessary. He began his campaign by capturing Ranthambhor north of Mewar, and laying waste to the surrounding countryside. When it was known that the Mughals were then marching upon the greatest fort in Rajputana to attack the Rajput's most respected king, they hastened to Chittor to help defend it. The most important was Jaimal, a Rathore of Badnore in Marwar. When other Rajas and clan chieftains arrived and tendered their allegiance to the Maharana, Udai Singh was confident that he was secure in his rocky fortress. With this force assembled at Chittor, Maharana Udai Singh called a war council to plan his strategy. A second force would be necessary, operating from the cover of the hills beyond the fort, to disrupt the Mughal supply lines. It could also strengthen its numbers by employing many of the brave and loyal tribesmen of the area. The chiefs voted that the Maharana lead this small band himself. Udai Singh appointed Jaimal Rathore, Patta Sisodia of Amet, Kalla, and Sain Das as his army chiefs, and retired to the western Aravalli Hills. Some chroniclers have accused Udai Singh of cowardice by fleeing in the face of the enemy, an act unworthy of the House of Mewar. Had he been a coward, as suggested, he could easily have followed other Rajput princes and accepted subjugation by the Mughals. Besides, the chiefs of Mewar were adamant that Udai Singh and his immediate family must quit the fort; his life (and thus the preservation of the dynasty's line) was of utmost importance. Other writers justify this move by claiming he learned from his traumatic childhood that discretion is preferable to valour, which is why he quit the fort.
On October 25, 1567, Akbar arrived below Chittor, and encamped over an area of 6 km. on plains surrounding the fortress. In the field, Akbar erected the green banner of Islam, and pitched his tent, around which his legions were marshalled. He also erected a fine pyramidal column, the Chiraghdan or Akbar-ka-dewa (both meaning Akbar's lamp). It was formed of large blocks of compact limestone, 10 m. high, each face being 4 m. at the base, and gradually tapering to the summit, where it was about 1 m. wide. An interior staircase led to the top. A huge lamp (chirag) was placed on this to serve as a beacon denoting the Imperial headquarters. At first, Akbar thought he could never take this huge castle, standing on its isolated crag, almost 122 m. high, and with almost perpendicular sides towards the top. Chittor was indeed an immense fortress, well supplied with provisions, wells, and water-tanks, and garrisoned by eight thousand Rajput veterans. As well they might, the fort's garrison laughed at the slender forces-three to four thousand-which the emperor had brought against a massive fortress. Unbeknown to them, however, the Mewaris were dealing with a skilful engineer, and Akbar made his placements with great care. Batteries of cannon were set up encircling the fort, and a strict blockade was established. He began by softening up the fort with an initial barrage of heavy shelling, which went on for months, but cannon fire had no effect on the massive ramparts. Wherever there was damage Jaimal had it repaired overnight. The Emperor then charged the walls, and failed. He had heard of Chittor's invincibility; now, experiencing the fortress for the first time, he discovered just how inaccessible and superior it really was. All cavalry and foot soldiers attempting the long, winding entrance roadway were easy targets for sharpshooters on the battlements. Further, its massive gates and solid bastions stopped any that succeeded in scaling the heights. The Rajputs fought with great courage in repelling this initial attack; Akbar narrowly escaped death several times. The Emperor fell back to revise his plans. He had to annihilate Chittorgarh; the domination of all Rajputana now depended on this one victory. He could either besiege the Rajputs and starve them out until they had to surrender ... or he could find the wall's weakest section, then bombard that until he breached its legendary impregnability. He decided upon a combination of both.
After surveying the situation, he decided to concentrate on the southern end of the fort, which was not as high. There he built a large earthen mound to give his cannons a sufficiently effective height. This was the now-famous Mohur Magri, so named because Akbar paid a gold coin (a mohur) to each soldier for every basket of soil the man added to the mound. During the months of construction that followed, small Rajput guerilla forces continually raided his supply line from the north. Akbar carried on, undaunted; he wanted Maharana Udai Singh, and the sooner the better. Little did he realise the irony of that situation in that the Maharana himself quite possibly led the raiders. Realising his attacks were ineffective, Akbar then ordered land mines to be laid, but Jaimal's counter-attacks inflicted heavy damage to Akbar's sappers. It is said that thousands of Mughal soldiers and artisans were killed and their corpses were used for erecting walls in place of bricks and stones. An historian of Akbar's time, Mulla Ahmad wrote:
From day to day the gallant assailants brought their attacks closer to the fort on every side, though many fell under the resolute fire of the defenders. Orders were given for digging trenches and making sabats, and nearly 5,000 builders, carpenters, masons, smiths, and sappers were mustered from all parts. Sabats are contrivances peculiar to Hindustan, for the strong forts of that land are full of guns, muskets and defensive machines, and can only be taken by this means. A sabat is a broad covered way, under the shelter of which the besiegers approach a fortress protected from gun and musket fire. Two sabats were accordingly begun; one, opposite the royal quarters, was so broad and high that 2 elephants and 2 horses could easily pass abreast, with raised spears. The sabats were begun from the brow of the hill (i.e., halfway up, below the perpendicular scarp) which is a fortress upon a fortress.
Chittor's horsemen and gunners attempted to stop the work, and in spite of the bull-hide roofs over the labourers, one hundred or so were killed every day. There was no forced labour, by Akbar's orders, but the volunteers were stimulated again by gifts of money. Soon one of the sabats was as high as the fort's wall, and on its roof space was made where the emperor could watch the battle. The sabats were mined with gunpowder. A storming party was drawn up in assault readiness. The first mine blew a bastion into the air, and the Mughals rushed into the breach, shouting their war cry. Soon they were in hand-to-hand combat with the garrison. At that moment the second mine, owing to a miscalculation or stray sparks, exploded and sent the struggling crowd in the breach into the air. The charge was so heavy that stones and corpses were hurled "miles away" (according to the historian), and the Imperial army was half blinded by the dust and smoke. The assault continued for two nights and one day; at last Akbar's army had to retreat. The first approach had failed: Akbar now ordered the damaged sabat to be pushed forward. He was more resolved than ever to take the fort by storm "so that in future no other fortress should dare to withstand him". Each night he took up his position in the gallery on the top of the sabat as before, armed with his matchlock (which, interestingly, he called Sangram) firing at every light that flashed within the fortress. One evening, at the hour of evening prayer, Jaimal mounted one of the bastions, the Lakhoti Bari, to inspect the repairs. Akbar was on his platform atop the sabat. Suddenly a blaze of light revealed Jaimal. Akbar saw him and correctly assumed he was a Mewar officer. Renowned as a crack shot, the Emperor carefully aimed his matchlock and fired. Jaimal fell, his thigh smashed by the musket ball. The blow signalled the end of the Rajputs' spirited resistance, but again surrender was out of the question.
Jaimal handed leadership of the fort over to Patta of Amet. Fighting continued ceaselessly until February 23 the following year, when the fort's provisions were running low. The end that Akbar had planned was in sight. He sent word that he was prepared to discuss terms for lifting the siege, so Patta sent two nobles, Sahib Khan Chauhan of Kotharia and Dodia Sanda of Sardargarh, down to the Mughal camp meet with the Emperor. The negotiators were unable to reach an agreement acceptable to both sides but the Mughal emperor was so impressed with the character and loyal bearing of the two Rajput nobles he expressed his wish to grant them a favour. The Rajputs explained that those fighting for Mewar were Hindus and, if they were defeated in the battle the following day, there would be none left to give them a Hindu funeral, because it was tradition of Rajputs to fight to the death rather than surrender. Their favour, therefore, was that Akbar promise to cremate Mewar's dead. Akbar agreed. The following day, provisions ran out. Patta consulted the wounded Jaimal; they made a decision-and arranged for JAUHAR. As had happened twice before, timber was stacked in the centre of the MAHASATI and dowsed with oil. During the day, nine queens, five princesses, and the families of all nobles who were not at their estates perished in the flames. All warriors donned their saffron robes and took the TULSI leaf; then they waited for the sunrise.
February 25, 1568; as the first rays of the sun crept across the Chittor plain, the Imperial army again attacked. Akbar looked on from the top of the sabat. The odds were overwhelming. Jaimal, already near death from loss of blood, was determined to die fighting. He was hoisted upon the shoulders of his cousin, Kalla. They moved to be with Patta at the head of the greater part of the garrison, all clad in saffron. The gates were thrown open and they made their suicide charge, straight into the front lines of the enemy already stationed along the roadway. When Akbar beheld Jaimal and Kalla, he thought for a moment the vanguard was being led by none other than the Hindu god Vishnu, with four arms wielding weapons. Linked together, both fought their way down from the top of the fort. In the melee, Kalla was beheaded but Jaimal continued fighting as best he could until he was also killed near the second gate, Bhairon Pol (where two memorial chhatris remind us of their glorious deaths). The teenage Patta fought bravely and, although on foot, attacked the war elephants Akbar had sent in. A maddened elephant caught him in its trunk, dashed him to the ground, and then crushed him underfoot. The Imperial soldiers poured through the breach. The remaining Rajputs still in the fort-clan members and their servants, and local villagers who had gone to the fort for safety-fought every step; each lane and street and bazaar and even the main temple became an arena of total slaughter. Two thousand Rajputs were killed by midday; their total death toll was at least eight thousand men, besides their families; the rest were made prisoners.
Finally, Akbar rode into Chittorgarh, the magnificent capital of Mewar to find deserted buildings and monuments shrouded in the curling smoke of jauhar. He ordered the destruction and burning of its palaces and temples. The glory and grandeur of this ancient fortress ended in gross ignominy. Akbar's siege had lasted about four months, from October 25, 1567 to February 25, 1568; the sack took less than a day. Akbar was so impressed by Jaimal and Patta' gallantry and courage that, when he returned to Agra he honoured them by erecting statues of two elephants, one either side of the main gate of the Red Fort. Seated on one was a likeness of Jaimal; on the other, Patta. European writer Bernier: "These two elephants mounted by the two heroes have an air of grandeur and inspire me with an awe and respect which I cannot describe." (The elephants remain, but the two figures were discovered around 1863, buried under rubble inside the fort, and are now in the Delhi Museum.) Having destroyed Rajputana's foremost stronghold, Akbar now found it easier to annex all of the Rajput kingdoms, except one. He had conquered Chittor, but not Mewar: Maharana Udai Singh and his family were still alive. Nevertheless, Akbar remained determined to achieve his ambition of ruling all India. Mewar would be the Rajput fly in his Imperial ointment ... and it had yet to produce its greatest hero, Udai Singh's heir, Pratap Singh. Chittorgarh was now under Mughal control, but it had become untenable in the face of explosives and artillery. Maharana Udai Singh relocated Mewar's capital to the south amidst the Aravalli Hills near Pichola Lake, and named it after himself: Udaipur.
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