Mehrangarh Fort
Interesting facts
- Rudyard Kipling likened the fort to a palace built by Titans and coloured by the morning sun.
- Its walls rise up to 36 metres high and reach 21 metres thick, and the fort complex covers some 1,200 acres.
- Although founded in 1459, most of the fort standing today was built under Maharaja Jaswant Singh in the 17th century.
- The main entrance, Jai Pol, was built by Maharaja Man Singh in 1806 to celebrate victories over the armies of Jaipur and Bikaner.
- The Dedh Kangra Pol gate still shows the marks of cannonballs fired by besieging Jaipur forces.
- Beside the Loha Pol gate are the handprints of royal women who committed sati after their husbands' deaths.
- Before the fort, the hill was called Bhakurcheeria, the mountain of birds, and its hermit Cheeria Nathji was known as the lord of birds.
- According to legend, the warrior sage Karni Mata laid the fort's foundation stone, as she is also said to have done at Bikaner.
- The rock beneath the fort is a National Geological Monument, exposing volcanic rocks from the last Precambrian igneous activity on the Indian subcontinent.
- Royal howdahs in the museum have a front seat for the ruler and a rear one for a bodyguard disguised as a fly-whisk attendant.
Why it is worth it
Rao Jodha, founder of Jodhpur, moved his capital to this outcrop in 1459 for defensive reasons that were entirely practical — a taller, more isolated rock than the one his old fort at Mandore sat on. The name he gave it, Mehrangarh, "fort of the sun," reached for something less practical: it was a claim to descent from the sun god Surya, the mythical ancestor of his clan, built into the fort's name as a statement of legitimacy as much as a description.
The site wasn't empty when he took it. A hermit named Cheeria Nathji was living on the rock, and when he was forced to move to make way for the fort, he is said to have cursed Rao Jodha and his citadel with permanent water scarcity — a curse that mattered enormously in a desert region where a fort's survival depended entirely on its water supply.
The response to the curse, according to the story still told at the fort, was a foundation sacrifice: a man named Rajaram Meghwal volunteered to be buried alive beneath the cornerstone as it was laid, in the belief that a living sacrifice at the very base of the walls would counteract the hermit's curse. Rao Jodha also built the hermit a temple and a house within the fort itself, hedging his bets between appeasement and sacrifice rather than relying on either alone.
Getting there
4 km from Jodhpur. Jodhpur Airport (JDH) is about 6 km away.
Plan your visit
We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.
Nearby places
- Jaswant Thada 0.9 km · mausoleum
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Mehrangarh is a historic fort located in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India. It stands on a hilltop, rising about 122 m (400 ft) above the surrounding plains, and the complex spans 1,200 acres. It was initially built around 1459 by the Rajput ruler of Rathore clan Rao Jodha, though most of the existing structure is from the 17th century built by his successors. The fort has seven gates, including the main entrance, Jai Pol, built by Maharaja Man Singh to commemorate his victories over the Jaipur and Bikaner armies in 1806. The Fattehpol, commemorates victory of Maharaja Ajit Singh over the Mughals. The English writer and Nobel Prize winner, Rudyard Kipling, described the fort as "a palace that might have been built by Titans and colored by the morning sun."
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