Ranthambhor
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Ranthambhor
(Ranastambhapura or ' the place of the pillar war '). Famous fort in the Sawai Madhopur mzdmat in the sowCh-east corner of the State of Jaipur, Rajputana, situated in 26 & N. and 76 28' E., on an isolated rock 1,578 feet above sea-^evel, and sur- rounded by a massive wall strengthened by towels and bastions. Within the enclosure are the remains of a palace, a mosque with the tomb of a Muhammadan saint, and barracks x for the garrison. The place is said to have been held by a branch of the Jadon Rajputs till they were expelled by the famous PrithwT Raj m the twelfth century, when the Chauhan Rajputs took possession. Altamsh, the third king of the Slave dynasty, seized the fort in 1226, but held it only for a time. In 1290 or 1291 Jalal-ud-dm Khilji, and m 1300 an army sent by Ala-ud-dln, both besieged the place without success. Ala-ud-dm then proceeded m person against the fort, and eventually took it m 1301, putting the Raja, Hamlr Deo Chauhan, and the garrison to the sword. It was subsequently wrested from the sovereign of Delhi, perhaps during the distractions consequent on the invasion of Timur at the close of the fourteenth century, and in 1516 is mentioned as belonging to Malwa. Shortly afterwards it was taken by Rana Sangram Singh of Mewar, but it was made over to the emperor Babar
VOL. xxi, Q in 1528. About twenty-five years latei its Musalman governor sur- lendered it to the chief of Bundi, and it passed into the possession of Akbar about 1569 Accounts differ as to the manner in which this came about. According to the Musalman historians, the emperoi besieged it in person and took it in a month , but the Bundi bards say that the siege was ineffectual, and that he obtained by stratagem what he had failed to secure by force of aims. In Akbar's reign Rantham- bhoi became the first sarkar 01 division in the province of Ajmer, and consisted of no less than eighty-three mahals 01 fiefs, in which weie included not only Kotah and Bundi and their dependencies, but most of the territory now constituting the State of Jaipui On the decay of the Mughal empire, towaids the end of the seventeenth century, the fort was made ovei by its governor to the Jaipur chief, to whom it now belongs.
