Udaipur : History

The capital of the erstwhile Mewar State, Udaipur, takes its name from Maharana Udai Singh, who founded the city in 1568 after retreating from the third attack on the city of Chittaur by armies of the Mughal Emperor Akbar. One legend claims that he chose the present location of Udaipur for the capital after a sadhu, or wandering holy man, told him that if he built his capital on the edge of Lake Pichola, it would never be captured. It is likely that the strategic advantages of the surrounding terrain influenced his decision. Raised in the surrounding Aravalli hills, Maharana Udai Singh was familiar with this region. His ancestor and the founder of the Sisodia dynasty of Mewar, Bappa Rawal, had lived here eight centuries earlier.

The old city within the fortifications is built on tiny hills. Narrow medieval roads and winding lanes with small temples at turnings, lend a charm to the city. Interspersed with old dwellings, temples and palaces are new and modern shops, houses, markets and down-to-earth bus-stands. Udaipur is home to various art and cultural centers as well as promoting and supporting rural and local crafts, including jewellery and fabrics. Udaipur is also a religious center having temples dedicated to various deities built at around the same time as were the palaces. Out of over thirty Jain temples, two are among the twenty- four sites of Jain pilgrimage.

Udaipur was once the capital of the powerful state of Mewar and has great pride in being the only one of the seven major Rajput states to have upheld its Hindu allegiance in the face of Muslim invasions. The Mewar household is the longest lasting of all the ruling powers in Rajasthan, and possibly the oldest surviving dynasty in the world. The current ruler is the seventy-sixth in an unbroken line of Mewar rulers dating back to 568 AD

Royal House of Mewar: Legend has it that the Sisodias of Mewar are descended from Lord Rama whose life story is told in India's great epic, the Ramayana. They came from the borders of Kashmir and by the second Century B.C. they had moved south to what is now Gujarat, founding, as they went, several cities along the coast, one of which was called Vallabhai.

The chronicles of the bards tell us that in the sixth century Vallabhai was sacked by strangers from the west. The Queen of Vallabhai, Pushpavati, who was on a pilgrimage offering prayers for her unborn child, heard of the destruction of Vallabhai and the death of her husband while traveling through the Aravalli hills in the north. Despairing, she took refuge in a cave, and there gave birth to a son whom she called Guhil, or "cave born." Then, entrust her child to a maidservant, the queen ordered a funeral pyre lit, and walked into it to join her dead husband's soul. Guhil, or Guhadatta, was befriended by the Bhils, tribal aborigines who had lived in the Aravalli hills since well before 2000 B.C. Amongst the Bhils, Guhadatta grew in power, and became a chieftain. His progeny came to be known as Guhilols.