Chittor Fort

Feel the road tilt under your feet. The climb to Chittor Fort winds up a long ridge of rock, through gate after gate, each one heavier and darker than the last. Warm stone presses close on both sides. Somewhere above, monkeys scramble along the walls, and the wind carries dust and the faint sound of temple bells. By the time you reach the top, the plains of southern Rajasthan spread out below you, flat and wide. This is the reason the fort exists.

Chittor sits on a narrow plateau that rises sharply from the surrounding land. The fort covers nearly 700 acres. That makes it one of the largest fortified sites in India. It is less a single castle and more a walled city on a hilltop, with palaces, temples, towers, reservoirs and open ground. In 2013, UNESCO listed it as part of the Hill Forts of Rajasthan, a group of six forts built by Rajput dynasties. The Rajputs were warrior clans who ruled much of this region for centuries.

For a long time, Chittor was the capital of Mewar. Mewar was a Rajput kingdom ruled by the Guhila dynasty and later by its Sisodia branch. The rulers carried the title Rana or Maharana. Their pride rested on one idea above all others: they would not bow to outside powers. That pride shaped everything that happened on this hill. It brought glory to Chittor. It also brought the armies that came, again and again, to break its walls.

The approach you just climbed is guarded by a series of gates, called pols in the local language. Their names include Ganesh Pol, Hanuman Pol, Bhairon Pol and Ram Pol. Each gate turns the road at an angle. This was deliberate. An enemy army could not charge straight up the slope, and war elephants could not build up speed against the doors. Look closely at some gateways and you may notice small memorial stones. They mark places where defenders fell.

Chittor is remembered for three great sieges. The first came in 1303, when Alauddin Khalji, the Sultan of Delhi, captured the fort. The second came in 1535, when Bahadur Shah, the Sultan of Gujarat, attacked. The third and final siege came in 1567 and 1568, under the Mughal emperor Akbar. Each time, the fort fell. And each time, the story people remember is not the defeat itself, but how the people inside chose to face it.

Here is the hardest part of Chittor's history. When defeat seemed certain, the women of the fort sometimes performed jauhar. Jauhar was a mass self-immolation, chosen instead of capture by an enemy army. The men then rode out to fight to the death, in a final charge called saka. Historians record jauhar at Chittor during more than one siege. In 1535, it is associated with Rani Karnavati. This is not a romantic story. It is a grim one, and many visitors fall silent when they learn it.

The most famous name linked to Chittor is Rani Padmini, also called Padmavati. Legend has it that her beauty drew Alauddin Khalji to the fort. Her story became widely known through a poem called Padmavat, written in 1540 by the Sufi poet Malik Muhammad Jayasi. That was more than two centuries after the siege. Historians still debate how much of her story is history and how much is poetry. Locals, though, hold her memory close, and her name is spoken everywhere on this hill.

Now turn your eyes to the tallest structure on the plateau. This is the Vijay Stambha, the Tower of Victory. Rana Kumbha built it in the fifteenth century to mark a victory over the Sultan of Malwa, a neighbouring kingdom. The tower rises nine storeys. Here is what most visitors miss. Almost every surface is carved. Gods, goddesses, musicians, dancers and animals cover the stone from bottom to top. Some carvings even include inscriptions naming the craftsmen who worked on it.

Not far away stands a smaller, older tower, the Kirti Stambha, or Tower of Fame. It is a Jain monument, dedicated to Adinath, the first of the Jain spiritual teachers called tirthankaras. It is generally dated to around the twelfth century, so it is older than the Tower of Victory. Many people assume the two towers belong together. In fact, they come from different centuries and different faiths. Together, they show that Chittor was never home to one community alone.

Walk among the ruins of Rana Kumbha's Palace. Much of it is broken now, with open sky where roofs once stood. Yet you can still trace courtyards, stairways and the shapes of rooms. Nearby stand temples linked to the poet-saint Meera Bai. She was a royal woman of Mewar who gave her life to devotion to the god Krishna. Her devotional songs are still sung across India today. Here, among warriors and sieges, her memory offers a very different kind of courage.

Water was the secret strength of this fort. A city on a dry hilltop cannot survive a long siege without it. So the builders cut tanks and reservoirs into the rock across the plateau. Look for the Gaumukh reservoir. Its name means cow's mouth. Water flows from a rock opening shaped like the mouth of a cow into a deep pool below. Local people still come here, and the pool is often full of fish waiting to be fed.

After Akbar's siege in 1568, the rulers of Mewar never returned Chittor to its role as their capital. Maharana Udai Singh the Second moved the court to a new city among lakes and hills, the city we now call Udaipur. Chittor slowly emptied. That is part of why it feels the way it does today. You are not walking through a living royal palace. You are walking through a city that was left behind, and nature has slowly moved back in.

Before you leave, stand for a moment at the edge of the wall. Look down at the town below, the fields beyond, the long line of the ridge itself. Listen to the wind moving through the empty arches. Notice how the stone feels warm under your hand, even late in the day. As you walk back down through the gates, count them as you pass. Every turn of the road was once a line of defence. Now each one simply leads you home.