Jaisal's hill and the Bhati court
The Bhatis left an open plain for a ridge of gold-coloured rock in 1156. They chose well. For the next six hundred years almost everything that happened in this corner of the Thar happened on top of that hill.
The fort was left to the families who had served the court. Those families never left. That, more than any building, is what makes this fort unlike any other in Rajasthan.
Lodurva first: Rawal Jaisal ruled from Lodurva, about fifteen kilometres to the northwest, a capital that sat exposed on flat ground.
Trikuta: the ridge he chose, the three-peaked hill, rises about 76 metres above the desert.
At a glance
- Built
- From 1156; most bastions 1633-1647
- Built by
- Rawal Jaisal of the Bhati Rajputs
- Open
- A living town; we arrive around 7 am
- Allow
- A long morning, plus a second visit at dusk
- Best time
- 7 to 9 am, October to March
- Photography
- Ask people first; camera rules differ by temple
- Getting there
- A steep ramp through four gates
- Why here: it was close to water, could be seen from far away, and was hard to approach without being seen.
- Shaped by the hill: the fort follows the ridge exactly, a long rough triangle with a narrow waist, so the walls seem to grow out of the rock.
- Krishna's line: the Bhati Rajputs claim descent from the Yadava line of Krishna.
- The legend: Krishna, passing through the desert with Arjuna, foretold that a descendant would one day build a kingdom here. A well inside the fort is still pointed out as linked to the story.
- What it tells you: the Bhatis saw themselves as an old and holy house that had found its rightful place.
- Siege of about 1299: the forces of Alauddin Khalji of the Delhi Sultanate besieged the fort during the reign of Rawal Jait Singh I.
- The saka: the city remembers the end of that siege as a last stand, the men riding out to die and the women choosing jauhar, death by fire, rather than capture.
- Two and a half sakas: local tradition counts them, and the half is the strangest story of all.
- The half saka: linked to Rawal Lunkaran in the sixteenth century, when an Afghan chief named Amir Ali is said to have tried to enter the fort by trickery. The defence ended before the rite could be completed.
- Humayun: Lunkaran also had dealings with the Mughal emperor, then a fugitive in the desert in the 1540s.
- Peace with the Mughals: the fort's look today owes much to the long quiet that followed. Of the ninety-nine bastions, ninety-two were built or substantially rebuilt between 1633 and 1647.
- The British treaty: in December 1818 Maharawal Mulraj II signed with the East India Company, and Jaisalmer became a princely state of British India.
- Moving down: over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the rulers built new palaces in the town below and gradually left the hill.
- The neighbours: our page on the Rajput dynasties places the Bhatis among them.
Up the ramp through four gates
The road into the fort doubles back on itself like a folded ribbon. Walk it slowly at seven in the morning and you will share it with schoolchildren, a milkman with his steel cans and, usually, one unhurried cow.
Made to slow you: every Rajput fort makes you work to get in. Jaisalmer does it with four gates on a steep, paved ramp.
- The turns: built to stop an army building up speed and to break the charge of war elephants.
- The walls above: let defenders fire down on anyone caught in the bend.
- Go early: the ramp is lined with stalls selling puppets and embroidered cushions, so climb before they open.
Akhai Pol, the gate in the outer wall
Where it starts: at the foot of the hill, where the town's traffic gives way to the fort.
- Look back: from just inside you see the first of the three walls that ring the fort.
- The pitching wall: the lowest, a sloping skirt of stone that holds the soft hillside in place.
- Under strain: it suffers most when water seeps out of the hill, and you'll often see repair work on it.
Suraj Pol, the gate of the sun
- At dawn: its stone turns from grey to gold in a few minutes.
- Look up: some bastions are still topped with heaps of rounded stones, the kind defenders rolled onto attackers, left as a reminder of how the fort was meant to be held.
Ganesh Pol and Hawa Pol
Tighter turns: the last two gates bring you up the steepest stretch.
- Ganesh Pol: named for the elephant-headed god of beginnings, the deity Rajasthani households greet first at any threshold.
- Hawa Pol: the gate of the wind catches a cool draught even in March. Our guides like to stand in it a moment before the final stretch.
Dussehra Chowk, the main square
The court's square: where the court gathered for festivals and the ruler reviewed his men.
- The palace front: seven storeys on one side, with a marble throne by its entrance from which the Maharawal is said to have addressed his troops.
- Morning life: on the other side, women set out vegetables and the first tea stalls light their stoves.
Local tip
Have a cup of tea in Dussehra Chowk before you go any further. It is the best place to watch the fort wake up.
Inside the walls, court by court
From the square the fort opens into a maze of lanes no wider than a camel with its load. Here is what to look for, in the order we usually walk it.
Facts to know
- Raj Mahal
- Linked palaces, now the Fort Palace Museum
- Jain temples
- Seven, 12th to 16th centuries
- Hindu shrine
- The Laxminath temple
- Brahmin haveli
- About four and a half centuries old
The royal palace and its museum
Many palaces in one: the Raj Mahal is a group of linked palaces built over several centuries behind a single tall facade.
The rooms: the Sarvottam Vilas with blue tiles and glass mosaic, the Akhai Vilas, the Gaj Mahal with its carved balconies, the Moti Mahal and the Rang Mahal, whose painted arches are linked with Maharawal Mulraj II.
- The museum: now the Fort Palace Museum, with a silver coronation throne, everyday objects of the court and rooms that grow smaller and more private as you climb.
- Keep going up: the rooftop terraces are the reason to come, with the whole fort below you, a crowd of flat roofs, water tanks, satellite dishes and temple spires.
- What you can pick out: the havelis of the old town, a Jain temple dome, the Gadisar tank and, far to the north, the cenotaphs at Bada Bagh.
The seven Jain temples
Where: in the southwest of the fort, seven Shvetambara temples stand side by side, joined by passages and stairs.
When and how: built between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries with merchant money, every surface of yellow stone carved.
- Parshvanath: the largest, dedicated to the twenty-third tirthankara, or ford-maker.
- Sambhavanatha: built by Askaran Chopra of Merta, with more than six hundred images.
- The Gyan Bhandar: below it, a library of old manuscripts that Jain communities protected here for centuries.
- Ashtapad: built by Chopra Panchaji.
- When to go: in the morning, during worship, when light falls through the stone screens in long shafts and priests are bathing the images.
- Etiquette: leave shoes and anything leather outside, cover shoulders and knees, keep your voice low. Read our page on temple etiquette.
The Laxminath temple
Where: close to the square, dedicated to Lakshmi and Vishnu, the main Hindu shrine of the fort.
- In use: small and busy. In the evening families stop by on the way home with a coin and a flower.
- Its role: our guides explain how it served the royal household and the town alike.
The lived-in lanes
The heart of the fort: the lanes between the monuments.
- The houses: built of the same yellow stone as the walls, often with carved jharokhas, balconies screened with stone lattice, jutting over the street.
- Small things to spot: shrines set into walls, the painted Ganesh above a newlywed couple's door, wooden doors studded with iron, and narrow stone gutters that carry water away.
- Read the balconies: our guide to the jharokha.
Havelis and house museums
Who lived here: families of priests, ministers and merchants who served the court.
- A house museum: one haveli once owned by a Brahmin family, said to be about four and a half centuries old, now runs as a small museum over several floors.
- Worth an hour: for its kitchens, storerooms and the view from its roof.
- Still lived in: others belong to descendants of the builders, and with the right introduction you may be asked in for tea.
The ramparts and bastions
The edge: walk the inner lanes outward and you come out on the ramparts.
The scalloped outline: the bastions are round and close together, which gives the fort its shape from below.
- On top: old cannon on some, washing lines and potted tulsi on others.
- The view: west over the desert at the end of the day, among the most beautiful in Rajasthan.
- Take care: stay away from crumbling edges, and never climb on parapets that look loose.
How the fort was built, in plain words
Lay your palm on a wall in the afternoon and the stone is warm and slightly rough, like the crust of a loaf. That stone explains almost everything about Jaisalmer.
The stone: a yellow sandstone quarried in the hills around the city, fine-grained and even.
Soft, then hard: freshly cut, it is soft enough to carve with great precision, and it hardens as it weathers.
One colour: that is why the fort, the havelis and the temples share the same colour and astonishing detail.
Facts to know
- Stone
- Yellow sandstone from local hills
- Walls
- Three rings
- Outer wall
- About 4.5 m high
- Upper perimeter
- About 4 km
- Drainage
- The ghut nali, in four directions
- Sonar Qila: the fort rises from the rock without a break, and at four in the afternoon the hill seems to glow from inside. The golden fort is simply accurate.
- The pitching wall: at the bottom, sloping, holding the hillside together.
- The outer wall: stout, about four and a half metres high, running round the base.
- The main wall: above that, carrying the bastions. The upper perimeter is about four kilometres long.
- Packed tight: buildings stand close together to save space and keep each other cool, with thick walls, small windows on the sunny side, and courtyards and roofs open to the night air.
- Built light: most houses were dry-laid stone with lime and mud, roofed with packed earth over stone slabs.
- The ghut nali: a drainage system carrying rainwater off the hilltop in all four directions, in channels down the slope, so storms ran off the fort instead of sinking in.
- Designed for little water: the town carried its drinking water up the hill by hand, in pots, and used very little. That is the key to its problems today.
- Learn to read forts: our page on Rajasthani architecture is a good start.
A fragile fort, and why we sleep outside it
Talk to the older families on the hill and they will tell you about a time when a bucket of water was precious. Today water arrives by pipe, and the hill was never built to take it.
The ground: the fort stands on weak sedimentary rock with clay-rich soil inside the hill. For centuries little water reached those layers.
Then pipes, then tourism: guesthouses, rooftop restaurants and shops now use far more water than the old town ever did, for showers, kitchens and toilets, and much drains into the ground.
What wet soil does: it loses strength. Foundations settle, walls crack and stone bulges outward.
Facts to know
- The rock
- Weak sedimentary, with clay-rich layers
- The threat
- Water seeping into the hill
- Watch list
- World Monuments Fund, 1996, 1998, 2000
- Partner
- Jaisalmer in Jeopardy
- Collapses
- More than once, most notably in 2016
- What has fallen: parts of the outer wall, sections of the lower pitching wall and buildings such as the Rani ka Mahal, the queen's palace.
- The watch list: the World Monuments Fund listed the fort as endangered in 1996, and again in its reports of 1998 and 2000.
- The repairs: it has worked with Indian partners and the British charity Jaisalmer in Jeopardy, replacing broken drains, relaying paving and repairing pitching walls with lime mortar and weep holes so water can escape.
- It keeps coming back: heavy monsoon rain has brought down parts of the fort's walls more than once, most notably in 2016, and seepage was blamed each time.
- Our choice: we do not book rooms inside the fort, and many of the best-travelled people we know make the same choice.
- Why: a traveller in a hotel inside the walls uses many times the water a resident family uses, and every shower adds to the load on the hill.
- You lose nothing: you sleep somewhere quiet, with a pool, a garden and the fort lit on the skyline, and spend your days inside with a guide who knows the families.
- Our approach: explained in our note on travelling responsibly.
- Not a boycott: the fort is home to about four thousand people, and many depend on visitors. So we spend generously inside the walls by day.
- How we spend: we pay our fort guides well, drink tea in family-run cafes, buy textiles and puppets directly from makers, and leave a donation at the temples.
- How you can help: carry a refillable bottle rather than buying plastic, use the bathroom at your hotel before you set out, and never climb on walls or bastions that look loose.
- Read more: our journal pieces on living inside Jaisalmer Fort and sustainable travel in Rajasthan.
The best hour and the best season
The fort has two great moments in every day: the cool hour after sunrise, when the lanes belong to residents, and the last hour of sun, when the walls catch fire.
Seven to nine: the lanes are quiet, the temples busy with worship and the shopkeepers still sweeping.
Late morning: tour groups arrive, the lanes fill and the stone starts to radiate heat. Our cue for lunch and a long rest.
Late afternoon: we come back, not to climb again but to look at the fort from outside.
Facts to know
- Best hours
- 7 to 9 am
- Golden hour
- Watch from outside the walls
- Season
- October to March
- Too hot
- May and June
- Lamps
- Diwali, October or November
- Where to watch it turn gold: the ridge of Vyas Chhatri just north of the walls, the ghats of Gadisar Lake, or a haveli rooftop in the old town.
- December and January: cool, even cold before dawn.
- February and early March: close to perfect.
- From April: the heat builds quickly, and in May and June the stone is too hot to touch by midday.
- The monsoon: usually July and August. The town is quiet and the light can be wonderful, but the fort is most at risk from heavy rain, so stay away from loose walls and follow your guide.
- Diwali: in October or November the fort is lit with oil lamps.
- The Desert Festival: in February the town below fills with music. Read about the Desert Festival.
- Month by month: our best time to visit Jaisalmer guide.
How to visit the fort well
The fort rewards people who slow down, ask permission and walk with someone who knows the lanes. A few practical notes make all the difference.
Walk with a guide: the lanes twist back on themselves and the stories live in people, not plaques. Our guides are from Jaisalmer, and many grew up visiting relatives on the hill.
Slip-off shoes: you take them off at every temple, and the stone underfoot is uneven and polished smooth by centuries of feet.
No leather: leave belts, wallets and bags made of leather at the hotel or in the car if you want to see the Jain temples.
Before you go
- Guide
- Strongly recommended
- Shoes
- Easy to slip off
- Leather
- Not allowed in the Jain temples
- Access
- Auto-rickshaws up the ramp to the square
- Ask before photographing: people first, and again at each temple, because camera rules differ. Some temples charge for camera use and some forbid it.
- The climb: the ramp is steep and the lanes cobbled, with steps and no rails.
- Easier access: small auto-rickshaws can usually take you up the ramp to the main square, and from there the palace and temples are a short walk.
- Limited mobility: tell us in advance, and read our page on accessible travel.
- Sun: bring a scarf and a hat. Even in winter the sun on the ramparts is strong.
- Motorbikes: residents use them in the lanes, and they come round blind corners quickly.
- Commission shopping: anyone who leads you to a shop and waits outside is probably earning a cut. We take guests only to makers and shops we trust.
What most visitors miss
Most visitors see the palace, a temple and a souvenir lane, and leave by noon. With a little more time the fort gives up its quieter pleasures.
The temples during worship
Too late: many visitors reach the Jain temples after the morning rituals are over.
- Come earlier: hear the hymns, smell the sandalwood paste and watch the priests at work.
- The difference: between seeing a museum and seeing a place of faith.
The manuscript library
Easy to miss: the Gyan Bhandar is not always open and is easy to walk past.
- When it is open: painted wooden covers and palm-leaf pages show this desert town was also a place of learning.
- Check first: ask our guide to find out on the day.
A roof in the late afternoon
- The finest view of the fort: from the fort itself, on a quiet roof on its western edge as the sun drops.
- Tea on a family's roof: we arrange it when we can, and pay them for the privilege. One of the gentlest hours in Rajasthan.
The rhythm of a Jaisalmer morning
- Watch: women carrying brass pots to the temple, boys running to school with bags bouncing, old men reading the newspaper at the tea stall in Dussehra Chowk.
- A neighbourhood: the best way to respect the fort is to watch it as one.
The fort lit up at night
- Floodlit: after dark, seen from the town or the ridge north of the fort, the hill seems to float above the roofs.
- Ten minutes: most visitors are already at dinner. Take ten on the way to yours.
Sights to pair with the fort
The fort is the crown, but Jaisalmer's merchants and rulers left their best work spread across the town below and the desert around it.
The havelis of the old town
Down the hill: walk from the fort into the old town's lanes to reach the carved merchant houses.
- The two to see: Patwon ki Haveli, the grandest cluster, and Salim Singh ki Haveli, the most dramatic single house.
- When: with the fort on one long morning, or in the late afternoon.
The minister's house below the fort
- Where: close to the foot of the hill, its top storey flaring out in carved balconies.
- Its story: a prime minister who frightened the whole town, a good counterpoint to the royal history on the hill.
Gadisar Lake at sunrise
- The fort's water: the old reservoir that kept it alive lies a short drive to the south.
- The order: first light there, then up to the fort as it wakes.
Bada Bagh at sunset
- The royal cenotaphs: north of town, where the Bhati rulers were remembered after death.
- The full story: seeing them after the fort completes the dynasty's tale.
Other great forts of Rajasthan
- The UNESCO six: Jaisalmer is one of the Hill Forts of Rajasthan.
- Travel on: to Chittorgarh Fort and Kumbhalgarh, or read our overview of the UNESCO forts of Rajasthan.
Where to stay near the fort
The best room in Jaisalmer is one with the fort on its horizon, not under its floor.
Suryagarh: our first choice for most guests, Suryagarh, about thirteen kilometres out on the Sam road, is a modern fortress in Jaisalmer stone around courtyards and a pool.
Who it suits: families, and anyone who wants calm and space after a morning in the lanes.
Facts to know
- First choice
- Suryagarh, about 13 km out
- Couples
- The Serai, about 40 minutes
- Walk to the fort
- Heritage hotels below the walls
- The Serai: for couples and for guests who want the desert itself, The Serai is SUJAN's tented camp on private land off the Jodhpur road, about forty minutes from town.
- Walking distance: heritage hotels in the town below the walls, among them the former royal residence of Mandir Palace.
- Compare them: our luxury hotels in Jaisalmer guide explains which suits whom.
- Fit it in: our Jaisalmer itinerary shows the fort in two, three or four days.
