The oldest of the great Rajput houses
Most Rajput families can recite a long descent. Mewar's is among the longest, and its pride in it is woven into every courtyard of the City Palace.
The Guhils: the rulers of Mewar trace their line to Guhil, an early ancestor, and count themselves Suryavanshi, descendants of the sun through Rama.
Bappa Rawal: by tradition he took Chittor in the eighth century. He is a hero of legend as much as of record, and Mewar honours him as its founder.
Facts to know
- Line
- Guhil, then its Sisodia branch
- Founder by tradition
- Bappa Rawal, eighth century
- Sisodia rule from
- The fourteenth century, under Rana Hammir
- Lineage claimed
- Suryavanshi, descended from the sun
- Related houses
- Dungarpur, Banswara, Pratapgarh
- The Sisodia branch: in the fourteenth century Rana Hammir, of the Sisodia branch, recovered Chittor after its fall in 1303. His descendants ruled Mewar from then until independence.
- The sun on everything: the sun is the house's emblem. You will see a great gilded sun face in the City Palace and on Mewar's coat of arms.
- The cousins: related branches ruled Dungarpur, Banswara and Pratapgarh in the south, and great Sisodia nobles held estates such as Deogarh.
- The clans explained: our guide to the Rajput dynasties places Mewar among the other ruling houses.
Kings who called themselves stewards
Twenty kilometres or so north of Udaipur, in a walled temple in the hills, the real ruler of Mewar still receives his court every day.
Eklingji: a form of Shiva, worshipped at Kailashpuri north of Udaipur. By tradition the temple was founded in Bappa Rawal's time.
The idea: the Maharanas held that Eklingji was the true king of Mewar, and that they ruled as his diwan, his steward or chief minister.
- Why it matters: it shaped how the house saw itself, as custodians rather than owners. The head of the family is still spoken of as the god's diwan.
- A living temple: worship continues every day, and devotees from all over Mewar come for darshan. Photography is not allowed inside.
- Visiting: dress modestly, leave shoes and leather at the gate, and go with a guide who can explain the rituals.
- Pair it: Eklingji sits on the road to Nathdwara, so many guests see both in a single morning.
Local tip
Go to Eklingji early, when the morning worship fills the courtyard with bells. The temple feels far more like the seat of a king then than at midday.
The rulers Mewar remembers
Every Udaipur child can name them. Each one left a fort, a lake, a temple or a story, and most of them can still be visited.
Rana Kumbha, fifteenth century
- The scholar-king: a soldier, a builder and a patron of music and literature.
- What he left: Kumbhalgarh, dozens of other forts, and the Vijay Stambha at Chittor, raised after his victory over the Sultan of Malwa in 1440.
Rana Sanga, early sixteenth century
- The coalition leader: he united many Rajput clans against Babur and was defeated at Khanwa in 1527.
- His family: the poet-saint Meera Bai came to Chittor in 1516 as the bride of his son Bhoj Raj.
Udai Singh II, founder of Udaipur
- The survivor: by tradition saved as a child by his nurse Panna Dhai, who gave her own son's life for his.
- The founder: he began Udaipur beside Lake Pichola in 1559, and the court moved there for good after Chittor fell to Akbar in 1568.
Maharana Pratap
- The resister: crowned in 1572, he refused to submit to Akbar and fought the Mughals at Haldighati in 1576.
- His story: our piece on Maharana Pratap and Haldighati tells it in full.
Amar Singh I and Jagat Singh I
- The peace: Amar Singh I made an honourable peace with Jahangir in 1615.
- The temple: Jagat Singh I built the Jagdish temple near the City Palace in 1651, still the busiest temple in the old city.
Raj Singh I
- The lake: he built the great Rajsamand lake north of Udaipur in the 1660s and 1670s.
- The refuge: in 1672 the image of Shrinathji was brought to Mewar for protection, and the temple town of Nathdwara grew around it.
Jagat Singh II and the island palace
- The palace: he built Jag Niwas on its island in Lake Pichola between 1743 and 1746. Today it is the Taj Lake Palace.
Sajjan Singh and Fateh Singh
- Sajjan Singh: he began the hilltop Monsoon Palace, Sajjangarh, in 1884, and ordered the famous crystal now in the Fateh Prakash Palace.
- Fateh Singh: he rebuilt the dam of Fateh Sagar in the late 1880s and gave the lake his name.
The women of the house
The chronicles are written about kings, but Mewar's story is full of queens, princesses and one nurse who changed its course.
Meera Bai: a Rathore princess married into the house in 1516, she became one of India's great poet-saints. Her songs to Krishna are sung across the country.
Rani Karnavati: the widow of Rana Sanga is remembered for leading the defence and the jauhar of Chittor in 1535.
- Panna Dhai: not royal at all, but the nurse who by tradition saved the infant Udai Singh II by giving up her own son. Mewar honours her as if she were.
- Krishna Kumari: the saddest story of the house. In 1810, the story goes, this young princess was given poison to end a war between Jaipur and Jodhpur over her hand.
- A garden for the women: Saheliyon ki Bari, the garden of the maidens, was laid out in the eighteenth century for the ladies of the court, with fountains and lotus pools.
- The zenana: the women's quarters of the City Palace, with their screened windows and painted rooms, are among the loveliest parts of the museum.
Local tip
In the City Palace, ask your guide to take you slowly through the zenana. Most groups hurry through it, and it is where the house's family life is easiest to imagine.
Mewar and the Mughals
In Jaipur they tell the Mughal centuries as partnership. In Udaipur they tell them as resistance. Mewar's whole identity rests on that difference.
The refusal: while Amer and other houses allied with Akbar from 1562, Mewar would not submit, and it paid with the loss of Chittor in 1568.
Haldighati: in 1576 Maharana Pratap faced a Mughal army led by Raja Man Singh of Amer, a Rajput commanding the emperor's forces against another Rajput.
- A point of pride: Mewar has long been proud that it never gave a daughter in marriage to the Mughal emperors, unlike some other Rajput houses.
- The peace of 1615: Amar Singh I made peace with Jahangir on honourable terms. The Maharana was not required to attend the imperial court in person.
- A rebel prince sheltered: in the 1620s the Mughal prince Khurram, later Shah Jahan, was given refuge by Mewar on the island of Jag Mandir.
- Exchange as well as conflict: Mewar's painters, builders and musicians learned from the Mughal courts, and you can see it in the palace's gardens and painted rooms.
The Bhil archer on the coat of arms
Look closely at Mewar's coat of arms. On one side of the sun stands a Rajput warrior. On the other stands a Bhil archer with his bow.
Who the Bhils are: the people of the southern Aravalli hills, who were rulers in their own right before the Rajputs came.
The bond: Bhil archers fought beside Maharana Pratap in the hills after Haldighati, and Mewar has honoured them ever since.
- On the arms: the Bhil figure on the coat of arms records that bond, one of very few royal emblems in India to honour a tribal community.
- The motto: the arms carry a line of verse that means, roughly, that God protects those who hold firm to their duty.
- An old custom: by tradition a Bhil chief took part in the coronation of a new Maharana, marking his forehead with a tilak.
- See it: the coat of arms appears above gates and in the galleries of the City Palace. Ask your guide to point it out.
From British treaty to the new state
In 1818 a young Scottish officer named James Tod arrived in a half-empty Udaipur. A hundred and thirty years later, the Maharana signed his kingdom into India.
The treaty: in 1818 Mewar, exhausted by war and raids, accepted British paramountcy. The Maharana kept his throne and his internal powers.
James Tod: the British agent in Udaipur gathered Mewar's bardic tales into his Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, which made the house famous in Europe.
Facts to know
- Treaty with the British
- 1818
- Joined Rajasthan
- April 1948
- Ceremonial title
- Maharajpramukh, from 1949
- Privy purses ended
- 1971
- Lake Palace a hotel
- The early 1960s
- Pride under the Raj: Udaipur loves the story that Maharana Fateh Singh travelled to the Delhi Durbar of 1911 but stayed away from the ceremony itself. Treat the details as tradition.
- Joining India: Udaipur joined the new Rajasthan Union in April 1948, and Maharana Bhupal Singh was given the ceremonial title of Maharajpramukh in 1949.
- 1971: the privy purses and official recognition of the rulers were abolished. The title Maharana became a courtesy title only.
- Palaces into hotels: under Maharana Bhagwat Singh the Lake Palace became a hotel in the early 1960s, and the Taj group took over its management in 1971.
Patrons of painting, music and craft
Mewar fought with swords for centuries, and with paintbrushes too. The court workshops left one of India's great schools of miniature painting.
Mewar miniatures: the court painters favoured strong reds and yellows and filled their pages with scenes from the epics, festivals, hunts and the life of the court.
Painting the rulers: later Maharanas had themselves painted at festivals, on the lake and at the hunt, so the galleries read like a court diary.
Facts to know
- Painting school
- Mewar miniatures, bold colour and crowded scenes
- Temple art
- Pichwai cloth paintings of Nathdwara
- Where to see
- City Palace galleries, Udaipur
- Craft today
- Miniature painters still work in Udaipur
- Pichwai: at Nathdwara, painters make large cloth paintings of Krishna as Shrinathji to hang behind the deity. Our page on pichwai painting explains the craft.
- Deogarh's painters: the Chundawat nobles of Deogarh kept their own school of painting, prized by collectors.
- Music and verse: the court supported bards, singers and poets, and Rana Kumbha himself is credited with writings on music.
- Meet a painter: we arrange time with a miniature painting family in Udaipur. Our miniature painting page shows what a visit is like.
The house today, and a disputed headship
The family still lives in Udaipur and still leads old ceremonies in public. Who heads the house is a matter the family itself is divided on, and we leave it with them.
A disputed headship: since 2024 to 2025 the headship of the house of Mewar has been publicly disputed between branches of the family. We take no sides and name no current Maharana.
Why we stay out: it is a family and legal matter, and our guests come for the history and the palaces. Our guides are briefed not to discuss it.
- The palace museum: the City Palace museum, opened to the public in the 1970s, is run by a charitable trust and holds the house's paintings, arms and regalia.
- Palace hotels: within the City Palace complex, Shiv Niwas Palace and Fateh Prakash Palace take guests.
- Public ceremony: at festivals such as Gangaur and Holi, members of the family still take part in old rituals in public, in front of the city.
- Respect, not deference: many people in Mewar still feel deep loyalty to the house, whoever they see at its head. That loyalty is personal, and it is theirs.
Local tip
If a guest asks your guide who the Maharana is now, expect a polite smile and a change of subject. It is the right answer in Udaipur today.
Where to see the family's history
Mewar's history is spread across a day's drive in every direction from Udaipur. These are the places that tell it best.
The City Palace, Udaipur
- Why go: begun by Udai Singh II in 1559 and enlarged for centuries, it is the largest palace complex in Rajasthan.
- Look for: the Mor Chowk with its glass peacocks, the sun face, the royal portraits and the views over Lake Pichola.
Chittorgarh
- Why go: the old capital, besieged three times and abandoned after 1568.
- Read first: our piece on Rani Padmini and Chittor tells the three sieges.
Kumbhalgarh
- Why go: Rana Kumbha's great hill fort, with walls running about 36 kilometres and a palace said to be Pratap's birthplace.
The royal cenotaphs at Ahar
- Why go: on the eastern edge of Udaipur, the white domed chhatris of the Maharanas stand in a quiet walled garden.
- When: late afternoon, when the light warms the marble and few visitors come.
Jag Mandir and the lake
- Why go: the island palace where the prince Khurram was sheltered, reached by boat across Pichola.
- Pair it: a boat on Pichola at sunset, with the City Palace behind you.
Festivals with the old court's colour
Some of the best ways to see Mewar's royal traditions are completely public. They belong to the whole city.
Gangaur: women carry images of the goddess Gauri to the lake at Gangaur Ghat, and boats come out onto Pichola. The city's Mewar Festival is held around it.
Facts to know
- Gangaur
- March or April, at Gangaur Ghat
- Mewar Festival
- Held around Gangaur
- Holi
- February or March
- Dussehra
- September or October
- Dates
- Lunar, so we confirm them each year
- Holi: the eve of Holi brings the Holika bonfire, lit with old ceremony in the palace and in every neighbourhood.
- Dussehra: by old custom, horses and weapons are honoured in many Rajput households, a reminder of the warrior past.
- How to watch: we find you a good vantage point and a guide who explains each ritual, and we keep a respectful distance.
How to speak of the family while you travel
You will hear the house spoken of with real warmth in Mewar. A few small courtesies help you fit in.
Use the titles kindly: Maharana is the historic title of Mewar's rulers. You will hear older people say Darbar or Hukum of the head of the house.
Greet with khamma ghani: the Rajasthani greeting, said with joined hands, is right for everyone you meet.
- Ask about history, not headlines: guides and hotel staff love questions about the palaces and the old rulers. Leave the present dispute alone.
- Respect the shrines: every palace has a family temple. Shoes off, no photographs of the deity without permission.
- Read more: our page on meeting the royal families explains how we arrange stays and visits with respect.
Before you go
A few practical points make the royal history of Mewar easier to enjoy on the ground.
Give Udaipur three nights: one day for the City Palace and the lake, one for Eklingji and Nathdwara, one for Kumbhalgarh or Chittor.
Facts to know
- Best months
- October to March, and the monsoon for the lakes
- Allow
- Three nights in Udaipur, one near Chittor
- Dress
- Covered shoulders at temples
- Getting there
- Udaipur airport, or a drive from Jodhpur or Jaipur
- Arrive at opening time: the City Palace fills quickly by late morning. Our guides take you in first.
- Read a little first: the history of Rajasthan gives you the Mughal and British background in an evening.
- Choose the right season: winter is easiest, but in a good monsoon the lakes are full and the hills turn green.
Who will love Mewar's royal story
Mewar's story suits travellers who like their palaces with a past, and a past with real people in it.
History lovers: Chittor, Kumbhalgarh, Haldighati and Udaipur tell one continuous story across five centuries.
- Couples: the lakes and island palaces make the romance of the house easy to feel.
- Families: forts, boats, stories of Pratap and Panna Dhai keep children happy for days.
- Our route: the Mewar lakes and temples journey links the great sites at an easy pace, and our Mewar region guide covers the whole old kingdom.