Why we call it forgotten
A capital that moved away: by the late eighteenth century the Bundela court had left for Tikamgarh, and the old capital was left to its priests, farmers and monkeys.
No one rebuilt it: in Rajasthan, many later maharajas remodelled their palaces in European or Indo-Saracenic style. In Orchha nobody had the money or the reason to.
- Where
- Bundelkhand, Madhya Pradesh
- The name
- Bundeli for hidden, as usually translated
- Later capital
- Tikamgarh, about 80 km south
- Today
- A small pilgrim town of Rama
- The murals survived: paintings that would have been plastered over elsewhere still cover the walls of the Raja Mahal and the Laxminarayan temple.
- The skyline is unbroken: stand on the far bank of the Betwa and you see towers, domes and spires with almost nothing built since.
- It is still small: you can cross the town on foot in twenty minutes, and foreign visitors are still few.
- Not forgotten by everyone: pilgrims from across Bundelkhand never stopped coming, because Rama is king here. More of that below.
A new capital on a bend of the Betwa
Who the Bundelas were: a Rajput clan of central India, ruling the dry granite country called Bundelkhand after them. Our Rajput dynasties guide places them among the clans.
The choice of site: Rudra Pratap Singh, the first king of Orchha, chose a place where the Betwa splits around a granite island, a natural moat on every side.
- The date: UNESCO's record gives 1531 for the founding of the capital.
- Finishing the move: Rudra Pratap's son Bharti Chand completed the move from Garh Kundar.
- The first palace: work began on the Raja Mahal, the king's own palace, on the island, completed under a later king.
- A hidden city: Orchha is usually translated as hidden. Coming from the Jhansi road, its towers appear suddenly out of the forest, and the name makes sense.
Madhukar Shah, the queen and the god who would not move
The legend says Queen Ganesh Kunwari prayed in Ayodhya until Rama agreed to come to Orchha as a child, on three conditions: he would travel only under the Pushya star, rule as king, and stay where he was first set down. Her temple was unfinished, so she placed him in her palace. In the morning he would not move.
The king: Madhukar Shah ruled from 1554 until about 1592. He fought the Mughal emperor Akbar, then made a careful peace.
- His faith: a devotee of Krishna, while his queen was devoted to Rama.
- The result: the queen's palace became the Ram Raja temple, where Rama sits as a crowned king. The vast Chaturbhuj temple built for him stands next door, empty of its god.
- A king with a guard: police personnel serve as Rama's guards and present an armed salute every day.
- Treat it as legend: it is a story of faith, not a historical record. In Orchha it is told with complete conviction, and we tell it the same way.
Bir Singh Deo and the friendship of an emperor
The opposite path: where his father Madhukar Shah had resisted Akbar, Bir Singh Deo attached himself to Akbar's son, Prince Salim, who was in rebellion against his father.
The murder on the road: in 1602, at Salim's urging, Bir Singh's men ambushed and killed Abul Fazl, Akbar's minister and the historian of his reign, as he travelled through Bundelkhand.
- Also written
- Vir Singh Deo
- The bet
- Backing Prince Salim against Akbar
- 1602
- Abul Fazl ambushed and killed in Bundelkhand
- 1605
- Salim becomes the emperor Jahangir
- His palaces
- Orchha, Datia and beyond
- The reward: when Salim became the emperor Jahangir in 1605, he remembered. Bir Singh Deo became one of the most powerful nobles of the empire.
- A builder with money: he spent his new wealth on palaces, temples, tanks and forts across his lands, from Orchha to Datia and Jhansi.
- Jahangir Mahal: built for his imperial friend, three storeys of terraces around a courtyard, with domed corner towers and carved stone elephants at the gate.
- A night or two: Orchha's story is that the emperor stayed only briefly. Whatever the truth, the palace was a statement of what a loyal Bundela could build.
- Datia: on the road to Gwalior, his seven-storey palace on a rock is said never to have been lived in.
Two courts in one building
Mughal in plan: the symmetry, the square courtyard and the domes come from the imperial style of the age.
Bundela in detail: the brackets, balconies, lotus motifs and rooftop chhatris, the umbrella-shaped domed pavilions, are pure Rajput and Bundela.
- Traces of colour: fragments of blue tilework still cling to the outer walls.
- The same conversation elsewhere: you see it at Fatehpur Sikri, in Amber Fort near our home in Jaipur, and on the tiled walls of Gwalior Fort.
- Why it matters: alliance with the empire did not mean surrender of taste. The Rajput courts took Mughal ideas and made them their own. Our essay on Mughal and Rajput history tells that wider story.
Rebellion, a poisoned brother and the long decline
Jujhar Singh's rebellion: in the 1630s Bir Singh Deo's son rebelled against Shah Jahan, and Mughal armies took the capital.
A recovery, not a revival: Orchha survived as a kingdom, but never again held the place it had under Jahangir.
- The court leaves: by the late eighteenth century the rulers had moved away, and the princely state was later ruled from Tikamgarh.
- The end date: Orchha remained the Bundela seat until 1783.
- What stayed: the temples kept their priests, the bazaar its pilgrims, and the palaces their paintings.
The legend of Hardaul
The story: Jujhar Singh is said to have suspected his younger brother Hardaul of loving his queen, and ordered her to poison him.
- The sacrifice: Hardaul, the legend says, drank the poison knowingly to prove his innocence.
- A folk god: he is now worshipped across Bundelkhand, with small shrines in many villages, and families still invite him to weddings in song.
- Legend, again: there is no court record of it, but you will hear it on the walk from the palace to the river, and it changes how the quiet courtyards feel.
A court of poets, singers and painters
Keshavdas: the great Hindi poet of Orchha, whose Rasikapriya, a poem on lovers and their moods, became one of the most illustrated texts in Rajput painting.
His reach: painters at the courts of Mewar and Bundi illustrated his verses for generations. Read about miniature painting.
- Rai Praveen: a poet, singer and dancer of Raja Indrajit Singh's court, and a pupil of Keshavdas. Her garden pavilion still stands.
- The story of Akbar's summons: legend says the emperor called her to his court, and she answered with a couplet so proud and clever that he sent her home with gifts.
- The walls themselves: the royal apartments of the Raja Mahal are painted with the incarnations of Vishnu, scenes from the Ramayana, hunts and processions of elephants.
- The Laxminarayan murals: painted and renewed over centuries, including Krishna with the gopis, Rama's battles and a famous scene of European soldiers at a table.
What the forgetting preserved
Raja Mahal
- Outside: a plain, almost severe block of stone around two courtyards.
- Inside: the painted royal apartments. Go in the morning, when side light from the windows brings out the pigments.
Jahangir Mahal
- The building: three storeys of terraces and towers, built for an emperor.
- The hour: sunrise, from the top terraces.
Chaturbhuj temple
- The building: raised on a high platform, one of the tallest temple buildings of its age in India, with a cross-shaped hall like a cathedral.
- The hour: dusk, from the upper terraces, as parakeets wheel around the spires. The stairs are steep and dark.
Laxminarayan temple
- The building: a temple-fortress to Lakshmi on a low hill west of town, built by Bir Singh Deo in the 1620s.
- The hour: a cool morning walk up the path from town.
The chhatris on the Betwa
- The memorials: about fourteen great chhatris of the Bundela kings at Kanchan Ghat, with tall spires in the north Indian temple style.
- The hour: late afternoon, from the far bank across the bridge. Read what is a chhatri.
The living town, the vultures and the river
The pilgrims: tractor-trolleys and buses arrive from villages across Bundelkhand. Families bathe in the Betwa, take darshan, a sight of the deity, at Ram Raja and go home.
The bazaar: marigold garlands, pictures of Rama, sweet shops making peda to carry home as prasad, a blessed offering.
- The language: Bundeli, a cousin of Hindi with its own songs and proverbs. The greeting everywhere is Ram Ram.
- The vultures: long-billed and Egyptian vultures nest on the chhatris and palace towers. Both have suffered terribly across India, so keep well back and never fly a drone here.
- The langurs: grey long-tailed monkeys sit on the palace walls in the evening light. The rhesus monkeys are bolder, so keep food out of sight.
- The sanctuary: upstream, the Betwa and the Jamni enclose the Orchha Wildlife Sanctuary, about forty-six square kilometres, established in 1994 and known for its birds.
When the forgotten capital fills up
Vivah Panchami: the wedding of Rama and Sita, staged like a royal wedding with a procession and music. It falls in the cool season, and it is the festival we most like to plan around.
- Best months
- October to March
- Ram Navami
- March or April
- Vivah Panchami
- November or December
- River bathing days
- Makar Sankranti and Kartik Purnima
- Hot season
- April to June, often past 40°C
- Ram Navami: Rama's birthday brings pilgrims from across the region. Book rooms well ahead.
- Dawn dips: on Makar Sankranti and Kartik Purnima, thousands bathe in the Betwa. Watch from the bridge and keep cameras discreet.
- We confirm dates each year: these are lunar festivals and move with the calendar. Our best time to visit Orchha page goes month by month.
Two days in the forgotten capital
Day one, arrival and the river
Morning: the Gatimaan Express from Delhi or Agra to Jhansi, and the short drive to Orchha in time for lunch.
- Afternoon: rest through the heat in your hotel garden.
- Late afternoon: walk across the bridge to the far bank and watch the sun go down behind the chhatris as the vultures settle.
- Evening: the aarti at Ram Raja if you enjoy crowds and drums, or a quiet dinner on a terrace.
Day two, palaces and paintings
Sunrise: the top terraces of the Jahangir Mahal, before the stone warms.
- Morning: the painted rooms of the Raja Mahal and the garden of Rai Praveen Mahal, with a guide and a torch.
- Afternoon: lunch and a rest, then the walk up to the Laxminarayan temple and its murals.
- Dusk: the upper terraces of Chaturbhuj, looking over the town to the palaces and the river.
With a third day
- Dawn: a walk or picnic breakfast in the wildlife sanctuary on the Betwa with a naturalist.
- Onward: Datia's seven-storey palace on the road to Gwalior, or the drive east to Khajuraho. Our Orchha itinerary has more versions.
Getting there, and where Orchha fits
From Delhi: the Gatimaan Express runs from Hazrat Nizamuddin to Jhansi in about four and a half hours, stopping at Agra and Gwalior. Orchha is under half an hour from Jhansi by road.
From Gwalior: about three hours by road, by way of Datia. Read our Gwalior Fort guide.
- On to Khajuraho: about four to five hours east through Bundelkhand villages. Our Khajuraho temples guide is the natural next read.
- From Rajasthan: our Rajasthan, Orchha and Khajuraho journey crosses from Jaipur by way of Agra and Gwalior.
- Jhansi on the way: the fort where Rani Lakshmibai held out against the British in 1858 is worth an hour.
- Where to stay: Amar Mahal is the most polished stay in town, and the simple state-run Sheesh Mahal sits inside the palace. Our Orchha and Khajuraho stays page compares them.
Before you go
Wear proper shoes: the stairs of the palaces and Chaturbhuj are steep, dark and worn smooth.
Bring a torch and binoculars: one for the murals, the other for the vultures and the high carvings.
- Dress modestly in town: Orchha is a pilgrim town, so cover shoulders and knees in the bazaar as well as the temple.
- Leave cameras outside Ram Raja: photography is not allowed inside. Your guide will hold your phone and shoes.
- Darshan has set windows: the temple opens for worship in the morning and evening, and the hours shift with the season, so we check on the day.
- Hire a local guide: Orchha's best stories, of Hardaul, Rai Praveen and the queen's journey, are told by families who have lived with them for generations.
Who will love Orchha
Lovers of painted rooms: few places in India let you stand inside so many original murals.
Photographers: dawn on the Jahangir Mahal and dusk at the chhatris are two of the finest hours in central India.
- Repeat visitors to Rajasthan: if you know our forts, Orchha shows you a Rajput capital that time did not touch.
- Stay a night at least: day trippers see Orchha at noon, when the stone is white and the light is flat. Its magic is at the edges of the day.
- Not for: travellers who need a spa, a shopping street and a busy restaurant scene. They will be happier in Jaipur.