Bundi

It is said that Rao Bar Singh Hada raised this fort on the Aravalli hills around 1354 CE, though sources differ on both date and builder. The lower stretch is called the Garh Palace, the crown of the hill Taragarh. By tradition it glimmered from afar like a star, and took its name from that. Its most talked-about relic is the Garbh Gunjan cannon. Local lore says its roar was so violent that pregnant women and livestock suffered, and that the gunners leapt into a nearby water tank the moment the fuse was lit, to save their eardrums. Rudyard Kipling could scarcely believe human hands had built the place.

This is widely held to be the grandest of Bundi's stepwells, a masterpiece of Rajput craftsmanship. It was commissioned in 1699 CE by Rani Nathavati, the younger queen of Bundi's Rao Raja Aniruddh Singh, who had died three years earlier. It is said that, estranged from the senior queen, she turned her energies to the welfare of the people after the birth of her son. She had this baori dug so the town would still find water through the dry years. The carving that descends alongside the steps, and the ornamental gateways above it, are so fine that people call it the queen of stepwells.

This two-storeyed cenotaph, dense with carving, is among the most unusual buildings in Bundi. It is usually dated to 1683 CE, raised by Rao Raja Anirudh Singh in memory of his foster brother Deva, the son of his wet nurse, of whom the ruler was deeply fond. Its lower level carries eighty-four carved pillars, and tradition reads that number two ways: as the cycle of rebirths a soul must pass through before liberation, or as the eighty-four postures of the Kamasutra. Across the stone, dancers, musicians, elephants and deer are worked in remarkable detail.

Standing on the bank of Jait Sagar lake, Sukh Mahal was once the summer retreat of Bundi's rulers; tradition places its building in the time of Raja Ummed Singh, though sources differ over which ruler raised it. Its doors, the story goes, were made entirely of sandalwood, so that when the cool breeze off the water pushed through them the whole palace filled with a chill air and the scent of sandal. The British writer Rudyard Kipling did lodge here on his travels through Rajputana in the 1880s — though Kim, his celebrated novel, was written years later and far from these rooms.

Tucked into the upper level of the Garh Palace, the Chitrashala is spoken of as a paradise of wall painting. It was built by Maharao Ummed Singh, a devoted follower of Rangnath, whose reign is generally placed in the middle of the eighteenth century. In its earliest years the space served as his private audience chamber and a pleasure pavilion for the royal family. Its walls were then filled, in the manner of the Bundi school, with episodes from Krishna's life, scenes from the Ramayana and the pageantry of the court, all in natural pigment. The gold and mineral colours still glow centuries later.

About thirty-five kilometres out of Bundi town, this waterfall drops through thick forest, and the place is tied to a tale from the age of the Mahabharata. As one telling has it, the Pandavas were passing through these woods during their years in hiding when Draupadi was overcome by thirst, with no water to be found anywhere near. Bhim, famed for his strength, struck the ground with his mace, or by some accounts his foot, the rock split open and a stream burst out. The name Bhimlat is said to come from that moment. Beside the falls stands a Shiva temple, held by tradition to be ancient.