The Rathores and the fort on the rock
The founder: by their own tradition, Rao Siha came west from Kannauj in the thirteenth century with a small band of followers.
How they spread: his descendants spread across the desert by service, marriage and the sword.
Mandore: in the late fourteenth century Rao Chunda took the old capital, just north of present-day Jodhpur.
- Arrived
- 13th century, under Rao Siha
- Mandore taken
- Late 14th century, Rao Chunda
- Jodhpur founded
- 1459, by Rao Jodha
- Bikaner founded
- 1488, by Rao Bika
- Umaid Bhawan
- Built 1929 to 1943
- Joined Rajasthan
- 1949
- The rock: in 1459 Rao Jodha moved the court to a high, steep-sided rock a few kilometres south and began Mehrangarh, the fort of the sun. The city below took his name.
- Rao Bika: one of Jodha's many sons rode north into the Jangladesh country and founded Bikaner in 1488.
- A family of forts: other sons founded estates all over Marwar, which is why so many forts, Khimsar among them, belong to cousins of the Jodhpur house.
- Under the Mughals: the Rathores were powerful generals and frequent rebels.
- Durgadas Rathore: when Maharaja Jaswant Singh died in 1678, Aurangzeb tried to take Marwar. The loyal noble Durgadas smuggled the infant heir, Ajit Singh, to safety, and every child in Marwar still learns the story.
- Umaid Bhawan: Maharaja Umaid Singh built the vast palace between 1929 and 1943, partly to give work during a long famine.
- Into Rajasthan: Jodhpur joined the new state in 1949.
- The family today: Maharaja Gaj Singh II set up the trust that runs Mehrangarh as one of India's finest museums, and the family still lives in part of Umaid Bhawan. Read about the Jodhpur royal family.
A land built for heat and drought
The name: usually traced to maru, an old word for desert.
The land: mostly the eastern Thar, flat scrub and farmland broken by rocky outcrops and patches of dune.
The Luni: a seasonal river running across the south.
- The rain: a few short weeks of monsoon, and in a bad year it barely comes at all.
- Stored water: old Jodhpur is laced with stepwells and tanks, from Toorji ka Jhalra, built in the 1740s by a queen, to the lakes below Mehrangarh.
- The khejri: the region's lifeline. Its leaves feed goats and camels, its pods become sangri, and its shade is where the village meets.
- The Bishnoi: followers of the fifteenth-century teacher Guru Jambheshwar, who hold the khejri and the blackbuck sacred.
- Khejarli, 1730: Amrita Devi and 363 Bishnoi villagers died trying to stop the cutting of their trees. The story is told in every Bishnoi home.
- At dawn: in their villages, blackbuck and chinkara graze close to the houses, quite unafraid. Read how we visit the Bishnoi villages of Marwar respectfully.
Marwari speech, turbans and traders
The language: Marwari is direct, quick and full of proverbs.
The greeting: khamma ghani, and every respectful sentence ends with sa.
The merchants: Marwari traders spread across India in the nineteenth century as bankers and traders, until Marwari came to mean a businessman in Calcutta and Bombay.
- Business families: many of India's great houses trace their roots to Marwar and neighbouring Shekhawati.
- The safa: the turban is the badge of Marwar. Rajputs tie it long in the Jodhpuri style, and Bishnoi men wear white.
- Herders: Rabari and Raika men wear red or white turbans with heavy silver earrings.
- Women: bright odhnis and ivory or plastic bangles from wrist to shoulder.
- Jodhpurs: the city gave its name to the riding breeches that went round the world with the polo players.
- The Marwari horse: bred here, with ears that curve inward until the tips almost touch.
- Go further: our page on the Rajasthani turban, and a morning on horseback through Marwar, the best way to see the countryside.
The places of Marwar, from Jodhpur to Bikaner
Jodhpur, the blue city
Mehrangarh: rises about 120 metres above the plain, over an old city of indigo-washed houses.
The museum: superb palanquins, paintings and arms.
- Jaswant Thada: the white marble memorial below the fort, built in 1899.
- The old town: the Clock Tower and Sardar Market mark its noisy heart.
- Allow: two nights at least, and walk Navchokiya and Brahmpuri with a local guide in the early morning.
Osian, the temple town of the desert
A Pratihara trading town: about an hour and a half north of Jodhpur, with more than a dozen temples from the eighth to the twelfth centuries.
- The Mahavira temple: traditionally dated to 783 under King Vatsaraja, among the oldest surviving Jain temples in western India.
- Sachiya Mata: the hilltop temple is still a busy shrine.
- A first taste of sand: small dunes on the edge of town.
Khimsar
The fort: on the Jodhpur to Nagaur road, begun in 1523 by Karamsji, the eighth son of Rao Jodha.
- Home and hotel: part is still the family home. The rest is a hotel with a walled garden and a pool where the zenana once stood.
- Dune camp: the family also runs a small camp near the village.
- Getting there: an easy two hours from Jodhpur, and a good stop on the way to Bikaner.
Manvar
Where: just off the Jodhpur to Jaisalmer highway, near the village of Dechu.
- Two places: a roadside resort and a separate camp a few kilometres out among the dunes.
- The evenings are the point: a camel cart to a dune top at sunset, folk musicians by the fire and a sky full of stars.
- Distance: about 110 kilometres from Jodhpur, roughly two hours, and it breaks the long drive into the Thar.
Rohet
Rohet Garh: about an hour south of Jodhpur, a seventeenth-century fort that has been the same family's home for generations.
- The writers' desk: Bruce Chatwin worked on The Songlines here in the 1980s, and William Dalrymple later began City of Djinns at the same desk.
- Horses and villages: known for rides on Marwari horses, and its Bishnoi villages are among the best places to meet the community.
- Mihir Garh: a newer fort built by the same family in the open country nearby.
Nagaur
Ahhichatragarh: halfway between Jodhpur and Bikaner, one of the great desert forts, with painted palaces, Mughal-style gardens and ingenious water channels and fountains.
- An award: its long restoration, led by the trust that runs Mehrangarh, won a UNESCO Asia-Pacific heritage award.
- The fair: in January or February the cattle fair brings thousands of bullocks, camels and horses to the grounds outside town.
Bikaner
Rao Bika's city: in the north of the Thar, built in rosy-red sandstone.
- Junagarh: built 1589 to 1594 for Raja Rai Singh, with lacquered, gilded and painted rooms inside plain walls.
- Lalgarh: Maharaja Ganga Singh built this palace in the early twentieth century.
- Deshnoke: about 30 kilometres south, the Karni Mata temple is home to thousands of rats held sacred by the goddess's followers.
Villages, birds and leopards
A lived-in countryside: that is its pleasure.
A Bishnoi morning: around Jodhpur and Rohet, a potter at his wheel, a family of dhurrie weavers and tea in a courtyard swept that morning.
- Khichan's cranes: in winter, thousands of demoiselle cranes fly in from Central Asia to this village near Phalodi, where villagers have fed them grain for generations. Read the demoiselle cranes of Khichan.
- Jawai's leopards: to the south, the granite hills of Jawai shelter leopards that live alongside Rabari herders and their flocks.
- An easy pairing: Jawai lies in Marwar's Pali district and fits naturally between Jodhpur and Udaipur.
- Ranakpur: the great Jain temple at Ranakpur is close by, in the Aravalli valleys on Marwar's border with Mewar.
Marwari food, from kachori to ker sangri
Mirchi bada: Jodhpur's breakfast, a fat green chilli stuffed with spiced potato, dipped in gram-flour batter and fried.
On the side: pyaaz kachori.
Makhaniya lassi: rich with butter and saffron.
- Mawa kachori: later in the day, filled with milk solids and nuts and soaked in syrup.
- Mathania chillies: from a village near Jodhpur, famous across India, giving laal maas its colour and fire.
- Ker sangri: dried desert berries and beans cooked with spices and oil.
- Village lunch: bajre ki roti with garlic chutney and buttermilk, and kadhi thickened with gram flour.
- Bikaner: famous for bhujia, crisp gram-flour noodles sold by the kilo, and for its rasgullas.
- Nagaur: gives India its dried fenugreek leaves, the kasuri methi in every north Indian kitchen.
- Where we eat: our food of Jodhpur and food of Bikaner guides.
Crafts of Marwar
Bandhani: Jodhpur's tie-dye, in which cloth is pinched and bound into thousands of tiny dots before dyeing. Our leheriya and bandhani page explains it.
Wood, iron and brass: the city makes heavy wooden furniture and metal fittings.
- Mojaris: leather slippers worn at weddings.
- Salawas: a village near Jodhpur known for flat-woven dhurrie rugs.
- Bishnoi pottery: water pots that keep drinking water cool through summer.
- Usta art: in Bikaner, artists paint camel-hide lamps and vessels with raised gold leaf, a craft practised there for generations.
- Wool: Bikaner's carpets and weaving reflect its long history in the wool trade.
- What to buy: our shopping guide.
Festivals and fairs in Marwar
- Folk festival
- October, Sharad Purnima
- Marwar Festival
- Around Sharad Purnima
- Nagaur fair
- January or February
- Camel Festival
- Each January
- Karni Mata
- Spring and autumn Navratri
The Rajasthan International Folk Festival
- When: every October, around the full moon of Sharad Purnima.
- What: folk musicians from Rajasthan and beyond play from dusk to dawn on the ramparts of Mehrangarh. One of our favourite events in India.
The Marwar Festival
- Folk heroes: also around Sharad Purnima, it celebrates the heroes of Marwar with music and dance in Jodhpur.
The Nagaur cattle fair
- One of India's largest livestock fairs: bullocks, camels and Marwari horses traded over several days outside Nagaur.
- Alongside: races, music and competitions.
The Bikaner Camel Festival
- The animal that built the city: decorated camels, camel dances and folk performances against the walls of Junagarh.
The Karni Mata fairs
- Twice a year: pilgrims walk to the temple at Deshnoke from all over the region.
What most visitors to Marwar miss
Mandore's cenotaphs: in the gardens of the old capital, the rulers of Marwar are remembered in tall red sandstone memorials built like temples rather than open chhatris.
Jaswant Thada's purpose: Maharaja Sardar Singh built it in memory of his father, Jaswant Singh II.
- Mehrangarh trust
- Founded 1972
- Jaswant Thada
- Built 1899
- Umaid Bhawan architect
- H. V. Lanchester
- Clock Tower
- Maharaja Sardar Singh's reign
- The museum trust: Maharaja Gaj Singh II set up the Mehrangarh Museum Trust in 1972.
- The palace's architect: Umaid Bhawan was designed by the British architect H. V. Lanchester, in an Art Deco style unusual for an Indian palace.
- The Clock Tower: the Ghanta Ghar in the old market went up in the reign of Maharaja Sardar Singh.
- Polo and jodhpurs: Sir Pratap Singh of Jodhpur, a great polo player, helped carry the game and its breeches to England.
Where to stay in Marwar
In Jodhpur
Umaid Bhawan Palace: the grand Art Deco palace on its own hill.
RAAS Jodhpur: in the old city directly below Mehrangarh, with the fort lit up above the pool at night.
- Ajit Bhawan: a family-run palace in town.
- Bal Samand Lake Palace: a royal summer retreat by a lake on the edge of the city.
- Compare them: our luxury hotels in Jodhpur guide.
In the country
Rohet Garh and Mihir Garh: Rohet Garh and Mihir Garh are run by the Rohet family.
- Chandelao Garh: a small village fort.
- Khimsar Fort: a sixteenth-century fort on the road to Nagaur.
- Manvar Desert Camp: the place for a night in the dunes.
In Bikaner
Laxmi Niwas Palace: part of the Lalgarh complex.
- Narendra Bhawan: the last Maharaja's residence.
- Bhanwar Niwas: a merchant haveli in the old city.
How we'd travel Marwar
The usual route: arrive in Jodhpur from Jaipur or Udaipur, then go on to Jaisalmer.
A good shape: two nights in Jodhpur, plus a night at Rohet or Narlai on the way south, or at Manvar on the way west.
- From Jaipur
- Five to six hours
- From Udaipur
- About five hours
- To Jaisalmer
- About five hours
- To Nagaur
- About three hours
- Bikaner to Jaisalmer
- Five to six hours
- Fly into
- Jodhpur Airport (JDH)
- The northern loop: Bikaner and Nagaur, which our desert triangle journey follows.
- On the way in: our Jaipur to Jodhpur route covers the best stops.
- Flights: Jodhpur has direct flights to Delhi, Mumbai and other cities. Bikaner's small airport has fewer.
- Short drives from Jodhpur: Osian about an hour and a half north, Rohet under an hour south, Khimsar about two hours north-east.
- Further north: Bikaner is another two to three hours beyond Nagaur.
When to come to Marwar
October: warm, with the folk festival at Mehrangarh.
November to February: bright, dry days and cold nights, with the cranes at Khichan and the fairs of Nagaur and Bikaner.
- Season
- October to March
- Coldest nights
- December and January
- Hot months
- April to June
- Summer heat
- Often above 40°C
- Deep winter: desert nights can drop close to freezing, and country forts light fires in the courtyard after dinner.
- Summer: very hot, so we keep sightseeing to the early morning.
- Monsoon: a few short storms and a brief, startling green, lovely for photographers.
- Month by month: our best time to visit Jodhpur guide.
What we tell friends heading west
Mehrangarh early: climb at opening time for the best view in Jodhpur, and leave the museum for the heat of the day.
Karni Mata: you walk barefoot among the rats. Bring socks if you'd rather, and don't step on anyone's lunch.
- Bishnoi villages: never bring meat or smoke near the homes, and ask before photographing women.
- On every drive: carry water and a hat. Distances are long, and roadside stops are few deep in the desert.
- Say thank you properly: dhanyavaad sa, with the respectful sa. People notice.