A cowherd on a dune, and twenty-nine rules
When the great drought came, Jambha saw that the land itself was dying, and that the people who cut its trees and hunted its animals were helping to kill it. In 1485, on a sand dune called Samrathal Dhora, he gathered people around him and gave them a new way of living.
The boy: Jambheshwar was born into a Rajput family and grazed his father's cattle for years. He was known as a silent boy who spent long hours alone in the scrub.
The name: his teaching came as twenty-nine rules, and the community took its name from them. A Bishnoi is one who keeps the twenty-nine.
- Founder
- Guru Jambheshwar, called Jambhoji
- Born
- 1451, at Pipasar in Nagaur district
- Founded
- 1485, on the dune of Samrathal Dhora
- The name
- Bis (twenty) and noi (nine)
- Died
- 1536; his samadhi is at Mukam
- Daily rules: bathing at dawn, keeping the home pure, speaking the truth, avoiding theft, slander and quarrels, and being content and forgiving. Our guides can recite them all.
- Nothing harmed: water, milk and firewood must be filtered or checked, so that no small creature is harmed.
- What is forbidden: tobacco, alcohol and other intoxicants, and meat.
- The two famous rules: one forbids the cutting of green trees. The other asks every follower to show compassion to all living beings and never to kill an animal.
- Why they were radical: in a desert where a single tree can shelter a family and its goats, and where wild animals were hunted for the pot, these were new ideas.
- The songs: Jambhoji spent the rest of his life travelling and teaching, and his sayings, collected as the Shabadwani, are still sung in Bishnoi homes.
- Mukam: his samadhi, his resting place, lies at Mukam in the Nokha area of Bikaner district. The temple there is the holiest of Bishnoi shrines.
- The two gatherings: devotees come to Mukam in great numbers on the new moon of Phalgun in late winter and again on the new moon of Asoj in autumn.
- Sand for the dune: many carry a little sand from the tank at Mukam to the dune at Samrathal nearby, a small act that keeps the founder's dune alive.
- Where they live: Bishnoi families live across western Rajasthan and in Haryana, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh, but Marwar remains their home ground.
The day at Khejarli
On 12 September 1730 a woman named Amrita Devi saw the axes come out. She put her arms around a tree and told the soldiers that a cut head was cheaper than a cut tree. They killed her where she stood.
Why the axes came: Maharaja Abhay Singh of Jodhpur needed wood, the story goes, to burn lime for a new palace. His men were sent to Khejarli, where the khejri trees grew thick around the Bishnoi homes.
Her daughters: Amrita Devi's three daughters stepped forward next, and they were killed too.
- Date
- 12 September 1730
- Where
- Khejarli, about 25 km south-east of Jodhpur
- The martyrs
- As many as 363 people
- The fair
- Each year in Bhadrapad, near the anniversary
- Best visited
- At the end of a village morning
- The villages came: word spread, and Bishnois came from all directions to take their turn at the trees, old men and young women alike.
- The cost: by the time news reached the maharaja and he ordered the cutting stopped, as many as 363 people had died.
- The decree: he apologised to the community and decreed that no tree would be cut and no animal hunted in Bishnoi villages, a protection the families still speak of with pride.
- What you see today: Khejarli is now a place of pilgrimage, with a memorial to the martyrs and a grove of khejri trees.
- How far it travelled: the story is often told as an early forerunner of the Chipko movement of the 1970s, when village women in the Himalayan foothills hugged trees to stop the loggers.
- A national award: the Government of India named a national award for wildlife protection after Amrita Devi Bishnoi.
- Read more: our journal piece on Bishnoi conservation tells the full story.
How a Bishnoi village lives today
The farmstead
Inside the mud wall: a cluster of low buildings, with round huts under conical thatched roofs, a square room for grain and a kitchen with a clay hearth.
- The courtyard: open, and plastered smooth with mud and cow dung, which keeps the dust down and the floor cool.
- Dhanis: in many villages the families live on their own fields in these scattered hamlets, rather than in a tight village centre.
- Trees and water: neem and khejri trees shade the walls, and there is always a water trough outside for animals that are not the family's own.
What people wear
The men: usually in white, with a white dhoti, a white shirt or jacket and a white safa, the turban, tied loosely.
- The women: deep reds, maroons and oranges, with heavy gold or silver jewellery at the nose, ears and neck.
- No blue: blue is traditionally avoided in clothing, and you will rarely see it.
- Read the turban: our page on the Rajasthani turban explains how the colour and tie of a turban mark a community.
The faith in small acts
Grain for the wild: grain is scattered for birds and antelope at the edge of the fields.
- Orphaned fawns: injured fawns are carried home and raised, and there are famous photographs of Bishnoi women nursing orphaned blackbuck at the breast as they would their own children.
- The havan: a small fire offering is made in many homes.
- Burial, not cremation: the community buries its dead, partly to save the wood that a pyre would use.
Standing up to poachers
1998: villagers near Jodhpur chased a party of hunters who had shot blackbuck at night. The case, which involved well-known film actors, ran through the courts for two decades.
- How it is remembered: in the villages, simply as proof that the old protection still holds.
- Modern lives: many Bishnoi men work as farmers, drivers, teachers, soldiers and government officers, but ask any of them about a blackbuck and the conversation changes tone at once.
A working community, not a museum
Real life: children go to school on bicycles, tractors stand beside the huts and a mobile phone rings in the middle of a conversation about the twenty-nine rules.
- Expect real people: we say this so that you arrive expecting a living village rather than a costume drama.
- Why the welcome is genuine: the visits are kept small, and the families we visit are paid fairly for their time.
A morning in the villages, hour by hour
- Pick-up
- About 6.30am, a little later in midwinter
- Allow
- About four hours from Jodhpur
- Back by
- Late breakfast or early lunch
- Bring
- Binoculars, a shawl in winter
- Guide
- Local, English and Marwari speaking
Before seven, the drive south
The road: the city falls away quickly, and within half an hour the land opens into fields of millet stubble, thorn scrub and scattered khejri.
- Slowing down: your guide, who is from the area, asks the driver to slow near the first villages.
- Why so early: this is the hour when the antelope graze in the open, and the light is soft enough to see them clearly.
Seven to eight, the fields and the antelope
Where the herds are: often near a village pond or the edge of a farm, within sight of the houses.
- What you see: dark blackbuck males with spiralled horns standing apart from the fawn-coloured females. Chinkara, the small desert gazelle, may be further off in the scrub.
- On foot: we walk a little way with the guide, slowly and quietly, and never towards the animals.
- Winter extras: there may be cranes or flocks of larks in the fields as well.
Eight to nine, tea in a courtyard
A family who knows us: they have agreed to receive guests that day. Shoes come off at the courtyard edge.
- What you are offered: tea made with fresh milk, perhaps a bajra roti hot from the hearth with white butter, and a seat on a string cot.
- Daily work: the grandmother may grind grain on a stone quern, the women may be spinning wool or churning buttermilk, and the head of the family may explain the rules of the faith.
- Ask questions: our guide translates and, just as importantly, knows when a conversation should end.
Nine to ten, the potters and the weavers
The potter: craft families live alongside the Bishnoi. A potter shapes water pots and lamps on a wheel set spinning with a stick, and his wife paints them with red and white clay.
- Salawas: families weave durries, flat cotton and wool rugs, on pit looms dug into the floor.
- Buy directly: the money goes straight to the person who made the piece.
- Read first: our guide on how to buy a rug, and our crafts page on how we choose the makers we visit.
Ten o'clock, Khejarli and the drive home
The last stop: the memorial at Khejarli, under its khejri trees, where your guide tells the story of 1730 in the place it happened.
- Into the shade: by half past ten the sun is strong and the animals move into the shade, and so should you.
- After: back at your hotel in Jodhpur with the whole afternoon for the pool, or continue south to Rohet.
Where we arrange it, and from which base
From Jodhpur, the classic morning
Close enough: the villages south and south-east of Jodhpur, including Khejarli and the farms on the road to Rohet, make a morning and back in time for lunch.
- Where to stay: Umaid Bhawan Palace for grandeur, RAAS Jodhpur beneath Mehrangarh, or Ajit Bhawan for a family-run heritage house.
- Two nights: give one morning to the fort and the next to the villages.
From Rohet, the heart of Bishnoi country
Surrounded by villages: Rohet lies about forty kilometres south of the city, and its family began taking guests to the Bishnoi in 1988.
- Minutes, not half an hour: at Rohet Garh the villages are close, and the families have known the fort's people for generations.
- Arrive on horseback: a dawn ride on a Marwari horse through the same fields is the most beautiful way in. Our horse safari page explains the rides.
- The sister fort: Mihir Garh sits in open country nearby.
From Khimsar and Chandelao, the northern villages
Blackbuck country: the fields around Khimsar, north-east of Jodhpur, where Bishnoi and Jat farmers share the villages.
- At dusk: a jeep drive from Khimsar Fort often turns up antelope in the fields.
- Gentler base: Chandelao Garh, a small village fort, suits travellers who care more about village life than polish.
On the road to Jaisalmer, Manvar and Osian
Further west: the villages around Manvar and the temple town of Lohawat are Bishnoi heartland, with chinkara and blackbuck around them.
- Break the drive: guests going from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer can stop for a village walk and a night in the dunes.
- North of Jodhpur: the temples of Osian make a fine afternoon after a Bishnoi morning.
Mukam and the Bikaner side
- Mukam: Jambhoji's resting place can be visited between Nagaur and Bikaner. It is a place of worship rather than a sight, and we go quietly with a guide who knows the temple.
- Tal Chhapar: further north-east, the grasslands of Tal Chhapar hold one of India's finest herds of blackbuck, and pair well with this route.
The animals of the Bishnoi fields
The blackbuck: the animal everyone hopes to see, and you almost always do. It is an antelope found only in the Indian subcontinent.
How to tell them: adult males are glossy black above and white below, with long corkscrew horns and a white ring around each eye. Females and young males are a soft fawn.
In the cool months: they graze in loose herds, and the males spar and chase each other across the stubble.
- Star animal
- Blackbuck, seen almost every visit
- Also seen
- Chinkara, nilgai, peacocks
- At dawn and dusk
- Desert fox, jackal, desert hare
- Winter birds
- Larks, wheatears, shrikes, harriers
- Key tree
- Khejri: loong leaves, sangri pods
- The leaping run: when a startled animal bounds high into the air, it is a sight you will remember.
- Chinkara: the Indian gazelle is smaller and shyer, and prefers the rougher scrub and dunes.
- Nilgai: the big blue-grey antelope wander the farmland in small groups.
- Peacocks: everywhere, calling from the trees and strutting on the courtyard walls.
- Water birds: in winter the ponds draw waders and ducks.
- The khejri at work: its deep roots hold the sand and fix nitrogen in the soil, and its leaves, loong, feed goats and camels in the dry months.
- Sangri: its pods are dried and cooked with ker berries in the desert's great dish, which our piece on ker sangri explains.
- The rule that saved the groves: lopping a few branches for fodder is allowed, felling a green tree is not, and that has kept groves alive that would long ago have gone for firewood.
Our rules around the animals
On the tracks: we never drive off them, never ask a driver to chase a herd and never feed wild animals.
- At a distance: photographs are taken from the vehicle or on foot at a distance the animals are comfortable with, and if a herd starts to move away, we let it go.
- Read more: our ethical animal encounters page sets out how we approach wildlife across Rajasthan, and our photography tips explain how to get the shot without the chase.
Tea, millet and the Bishnoi kitchen
Vegetarian by faith: Bishnoi food is built around millet, milk and the desert's dried vegetables.
Bajra roti: the staple, a thick, nutty flatbread of pearl millet patted out by hand and baked on a clay griddle over a dung or wood fire.
On the side: white butter, garlic chutney, buttermilk and a vegetable: ker sangri, kadhi of yoghurt and gram flour, or gatte, gram-flour dumplings in a spiced sauce.
- In winter: perhaps bajre ki khichdi, millet and lentils cooked slowly and served with ghee.
- Tea is the welcome: fresh milk and plenty of sugar, boiled up over the fire and poured into small steel cups.
- How to accept: take the cup with your right hand. A small sip is the polite answer even if you don't usually take sugar.
- If food is offered: taste a little and thank the family warmly. Our Rajasthani food guide explains the dishes in more detail.
- A family lunch: we can arrange a simple lunch cooked in a family kitchen, with the women of the house showing you how the roti is made. It is never a performance, and never rushed.
- The hotel option: the kitchens at Rohet Garh and the village forts cook the same Marwari dishes with a little more polish.
When to go, and the right hour
- Best months
- October to March
- Our favourite
- December to February
- Best hour
- First light until about ten
- Mukam fair
- New moon of Phalgun, usually Feb or March
- Khejarli fair
- Bhadrapad, usually late Aug or Sept
October and November, after the rains
The land: fields still green or golden with the last of the millet, ponds holding water and the blackbuck in fine condition.
- The weather: fresh mornings and warm days.
- Diwali: often falls in these weeks, and the villages are bright with lamps. A lovely time to come.
December to February, the cold months
Our favourite season: mornings cold enough for a shawl, clear air and antelope grazing in the open for longer.
- Birds: winter birds are everywhere.
- Bring layers: a jeep at dawn is colder than you expect.
- The Mukam fair: on the new moon of Phalgun, usually in February or March. We confirm the date each year.
March to June, the hot season
The heat: it builds quickly from March, and by May it is fierce.
- Early only: visits are still possible, but we go out at first light and are back before nine.
- Near water: the fields are bare and the animals gather near water, which can make them easier to find.
- Who for: only travellers who already know the heat of the Thar.
July to September, the monsoon
Green overnight: when the rains come the desert turns green, the farmers are busy sowing and the air smells of wet earth.
- Unpredictable: rain is uncertain here, and humidity can be high.
- The Khejarli fair: in Bhadrapad, usually late August or September. It is a crowded, devotional day, and we plan visits around it with care.
Who will love it, and who may not
Curious travellers: anyone interested in how people live with nature will find it unforgettable.
Couples: love the quiet of the dawn fields and the warmth of the courtyard welcome.
- Photographers: antelope in soft light, potters at the wheel and village faces, always with permission.
- Families: children usually love the blackbuck, the peacocks and the clay pots, and village children are often curious about them in turn. Bring a few pencils or a ball rather than sweets.
- Less suited to: travellers who want a full day of sights. The pleasure is slow and the drama small, with no folk dance show and no market to shop in.
- Limited mobility: you can enjoy the drive, the antelope and the courtyard, though the ground is uneven and seating is often a low cot or a mat. Tell us in advance and we choose families and stops accordingly.
- A slower journey: our Village Rajasthan journey of rawlas, forts and farms builds a whole week around mornings like this one.
- A fine contrast: a few days later, the herding families of Godwar, whom we visit on our Rabari herders mornings.
What we ask of our guests
No smoking: never anywhere near a Bishnoi home or field. Tobacco is forbidden by the faith, and lighting up is deeply offensive.
No meat, eggs or alcohol: never bring them into a village, even in a packed lunch in the car.
- Shoes and seats: take your shoes off where you are asked to, and sit where you are shown.
- Ask before photographs: especially of women. A smile and a gesture to the camera is enough. Accept a no without argument.
- Keep back from the animals: and never let a driver chase them for a photograph.
- Dress modestly: shoulders and knees covered. A scarf is useful for women.
- No money or sweets for children: we pay the families directly for their time, and we support the village school when we can.
- Leave nothing behind: pick up every scrap of rubbish, and leave nothing but thanks.
How we look after you on the day
Your guide: local, and speaking both English and the Marwari dialect.
Never unannounced: we visit only families who have agreed to receive guests, and we never take more than a small group to one home.
- Format
- Private, with your own chauffeur and guide
- Allow
- About four hours from Jodhpur, less from Rohet
- Group size
- Small, never a crowd in one home
- Families
- Paid directly and fairly
- Pairs with
- Mandore, Umaid Bhawan museum, Ranakpur
- No emporium stops: we never stop at the commission emporiums that some village tours end in. Our responsible travel page explains the principles.
- The afternoon: combine the morning easily with Mandore or the Umaid Bhawan museum, or with the drive south to Ranakpur and Udaipur.
- Tell us: about dietary needs, mobility concerns or a particular interest, such as birds, pottery or the faith itself, and we shape the morning around it.
- Before you go: our etiquette and dress guide is useful reading.