It`s time to remember the great Hindu Rajput king Rana Kumbhakarna Singh of the Sisodia clan who ruled Mewar. Today we will talk about his wars against the sultanates of Malwa and Gujarat and have a look at the battle of Nagaur.

Mahmud Khilji of Mandu (Malwa) had been defeated by the Rana in 1440 AD. Two years later when the Rana had gone Haravati, Mahmud found unprotected and decided to invade it.

He decided to destroy the temple of Bana Mata in Kelwara. A Rajput chieftain Dip Singh sought to stop him and he succesfully repulsed the Sultan for 7 days. On the 7th day he died fighting and Sultan took over the temple.

He razed the temple to ground and burnt the idol of the Mata. He was excited with this small victory and decided to invade Mandsaur and send his father

When Maharana heard of this, he left Haravati and came with his army to fight the Sultan at Mandalgarh. The battle was fought with no result. Later Maharana made a night attack on him and he was utterly defeated.

The Sultan still didn`t forget that defeat and attacked Mandalgarh with an army 4 years later but this time Maharana`s army attacked Sultan`s army when he was crossing the river and defeated him again. The Sultan got scared and did nothing for 10 years.

Gajadhar Singh, the governor of Ajmer had forbidden Muslim religious practices in the city. Hearing this the Sultan relying on the Muslims of the city to help him sent his major army to Mandsaur against Rana and himself invaded Ajmer, Gajadhar defended the Ajmer fort for 4 days.

When Gajadhar saw his men dieing,he came out of the fort & made a huge slaughter of the Sultan`s men & died fighting after a act of valour. As Rajputs were going inside the fort,the Sultan`s men mixed with them and took control of the fort, he appointed his man as the governor.

Elated by this success the Sultan left Ajmer and went to attack Mandalgarh. As he approached the river Banas, the Maharana`s army came out of the fort and fell upon his men. He took a huge loss and fled to Mandu.

In 1455 a dispute arose for Nagaur throne. Shams Khan was deposed by Mujahid Khan & almost killed him. Shams fled to Kumbha & asked for his help. Kumbha asked him to accept his superiority in return. He did & Rana marched to Nagor & defeated Mujahid & gave throne back to Shams.

When Rana asked to destroy the forts of Nagaur, an old Sardar of Shams asked him to spare Shams and promised that Shams would himself destroy it when Rana was gone, Rana became humble and granted him this permission.

However Shams didn`t keep his promise and instead started to strengthen his fort. This brought Kumbha back to Nagaur with a huge army. Shams was driven out of Nagor and Kumbha got it`s rule. He himself demolished the forts.

Kumbha took his precious jewels,filled the moat around the city, slew their soldiers,imprisoned Muslim women, punished countless Muslims. He burnt the city with all the Mosques, took 12 lac cows from Muslims,made the city pasture for cows and give it to Brahmins for some time.

Shams fled to Ahmedabad and asked the Sultan to help him. Sultan agreed and sent a huge army to Nagaur. Kumbha allowed them to come near and when he came out, inflicted a crushing defeat on his army and totally annihilated it. Only few remained to take the news back.

The Sultan now decided to take back Nagor himself. He sent his commander to Abu to meet Rana & himself attacked Kumbhalgarh. Maharana first defeated his commander with great slaughter & even reached Kumbhalgarh back before the Sultan.

His commader now defeated met his Sultan at the foothills of Kumbha`s fort. Maharana came out and defeated the Sultan inflicting heavy losses and made them flee to Gujarat.

The Sultans of Malwa and Gujarat now defeated by the Maharana came into an alliance and planned to destroy him.

Qutub-ud-din attacked Kumbhalgarh and Mahmun attacked Chittor,Rana decided to protect Kumbhalgarh and advanced towards it,they fought for two days, on first day the battle was indecisive but later Maharana took a better position & completely routed the Sultan who barely survived.

The king of Malwa also retired to his capital, he was neither able to take new territories from Mewar nor was able to save his own territory, he lived for 10 more years but never came to attack Mewar again.

In 1467 AD, reports came of cow slaughter by Muslims in Nagaur, Maharana took with him fifty thousand horsemen and put thousand of Muslims to sword and returned back with elephants and other valuables.

He was a great king who constructed numerous monuments and forts, the most famous ones being the Vijay Stambha and the Kumbhalgarh fort.
He was caled by many names included Hindu Surtran (Sultans).

Despite spending almost his entire life in warfare, he was a great scholar, he was a scholar of Sanskrit and was well immersed in Vedas and the Smritis. He has works in politics, music, grammar and logic. He even wrote a commentary of Geeta Govinda by Jaydeva named Rasika Priya.

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