Rajasthan, the land embellished with infinite imprints of colour and chivalry, harmonious life and lingering music, harmony and hospitality, palaces and pristine nature; has been extending an invigorating invitation to the world, since time immemorial. Jodhpur , the heart of Rajasthan and the majestic jewel of her eternal crown, iluminate the Thar, enriching the desert with enterpreneurship, scholarship and art.

Jodhpur Ruled by Rathores
The kingdom of Jodhpur was ruled by the Rathores, who controlled much of Marwar in western Rajasthan including Bikaner , the other desert . The Rathore’s belong to the Suryavansha (solar race) branch of the Kshatriyas, the warrior caste of Hindus .The clan traces its lineage back to Rama, the mythical hero of the Hindu epic Ramayana and through him back to the sun god Surya himself. In modern times, the first Rathore ruler chronicled by history was Nayan Pal, who established his kingdom at Kannauj near modern day Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh in 470 A.D. Here the dynasty flourished until much of north India began to acquire a distinctly Islamic flavour towards the close of the 12th century. Mohammad Ghori the Afghan annexed Kannauj in 1192, forcing the Rathore ruler Raja Jai Chand to flee which he did carrying the Rathore panchranga or the five-coloured flag with him. But dispirited by the defeat he drowned while crossing the Ganges .

In The Early Days
After period of wandering through Gujarat , described by James Tod in his magnum opus Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, the Rathores settled down in Pali, which is not far away from Jodhpur . Here Rao Siyaji, Jai Chand’s successor hit upon the strategy of conquest of Marwar through forging matrimonial alliances; he married and had three sons and eight grandsons each of whom bred prolifically in turn. and in 1453 the Rathores had multiplied enough in the region for one of Siyaji’s descendants Chonda to cobble up a large enough army to capture Mandore, the capital of Marwar. Here he married the princess of the ruling dynasty, had no less than 14 children and established the Rathore stronghold in Marwar. However, the Rajput reputation for constantly feuding with each other was well deserved; in this case it was the marital alliance between Chonda’s daughter Hansa to Lakha Rana of Mewar which stirred up trouble between the two principalities. Ultimately leading to the death of Chonda which is described by one Rathore chronicler as ‘he was slain at Nagore with one thousand Rajputs.’

The City Founded
Eventually Rao Jodha (whose son Rao Bika later founded Bikaner ) decided to shift capital to a safer place and moved from Mandore to Jodhpur which he founded in 1459. Again, as in the case of the founding of Jaisalmer, it was a sage who suggested that Jodha establish his settlement on a craggy hill known as the birds nest, which is now called Jodhpur . Atop this eyrie, Jodha built his stronghold called the Chintamani fort, which was later called Mehrangarh. Jodha lived in his new capital for thirty years and on his death bed he must have been a contented man, because he and his progeny by that time controlled eighty thousand square miles of territory. A far cry from three centuries earlier when his ancestors had been driven out of Kannauj by Ghori in absolute penury. Surajmal who succeeded Jodha, ruled Jodhpur for a score and seven years, and it was in his tenure that Jodhpur had its first spat with the imperial army at Delhi.