Kipling likens it to a great
ship, up the sides of which the steep road slopes like a gangway. At the
foot lies the modern village, squalid but picturesque.
As we toil, perspiring, up the long ramp which for a weary mile slopes
sidelong up the scarped flank of the mountain, and pass through the seven
gates which guarded the way, and every one of which was the scene of many
a grim and bloody struggle, I will try to sketch the outline of the
history of the famous fort, for many centuries the headquarters of the
royal race of Mewar.
The Gehlotes, or (as they were afterwards styled) the Sesodias, claim
descent from the Sun through Manu, Icshwaca, and Rama Chandra, as indeed
do the other Rajput potentates of Jaipur, Marwar, and Bikanir, the Rana of
Mewar, however, taking precedence owing to his descent from Lava, the
eldest son of Rama.
The ancient dynasty of Mewar has fallen from its high estate, but the
history of its rise is lost in the mists of grey antiquity.
"We can trace the losses of Mewar, but with difficulty her acquisitions....
She was an old-established dynasty when all the other States were in
embryo." Long before Richard of the Lion-heart fared to Palestine to wrest
the Holy City from the infidel, "a hundred kings, its (Mewar's) allies and
dependants, had their thrones raised in Chitor," to defend it against the
sword of the Mohammedan; while overhead floated the banner displaying the
golden sun of Mewar on a crimson field.
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