A fish-shaped mesa five kilometres long standing a hundred and eighty metres above the plain, with a wall line of some thirteen kilometres and a zig-zag climb of over a kilometre from the river up to the gate.
The water is the whole point: the rock once carried eighty-four tanks and spring-fed reservoirs, which is why sieges here are counted in years rather than weeks. It is the last high ground between Malwa and Gujarat. Who holds it on this exact morning cannot be recovered: Kumarapala of Gujarat endowed its Samadhishvara temple in 1150, Kirtipala of Naddula drove the Guhilas out of Mewar in the 1170s, and the earliest Guhila inscription on the rock belongs to Tejasimha in the mid thirteenth century.
Who holds it
- Name
- not recoverable: the Guhila king (probable), a Chaulukya officer, or nobody
- Title
- Not pinned
- Since
- not pinned
- Born
- not pinned
- Confidence
- low
Wikipedia's Guhila page (Chittor under Kumarapala by 1151; the earliest Guhila inscription on the rock is mid thirteenth century) and the campaign board.
Lord in 1200
not recoverable: the Guhila king (probable), a Chaulukya officer, or nobody
How things stand that morning
Disputed; see Guhilas of Mewar.
Communities
Brahmins and Jain merchants; the town below.
Walls and castle
The mesa wall; the Gaumukh spring and the tanks; the Samadhishvara temple (the Shiva temple beside the Gaumukh tank, eleventh century, attributed to Bhoja by style).
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Wikipedia's Guhila page (Chittor under Kumarapala by 1151; the earliest Guhila inscription on the rock is mid thirteenth century) and the campaign board.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
Primary sources for Guhilas of Mewar
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- Epigraphia Indica: inscriptions of the Chandelas, Paramaras, Gahadavalas, Chaulukyas, Senas and Eastern Gangas, Various (edited for the Archaeological Survey of India by J. Burgess, E. Hultzsch, F. Kielhorn, Sten Konow, F. W. Thomas and successors) (inscriptions of the 1180s to 1210s; the series ran from 1892). The main record series for the Hindu kingdoms of northern India around 1200. Read online
- Historical Inscriptions of Gujarat, Various (the Chaulukya and Vaghela chanceries), edited by G. V. Acharya (inscriptions of the 10th to 14th centuries; edited 1933 to 1942). The standard corpus of Gujarat's inscriptions. Read online
- The Wishing-Stone of Narratives, Merutunga (a Jain monk of the Nagendra gaccha) (1305 (Vikrama 1361) at Vadhvan in Gujarat). A Jain collection of historical anecdotes about the kings of Gujarat and Malwa, a century after 1200. Read online
Sources and studies
- Wikipedia, 'Guhila dynasty' (after R. V. Somani, D. C. Ganguly, Gopinath Sharma and Rima Hooja)
- OMNIA board notes for the place (a lead only; checked against the sources above)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.