Jālor
The Jālor branch descended from the Naḍḍūla Chāhamānas and held the hill fort of Jālor and the surrounding country. They were tributaries of the Chaulukyas of Gujarat and later of the Delhi Sultanate, and like the other Rajasthan houses they took independence whenever Delhi's attention was elsewhere.
The dynasty was a notable patron of Jainism; the Jain temples on the Jālor hill and at nearby sites carry their inscriptions.
Kānhaḍadeva
Kānhaḍadeva refused passage to Alauddin Khalji's army marching on Gujarat in 1299 and, according to the tradition, intercepted its returning baggage train. The sultan's forces besieged Jālor and took it in 1311; the king and his son Vīramadeva were killed.
The Kānhaḍade Prabandha, a Rajasthani poem written in 1455 by Padmanābha, narrates the war at length and is one of the earliest substantial literary works in the language. Like the other Rajput fortress epics it was composed well after the event and shapes it into a story of dharma against an invader; used carefully it is nonetheless a valuable source for how these events were remembered.
Further reading
- Asher, Catherine B. India Before Europe. Cambridge University Press, 2006
- Bakker, Hans T. The World of the Skandapurana. Brill, 2014
- Folkert, Kendall W. Scripture and Community: Collected Essays on the Jains. Scholars Press, 1993
- Granoff, Phyllis. The Clever Adulteress and Other Stories. Mosaic Press, 1990
- Jackson, Peter. The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History. Cambridge University Press, 1999
See also
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.