A long record
Chamba's rulers held the upper Ravi from Bharmour and, from about 920, from the town of Chamba founded by Raja Sahil Varman. The kingdom's isolation in the high valleys spared it most of the conquests that swept the plains, and its charters — inscribed on copper and on stone — run in a nearly continuous series for over a thousand years, which is exceptional.
The temples at Bharmour and the Lakshmi Narayan group at Chamba, some of them with original bronze images of the seventh and eighth centuries, survive because nothing ever destroyed them.
The rumal and the ritual
The Chamba rumal is a double-sided embroidered coverlet worked in untwisted silk floss on hand-spun cloth, in designs derived from Pahari miniature painting — the two crafts shared a visual language, and court painters often drew the outlines. The finest examples are of the eighteenth century.
The Minjar fair and the Sui Mata cult preserve local traditions, the latter commemorating a queen said to have given her life to bring water to the town.
Chamba entered British protection in 1846 after the Sikh wars and acceded to India in 1948.
Further reading
- Michell, George. The Hindu Temple: An Introduction to Its Meaning and Forms. University of Chicago Press, 1988
- Kulke, Hermann. A History of India. Routledge, 2004
- Asher, Catherine B. India Before Europe. Cambridge University Press, 2006
- Blurton, T. Richard. Hindu Art. Harvard University Press, 1993
- Davis, Richard H. Lives of Indian Images. Princeton University Press, 1997
See also
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.