Ghumli and Porbandar
The Jethwas held the western Saurashtra coast, first from Ghumli in the Barda hills — where the ruins of the Navlakha temple, one of the largest in Gujarat, survive — and later from Porbandar on the sea. They were displaced from Ghumli in the fourteenth century and moved their seat several times before settling at Porbandar in the eighteenth.
Their claimed descent from Makaradhvaja, a son of Hanumān, is unusual: Indian dynasties normally trace themselves to the solar or lunar lines, and a monkey-god ancestry is not otherwise attested for a ruling house.
Porbandar state
Porbandar became a princely state under British paramountcy and acceded to India in 1948. Its best-known association is not dynastic: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born there in 1869, his father being dewan — chief minister — of the state.
Further reading
- Kulke, Hermann. A History of India. Routledge, 2004
- Hawley, John Stratton. A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement. Harvard University Press, 2015
- Kramrisch, Stella. The Hindu Temple. Motilal Banarsidass, 1976
- Michell, George. The Hindu Temple: An Introduction to Its Meaning and Forms. University of Chicago Press, 1988
- Talbot, Cynthia. Precolonial India in Practice. Oxford University Press, 2001
See also
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.