The fort and the temple
Kangra fort, on a spur above the confluence of the Banganga and Manjhi, is among the oldest and largest forts in the Himalaya, and the Bajreshwari Devi temple below it was famously wealthy — which made both a target. Mahmud of Ghazni plundered the temple in 1009, and the fort was taken by the Tughlaqs, by Akbar's forces in 1620, and by the Sikhs.
The Katoch family claim descent from the Trigarta of Pāṇini and the Mahābhārata, and use one of the oldest asserted lineages in India. The assertion cannot be verified across the gaps in the record.
Kangra painting
Sansar Chand II recovered the fort from Mughal control in 1786 and made Kangra briefly the leading power of the Punjab hills. His court at Sujanpur Tira drew painters from Guler, and the Kangra school that resulted is the high point of Pahari painting: soft modelling, lyrical landscape, and above all illustrations of the Gīta Govinda, the Bhāgavata and the Bihārī Satsaī, with Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa in a green valley landscape drawn from the country outside the studio window.
Sansar Chand overreached, was besieged by the Gorkhas, and called in Ranjit Singh, who relieved the siege and then kept the fort. Kangra passed to the British in 1846 and was administered as a district rather than a state.
The fort and much of the old town were destroyed in the Kangra earthquake of 1905, which killed some twenty thousand people.
Further reading
- 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
- Elgood, Heather. Hinduism and the Religious Arts. Cassell, 1999
- Michell, George. The Hindu Temple: An Introduction to Its Meaning and Forms. University of Chicago Press, 1988
See also
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.