Fort of Bandhavgarh: Tigers & Kings
When you think of Bandhavgarh - tigers immediately comes to your mind but the jungle king is not the only star of the forest in Bandhavgarh National Park. Dominating a 560-acre plateau on a hilltop deep in the heart of Madhya Pradesh is a fort that goes almost 2,000 years back. The seat of many dynasties, this fort was most famously the capital of the Baghel Kings of the Princely state of Rewa. The Baghel dynasty, which ruled from Bandhavgarh Fort between the 13th and 17th CE before they shifted their capital to Rewa, once owned the forest around the fort and used it as their private hunting ground. They handed it over to the state government in 1968. According to a popular legend, Lord Rama gifted this fort to his brother Laxman, and this is what probably gave the fort its name, ‘Bandhavgarh’, which means ‘brother’s fort’ (‘bandhav’ meaning ‘brother’ and ‘garh’ meaning ‘fort’). When archaeologists and epigraphists, visited the site in 1938, they found 50 caves. All of them are manmade...