Mehrangarh Fort

Mehrangarh Fort stands on a rocky hill about 410 feet above Jodhpur and is among the best-preserved forts in India. Rao Jodha, founder of the city, began it in 1459. Legend says a man named Raja Ram Meghwal let himself be buried alive in its foundations to lift a hermit's curse, and that Rao Jodha sought the blessing of the warrior sage Karni Mata. The fort appears in many films and in writing by Rudyard Kipling and Aldous Huxley.

Later rulers kept adding to it. Rao Maldeo strengthened its gates and walls against Sher Shah Suri; after his death in 1562 Akbar took the fort during a succession dispute, later handing it back as marriage ties bound the two houses. Aurangzeb seized it again, and after he died in 1707 Maharaja Ajit Singh recovered it, adding the Fateh Pol, or Victory Gate, and palace rooms such as the Sheesh Mahal. Seven gates climb through huge bastions to the palaces.