Rana Sanga

• 1. Introduction

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  Rana Sanga received more than 80 wounds in battle. Sangram Singh I, as he was formally named, became Maharana of Mewar on the 24th of May 1509. At its zenith in 1521, his empire stretched from Mandu in the south to the Indus River in the northwest. Nearly all the Rajput chiefs of northern India answered to him. Babur, who founded the Mughal Empire, described him as the greatest Indian ruler of his time. The question worth following is how two decades of military dominance left Sanga unprepared for what Babur brought to the field. He was not King Raimal's eldest son, and the throne had not come to him quietly.

• 2. Blood and Succession

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  Sanga was born to King Raimal and Queen Ratan Kunwar, a Jhala princess from Halvad. Contemporary sources recorded no birth year, noting instead the astrological planetary positions at his arrival. Historian Gaurishankar Hirachand Ojha worked from those positions and from the Kumbhalgarh inscription, calculating the year as 1482.

  As Raimal's third son, Sanga held no automatic place at the front of the succession. The brothers Prithviraj and Jagmal stood between Sanga and the throne of Mewar. The struggle that followed cost Sanga one of his eyes. One of his first acts as ruler was to reunite the warring clans of Rajputana through diplomacy and through strategic marriages. Contemporary texts described him as a Hindu Emperor, and he is considered the last independent Hindu sovereign of northern India to hold substantial territory. He would soon test those alliances against the sultanates to his north, east, and west, beginning with the rulers of Malwa.

• 3. Eighteen Victories

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  Medini Rai, a rebellious minister of the Malwa sultanate, came to Sanga for help in his struggle against his own sultan. The combined forces of Gujarat and Malwa met the Sisodias at Gagron, and Sanga won. Between 1518 and 1519, according to historian Satish Chandra, Sanga seized eastern and northern Malwa and the city of Chanderi. Rai was installed at Chanderi as ruler, and Sanga ordered him to remove the jizya tax from the region's Hindus.

  Sanga's campaigns against Ibrahim Lodi of Delhi were equally one-sided. Lodi marched against Mewar in 1517, and the armies met at Khatoli on the border of Hadoti. The Lodi forces broke and fled; one Lodi prince was captured and imprisoned. In that battle, Sanga lost an arm and was struck by an arrow that left him lame for life. Lodi returned in 1518-19 and was defeated again at Dholpur. A 16th-century text, the Parshvanath-Shravan-Sattavisi, records a further defeat of Lodi at Ranthambore, after the Siege of Mandsaur.

  By 1520, Sanga moved against Gujarat. He led 40,000 Rajputs and was reinforced by Rao Ganga Rathore of Marwar with 8,000 more. Among his allies were Rawal Udai Singh of Vagad and Rao Viram of Merta. His forces defeated the Muslim army of Nizam Khan and pressed toward Ahmedabad before Sanga called off the advance 20 miles from the city. He plundered the royal treasuries and annexed northern Gujarat. The next adversary Sanga faced had crossed from Kabul and would not be turned back the way the sultans had been.

• 4. The Guns of Khanwa

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  On the 21st of April 1526, Babur invaded India for the fifth time and defeated Ibrahim Lodi at Panipat, executing him on the field. Sanga responded by achieving something not accomplished since the era of Prithviraj Chauhan: he united the Rajput clans. He assembled an army of 100,000 soldiers and marched toward Agra.

  The Mughals captured the fort at Bayana, which had been part of Sanga's empire. In February 1527, Sanga struck back. At Bayana, his forces defeated the Mughal commander Abdul Aziz, the last victory Sanga would win. Before the decisive encounter ahead, he sought divine favor by forbidding liquor among his troops, breaking wine vessels, and pouring the wine down a well.

  On the 16th of March 1527, the two forces met at Khanwa, 37 miles west of Agra. Babur deployed cannons, matchlocks, and other firearms, weapons that northern India had not encountered before. In mid-battle, an arrow struck Sanga and he lost consciousness. His brother-in-law Prithviraj Kachwaha of Amber and Prince Maldev Rathore carried him from the field. During the battle, Silhadi, one of Sanga's own vassals, switched sides and joined Babur.

  The Mughal victory at Khanwa was judged by later historians as more decisive than Panipat; it made Babur the master of northern India. Historian Andre Wink observed that Mughal power moved its center from Kabul to Agra after Khanwa, where it remained until the death of Alamgir. Following his victory, Babur ordered a tower of enemy skulls, a practice drawn from Timur's tactics. According to historian Satish Chandra, the objective was both to record a great victory and to terrorize opponents. Babur stopped his advance into Rajasthan. The Rajput forces had not been destroyed, only broken for the moment.

• 5. Oath, Poison, Legacy

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  At Baswa, near Dausa, Sanga's forces encamped for his recovery. Once he regained consciousness, he swore never to return to Chittorgarh until he had defeated Babur and taken Delhi. He stopped wearing his turban as a mark of that vow. He was already preparing another campaign when his own nobles intervened. Those who wanted no further conflict poisoned him. He died in Kalpi. The most commonly cited date is the 30th of January 1528, though some accounts give the 20th of May that year. He was succeeded by his son, Ratan Singh II.

  Rao Maldeo Rathore stepped into the role of leading Rajput king. He dominated the following era through an increased use of cavalry rather than through the coalition Sanga had built. Sanga's vassal Medini Rai, who had governed Chanderi in his name, was defeated by Babur at Chanderi. Babur offered Rai the territory of Shamsabad in exchange for surrendering the city; Rai refused and chose to die fighting. The Rajput women and children of Chanderi immolated themselves to avoid capture. Mughal historian Abd al-Qadir Badayuni placed Sanga alongside Prithviraj Chauhan as the bravest of all Rajputs. Badayuni served in the Mughal court. That he ranked Sanga this way speaks to how Sanga's memory survived even within the empire that ended his reign.