In this MP town, Ram has been Raja for 450 years

Mural of Ram Durbar in Orchha Fort's Raja Mahal

A queen of Orchha brought a Ram idol from Ayodhya in the 1570s and established it as the town’s perpetual king in her palace. Locals believe Ram resides in Orchha during the day and returns to Ayodhya at night 

As vedic rituals breathed life into Ayodhya’s Ram Lalla idol (Ram depicted as a child) on January 22, 2024, the little town of Orchha in Madhya Pradesh watched agog. For almost 450 years now it has claimed a special bond with Ram’s birthplace. A Ram idol discovered in the Saryu half a century after Mir Baqi built Babri Masjid has presided over Orchha as its Raja ever since. It resides in a grand palace and gets a daily guard of honour. But how this low-lying place deep in Bundelkhand’s woods became a second ‘Ram nagari’ (Ram’s city) is quite a story.

Descendants Of Ram’s Elder Son

Like most Rajput dynasties, the Bundelas of Orchha are wrapped in fantastic legends. Captain CE Luard’s Gazetteer of Orchha says the Bundelas claim to be Suryavanshis like Ram, descended from his elder son Lav. 

They got the name Bundela after an 11th-century ancestor, Hem Karan, propitiated the goddess Vindhyavasini Devi by offering her five human heads. She granted him the boon of greatness and the title of Pancham Vindhyela (panch means five). Time changed Vindhyela to Bundela, and the region ruled by the Bundelas became famous as Bundelkhand.

As for Orchha, it was just a patch of woods beside the Betwa river until Bundela king Rudra Pratap went hunting there in the year 1530. He liked it enough to make it his capital, but one of his chiefs, according to the gazetteer, was less impressed and scoffed, “Ondo chhe (it’s low-lying)”. The name stuck.

Ram Comes To Orchha  

Rudra Pratap was mauled to death by a tiger within a year, and when his elder son Bharti Chand died childless in 1554, the crown of Orchha passed to the younger prince, Madhukar Shah – “by nature a religious recluse...His Rani (Ganesh Kunwari) was of much the same temperament,” says the gazetteer.

Raja and Rani were both pious Vaishnavites, but historian Meenakshi Jain in her book ‘Flight of Deities And Rebirth Of Temples’ says they differed on one key point: “Madhukar Shah was a worshipper of Krishn while his queen was a Ram devotee”. This created tension between them, and became the cause of Ram’s residence in Orchha.

Art critic Narmada Prasad Upadhyaya’s book ‘Paintings of Bundelkhand’ has an interesting account of the rift between Madhukar and Ganesh Kunwari. It says the Raja went on a pilgrimage to Vrindavan and the Rani to Ayodhya. At their parting, Madhukar challenged Ganesh Kunwari to not return unless she brought Ram with her.

Accounts of what happened in Ayodhya differ. Upadhyaya says the Rani tried to take ‘jal samadhi’ (drown herself) in the Saryu; the gazetteer says she dreamt of a Ram idol hidden in the river, but all agree that she returned to Orchha with an idol. Ramesh Yadav, archaeological officer, ASI Bhopal, says the deity from Ayodhya arrived between 1575 and 1578.

Madhukar and Ganesh Kunwari seem to have been reconciled after this, with the Raja becoming an ardent Ram bhakt himself. Upadhyaya says when Ram’s arrival was celebrated on the banks of the Betwa in Orchha, “Madhukar Shah tied ankle bells and danced”. He also started building a massive temple to house the idol, but Ganesh Kunwari decided to keep it in her palace instead. “She seated him in the kitchen of her palace while converting it into a temple, which exists till date. It resembles Ayodhya’s Kanak Bhawan,” Yadav told TOI.

A Tale Of Two Temples

Chaturbhuj Temple with the white Ram Raja Temple on the right

Local lore has it that the Ram idol refused to budge from the Rani’s palace, which therefore became famous as Ram Raja Temple. It’s the only temple in the country where Ram is worshiped as a king. Jain writes in her book: “He wore the turban of royalty, carried a sword in his right hand, and a shield in the left. A guard of honour was held for him every day. Sita wore a crown, and Lakshman was dressed as a prince.” The tradition has been kept alive with police personnel now designated as temple guards. The locals believe Ram rules from Orchha in the daytime and goes back to Ayodhya to sleep at night.

As for Madhukar’s temple project, Yadav says it was finished by his younger son Bir Singh Deo, a contemporary of Mughal emperor Jahangir. An idol of Vishnu was placed inside it so it became famous as Chaturbhuj Temple. Its pine cone-shaped main spire rises to a height of 344 feet and is one of the tallest among Hindu temples.

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Chaturbhuj Temple has the tallest vimana or spire among Hindu temples

Chaturbhuj Temple

Doorway of Ram Raja Temple

Ram Raja Temple

There’s more to Shambhu than protesting farmers and toll plaza

Emperor Jahangir's serai at Shambhu

Shambhu, a mere toll point on the Ambala-Amritsar stretch of NH44, is suddenly famous. First, cops blocked the border here to stop farmers from marching on Delhi. Then, the anticipated clash between farmers and police happened, and a place that thousands whizz past daily without a thought became a dateline.

But Shambhu has watched travellers come and go for at least 500 years. It lay on Sher Shah Suri’s highway five centuries ago. About 400 years ago – the exact date is not known – Emperor Jahangir built a Mughal serai here, and it’s still standing. If you’re driving from Ambala towards Amritsar, look out for a fort-like building on your right shortly after paying toll at Shambhu and crossing the Ghaggar.

Intact After 400 Years

Oddly, there’s no inscription on the serai to fix its date of construction, but art historian Subhash Parihar dated it to Jahangir’s reign – “first quarter of the 17th century” – based on certain design similarities between it and the more famous Nurmahal serai near Jalandhar. 

It’s a large serai, 121m long and 101m wide, with gateways that rise to a height of 11.2m. There are dozens of cells for travellers, and a mosque in the middle of the lawns. From the long roof over the cells, you can see and hear the traffic on the highway.

A Curious Name 

Shambhu is a curious name for a Mughal outpost, but in his paper, ‘Mughal Sarai at Shambhu’, Parihar points out this name does not appear in “any mediaeval chronicle or account of travel”. What did the Mughals call it then?

Parihar says there’s mention of a ‘sarai Nun’ 4 kos (10km) from Ambala. Shambhu serai is 11km from Ambala, so they must be the same. But why would it be called ‘nun’, which means ‘fish’? “The river Ghaggar flows nearby. Perhaps, ample supply of fish was available here.”

However, the name Shambhu is also old. Parihar says, in the mid-1700s French missionary Tieffenthaler mentioned a serai ‘built by Nilkanth’ as the next stage on the road after Ambala. As Nilkanth is another name for Shiva/Shambhu, Parihar thinks an old Shiva temple might have stood nearby, lending its name to the area. 

Maratha-Sikh Battle

So, the Shambhu serai is not just a pile of stones and bricks. Emperors, traders, soldiers, invaders and other travellers stayed in it as they moved between Delhi/Agra and Lahore or Kashmir. It was a permanent village with a changing population.

Sometimes, battles were fought around it, as happened in 1794 when a large Maratha army demanded Patiala’s submission. The Sikhs led by Bibi Sahib Kaur were outnumbered, but they made a surprise night attack at the Maratha camp in Mardan Pur, south of Shambhu, and forced them to clear out. 

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Serai gate from outside

Serai gate from inside

Mosque inside serai

Cells for travellers