Junagadh
The Chudasamas, who claimed Yādava descent, held the country around Girnar hill from the ninth century, ruling first from Vanthali and then from Junagadh — the old fort city beneath Girnar, whose site carries an Aśokan rock edict, Kṣatrapa and Gupta inscriptions on the same boulder, and later Jain and Hindu temple complexes on the mountain above.
Their rulers used the title Rā', and much of what is popularly known about them comes from the Gujarati bardic tradition, which is rich, unreliable and the only narrative source for long stretches.
Fall
Mahmud Begada of Gujarat besieged Junagadh and took it in 1472; the last ruler, Rā' Māṇḍalika III, was captured and converted to Islam. The kingdom became a Gujarat Sultanate province, and Junagadh later passed to a Babi nawab whose descendants ruled until 1947 — when the state's accession to Pakistan, against the wishes of a Hindu-majority population, precipitated one of the first crises of independent India.
Further reading
- Kulke, Hermann. A History of India. Routledge, 2004
- Asher, Catherine B. India Before Europe. Cambridge University Press, 2006
- Hawley, John Stratton. A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement. Harvard University Press, 2015
- Jackson, Peter. The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History. Cambridge University Press, 1999
- Richards, John F. The Mughal Empire. Cambridge University Press, 1993
See also
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.