Mandore Gardens: the capital Jodhpur left behind

The capital before the capital

Mandore is old — older than the Rathores. It was a seat of the Pratihara kings in the first millennium, and local tradition makes it the home of Mandodari, Ravana's queen, which is why Jodhpur — almost alone in India — keeps a temple to Ravana, built by Brahmins who count him as a son-in-law. The Rathores took it at the very end of the fourteenth century and ruled Marwar from it for some sixty years.

The problem was the ground. Mandore sits low and open, and was lost and retaken often enough that Rao Jodha, fifteenth of his line, gave up on it: in 1459 he moved the seat to a bare rock nine kilometres south and began Mehrangarh. Mandore became the place the dynasty went to be remembered rather than to rule.

What to see

The cenotaphs (dewals). Rajput rulers are usually commemorated with chhatris — open domed pavilions. Marwar's are different: temple-shaped memorials in dark red sandstone, with spires, porches and carved halls, climbing in scale through the garden as the dynasty's confidence grew. The largest and finest are generally taken to be those of Maharaja Ajit Singh (d. 1724) and his predecessors of the seventeenth century; read them in sequence and you are reading the Rathores' rise.

The Hall of Heroes. A row of larger-than-life figures — Rajput folk heroes and deities — carved out of a single face of rock and painted in bright colour, eighteenth-century in date by most accounts. Next to it, the Shrine of Thirty-Three Crore Gods, a hall of painted images of the Hindu pantheon. Both are more folk art than court art, and more alive for it.

The museum and the hill. A small government museum in the old palace holds sculpture and finds from the site. Above the garden the ruined old fort of Mandore climbs the hill — a rough path, worth it for the view back over the cenotaphs to Jodhpur's skyline, with Mehrangarh on its rock in the distance: the whole story of the move in one look.

Fees, hours and getting there

The gardens are open from early morning to evening and are free to enter; the museum charges a small fee and closes one day a week — sources disagree between Monday and Friday, so verify before you go. Mandore is about nine kilometres north of the clock tower: an auto-rickshaw there and back with an hour's wait is the usual arrangement (agree the price first; ≈ ₹400–500 return, verify), and city buses run the Mandore road. Go early or in the last two hours of the afternoon; the garden is shadeless at midday. Keep food out of sight — the langurs are practised.

Is it worth it?

On a one-day visit, no — Mehrangarh, Jaswant Thada and the blue lanes come first. On a second day, yes: Mandore is the other half of the 1459 decision, and the cenotaphs are unlike anything else in Rajasthan. Pair it with Balsamand Lake on the same road for a quiet afternoon north of the city.

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