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Deogarh Miniature Painting

The Deogarh School was a breakaway from the major Mewar School in Udaipur. A saturation of artists in the capital encouraged some of them to strike out on their own in search of new patrons. In Deogarh, as in all of Rajasthan, their work was dominated by scenes from the private lives and court ceremonies of the ruling Rawats, with occasional sorties into territory such as the Krishna Lila for light relief.

Inscriptions on the back of many of the paintings have enabled the majority to be identified with.
One particular family of artists comprises of Bagta who painted the miniature of Anop referred to above (active in Deogarh around 1769-1820); his son, Chokha to whom the miniature of Gokuldas ji II mentioned above is attributed (1770-1830) and Chokha's son, Baijnath (1800-1845). Stylistic evidence suggests that the same artists may also have worked on some of the wall paintings.

Outside and inside Room 10.

The decoration of the Sheesh Mahal is much later than the building itself. A fragment of German newsprint from the 1850s, found on the back of one of mirror tiles at the time of its restoration, suggests that the room received this opulent decoration under Ranjit Singh ji (1847-1867). And largely for that reason, Room 1 'Ranjit Prakash" - on the opposite side of the Bada Mahal, is dedicated to him, with his portrait hanging on the wall to the right of the bed.

Room 201 bathroom has a touch of next Rawat but one, Bijay Singh ji (1900-1943). The room that is now the bathroom used to be an open arched "loggia" (glazed only at the time of the hotel conversion) where he used to bathe three times a day. He insisted on a hundred pitchers of water for each session and, when he travelled to Bihar for the wedding of his son, Sangram Singh, the journey took seven days because the train had to keep stopping for each of his extended, thrice-daily ablutions. The room that has the steam area was used by Bijay Singh ji for his early morning prayers to the rising sun which makes his installation of the railway-style sash windows and matching washbasin all the more incongruous.

Rawat Bijay Singh ji

For all his devotion to washing and prayer, Bijay Singh ji was in many ways quite westernised. He showed little more inclination to co-operate with the British than his opposite numbers in Udaipur but he was nonetheless the first of the family to travel to Europe, where he learned the love of trains that is so eccentrically reflected in the decor of Room 201 bathroom.

Much as he loved trains, he loved the Deogarh lake rather more and he did not want to see the projected new Udaipur to Jodhpur railway line (1925-1930) going straight across the dam at the end of it. Fortunately the aptly named Mr. Iron who was all set to build it there, happened to be enormously keen to shoot a panther. By facilitating the fulfilment of this ambition, Bijay Singh ji was able to secure a satisfactory kink in the line - which is why Deogarh's sleepy little station lies a few kilometres from the town today.

Bijay Singh ji hadall engaging- eccentricities, which sometimes filtered through to his administration of justice. On one occasion he demanded that a convicted thief return the gold coins that he had stolen. Bijay Singh ji was not interested in just any gold coins. He was more keen to get the precise stolen coins as that would have been complete justice. But the man failed to comply because he had already melted them down.

Bijay Singh ji was fond of country side camping hence the large assortment of folding furniture scattered around the hotel.

Next door to Bijay Singhji's centre of ritual bathing and prayer was the family temple, now Room 3 'Jogmaya". The name is a general word for Goddess and the room is in fact still used as a temple dedicated to the family's particular deity, the Goddess Baan Mata (a local manifestation of Durga, the Goddess of power - so essential to the success of any Rajput family's endeavours). Behind a pair of carved wooden doors which will usually be unlocked on request there is a tiny alcove and in this a small shrine where the Goddess is represented symbolically by a trident with nine dots. Apparently, a priest still attends here every day but his continual invisibility suggests an infallible sixth sense for the comings and goings of the room's, practising occupants!

Just outside the temple room, is an arched area where lunch is sometimes served to small numbers of guests. This was a late addition to this upper courtyard - built as a study area for the young Nahar Singh ji II, when he was at school. The open terrace beyond provides an excellent view of the town below, the Ragho Sagar lake beyond and the old Gokul Garh fort on the far side - built in about 1810 by Rawat Gokuldas ji II to defend the town against raids from the marauding armies of the Marathas.

The Marathas

The Marathas were not so much imperialists as guerrilla bandits. . They were much more interested in capturing booty than territory, specializing in lightning raids of frequently devastating violence, followed by a prompt withdrawal as soon as sufficient plunder was in the bag. Many Rajput princes were thus able to secure their territories by paying large annual sums in "protection money".

The Maratha forces were theoretically commanded by their Peshwa (a kind of hereditary Prime Minister). Increasingly, however, in the eighteenth century, they came to be dominated by three more or less independent generals - the Holkar of Indore, the Gaekwad of Baroda and the Scindia of Gwalior. The last of these was perhaps the principal threat in Rajasthan conducting a sustained campaign of looting, ravaging and demanding tribute from 1756 to 1816.

On the other side of this upper courtyard are Rooms 4 and 5, built considerably later than those in the Bada Mahal. Room 4 "Nahar Niwas" is certainly old enough to have been occupied by Rawat Nahar Singh ji I (1821-1847), the heir adopted from another Sangawat family in Sangramgarh to succeed Rawat Gokuldas II who had no son of his own, but in fact, it has always served as guest accommodation.

Perhaps most illustriously it accommodated Maharana Bhopal Singh ji of Udaipur. The
double-doors opening outwards from the raised sitting area give the metal walkway that you may have noticed, clinging to the south-east corner of the central courtyard. This crude triangular bridge was specially adapted to enable the crippled Maharana's wheelchair to be carried up here when he visited Deogarh. (There was originally a separate metal staircase as well because the stone stairway leading up here today was too narrow.)

Maharana Bhopal Singh ji of Udaipur (1930-1955)

Maharana Bhopal Singhji's disabilities sprang from tuberculosis contracted in 1900 at the age of 16 compounded by a deformity known as "Pott's curvature of the spine. The resulting paralysis below the waist not only confined him to a wheelchair for the remainder of his life but also left him unable to produce an heir. Yet, amazingly, he was still determined to go hunting for game in the royal forests, as long as they strapped him firmly to the back of his horse.

All his portraits and photographs seem to show the same sad, world-weary eyes a reflection perhaps not merely of frustration over his physical afflictions but also of disappointments suffered in the difficult political times through which he had to steer his state. For it was Maharana Bhopal who had to face the decision to bring 1500 years of dynastic independence to an end with Udaipur's adherence to the new Indian Union in 1947.

Room 5 Anop Vihar" next door is dedicated to the heir that Rawat Kishan Singh (see Room. 6) was forced to adopt after the poisoning of his own son Jaswant Singhji (see Room 11). Pratap Singh, the adoptee, came once again from the thikana of Sangramgarh. . He was always known by the more flattering name of Anop (meaning "incomparable") but that incomparability was never really put to the test because Anop Singhji like his namesake a century earlier (see page 6) - also died prematurely before he could inherit. In fact he died of an illness that was sufficiently mysterious to give rise to rumours that poison must have been poured again. But at least he had produced a son of his own and it was that son who, on Rawat Kishan Singhji's death, finally stepped forward as Rawat Bijay Singh (see Room 2).

The heart of the palace

Anop Singhji's adoptive father, Kishan Singhji (1867-1900) is commemorated by Room 6 -"Kishan Kunj". Kishan Singhji pictured here in a couple of photographs seems to have been a colourful man with several wives and numerous concubines. But he was also a great devotee of Lord Krishna and this is reflected in the decoration of this room, with various paintings of Lord Krishna and even a canopied ceiling of stars to evoke Kishan Singhji's favourite deity. However, the room was never a bedroom in Kishan’s own day. It was originally a broad passage, leading behind the
"Hawa Mahal" look-alike. The room incorporates some of the few small jali windows that survive from this, with other original stained glass windows on the opposite side. It also enjoys the benefit of a small private terrace.

Closeby we find a smaller room - Room 7 "Soovatiyo" which means "parrot" in Rajsthani. It is the room where Rawat Nahar Singh II and others played as children and more relevantly where they kept their pet parrots. There are no parrots here to share your conversation today, but to honour those that chattered here before you, a parrot motif has been delicately reflected not only in the wall-paintings but even in the supports for the curtain poles.

Room 8 “Laxmi Tibari" is named after Rawat Bijay Singhji's daughter, Laxmi Kumari. Although she received very little formal education, she has written around 30 books all in Rajasthani and many of them dealing with Rajasthani folklore. She also came out of purdah to contest the local government seat in India's first democratic elections in 1952 and, although she lost this, she won the next five for the Congress Party. More recently, she was nominated to serve in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the central government.

Room 9 Jhaliji Ko Molio" - is named after Bijay Singhji's wife.

Opening off the dining hall, is Room 10 “Gokul Ajara" - named after Rawat Gokuldas ji II (1786-1821). Above the door is a wall painting with his own portrait on the centre left and that of his contemporary, Maharana Bhim Singh ji of Udaipur on the centre right. (Note that, although the Maharana is given the halo that befits the man enjoying sovereign power, Gokuldas ji is given the markedly superior stature that befits the man paying the artist's fee.) The figure on the far left represents his grandfather, Raghodas (see Room 15), while that on the far right is his great-grandfather, Jaswant Singh ji (1737-1'776). In the very centre, are the figures of Krishna and Radha.