As soon as you glimpse the Deogarh Mahal, you can see that its rulers must have been serious players in the Mewar aristocracy, their magnificent fort a fitting stronghold for one of its sixteen “umraos” – the most senior feudal barons attending on the Maharana of Udaipur. Even so, you might not necessarily guess that the Rawats of Deogarh (a local title equivalent to “Raja”) once ruled over the fourth largest jagir in the whole of Rajasthan. At its most extensive, their territory comprised some 210 villages, with one of their defensive forts as far as 100 km away. Yet there is little ostentation and even less gold to be found in their palace. Like most of the Mewar nobility, they spent too much time fighting to have much to spare for amassing great wealth.
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