|Princely State of British India|
|Imperial Gazetteer of India|
|•||Independence of India||1949|
|•||1931||93,424 km2 (36,071 sq mi)|
|Density||22.7 /km2 (58.9 /sq mi)|
|Today part of||Rajasthan, India|
Covering an area of 90,554 km2 (34,963 sq mi), Jodhpur State was the largest state under the Rajputana Agency. Its last ruler signed the accession to join the Indian Union on 7 April 1949 and the state was formally dissolved on 1 November 1956.
The rulers of the Indian princely state of Jodhpur were of an ancient dynasty established in the 8th century. However, the dynasty's fortunes were made by Rao Jodha, first of the rulers of the Rathore dynasty in Jodhpur in 1459.
The state was incorporated into the Mughal Empire during the reign of the Emperor Akbar. During the late 17th century it was under the strict control of the Emperor Aurangzeb, but the ruling house of Rathore was allowed to remain semi-autonomous in their territory. The British had no role in the state's affairs until the 1830s, when the Raja at that time, Man Singh, entered into a subsidiary alliance, after which the Rajas of Marwar (or Jodhpur) continued as rulers of a princely state.
Following Indian independence in 1947 Maharaja Hanwant Singh, the last ruler of Jodhpur state, delayed signing the Instrument of Accession to India. He even briefly considered acceding to Pakistan, for Jodhpur shared a border with the new nation and he had been personally given assurance of access to sea ports in Pakistan by Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Finally, he agreed to the accession of his state to the new Dominion of India, but not before a last-minute dramatic scene.
Rulers: House of Rathore
|Name||Reign Began||Reign Ended|
|2||Rao Asthan – He was killed in battle against the forces of Sultan Jalal-ud-din Firuz Khilji of Delhi, 1292.||1273||1292|
|4||Rao Rai Pal||1309||1313|
|5||Rao Kanha Pal||1313||1323|
|10||Rao Viram Deo||1374||1383|
|11||Rao Chandra – He was killed in battle against Salim Shah of Multan, 1424||1383||1424|
|13||Rao Rid Mal Ranmal||1427||1438|
|Name||Reign Began||Reign Ended|
|1||Rao Jodha of Mandore||12 May 1459||6 April 1489|
|2||Rao Satal||6 April 1489||March 1492|
|3||Rao Suja||March 1492||2 October 1515|
|4||Rao Biram Singh – son of Bagha||2 October 1515||8 November 1515|
|5||Rao Ganga||8 November 1515||9 May 1532|
|6||Rao Maldeo – Lost Merta and Ajmer to Emperor Akbar, and forced to send two of his sons as hostages to the Imperial Court.||9 May 1532||7 November 1562|
|7||Rao Chandra Sen – Lost his territories in wars with the Mughals||7 November 1562||1565|
|8||Raja Udai Singh Mota Raja – restored by the Mughals with the title 'Raja' as a vassal||4 August 1583||11 July 1595|
|9||Sawai Raja Suraj-Mal||11 July 1595||7 September 1619|
|10||Maharaja Gaj Singh I – To be the first to take the title 'Maharaja' by himself||7 September 1619||6 May 1638|
|11||Maharaja Jaswant Singh||6 May 1638||28 November 1678?|
|12||Raja Rai Singh – Son of Raja Amar Singh||1659||1659|
|13||Maharaja Ajit Singh - Rao Raghunath Singh Bhandari ruled as Maharaja in place of Ajit Singh from 1713-1724, while he was in Delhi||19 February 1679||24 June 1724|
|14||Raja Indra Singh – Installed in opposition to Maharaja Ajit Singh by Emperor Aurangzeb but unpopluar with people of Marwar||9 June 1679||4 August 1679|
|15||Maharaja Abhai Singh||24 June 1724||18 June 1749|
|16||Maharaja Ram Singh – First Reign||18 June 1749||July 1751|
|17||Maharaja Bakht Singh||July 1751||21 September 1752|
|18||Maharaja Vijay Singh – First Reign||21 September 1752||31 January 1753|
|19||Maharaja Ram Singh – Second Reign||31 January 1753||September 1772|
|20||Maharaja Vijay Singh – Second Reign||September 1772||17 July 1793|
|21||Maharaja Bhim Singh||17 July 1793||19 October 1803|
|22||Maharaja Man Singh||19 October 1803||4 September 1843|
|23||Maharaja Sir Takht Singh – Not in the direct line, but a great-great-great grandson of Ajit Singh. Formerly Regent of Ahmednagar.||4 September 1843||13 February 1873|
|24||Maharaja Sir Jaswant Singh II – Kaisar-i-Hind||13 February 1873||11 October 1895|
|25||Maharaja Sir Sardar Singh – Colonel in the British Indian Army||11 October 1895||20 March 1911|
|26||Maharaja Sir Sumair Singh – Colonel in the British Indian Army||20 March 1911||3 October 1918|
|27||Maharaja Sir Umaid Singh – Lieutenant-General in the British Indian Army||3 October 1918||9 June 1947|
|28||Maharaja Sir Hanwant Singh – Ruler of Marwar (Jodhpur)||9 June 1947||15 August 1947|
|29||Maharaja Sri Gaj Singh 'Present'|
- William Barton, The princes of India. Delhi 1983
- How did Maharaja of Jodhpur get convinced to be part of Independent India instead of Pakistan?
- Ramachandra Guha, India after Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy. HarperCollins, 2007
- Jodhpur, Published by [s.l.], 1933.
- Maharaja Man Singh of Jodhpur and His Times (1803–1843 A.D.), by Padmaja Sharma. Published by Shiva Lal Agarwala, 1972.
- The Administration of Jodhpur State, 1800–1947 A.D., by Nirmala M. Upadhyaya. International Publishers, 1973.
- Marwar under Jaswant Singh, (1658–1678): Jodhpur hukumat ri bahi, by Satish Chandra, Raghubir Sinh, Ghanshyam Datt Sharma. Published by Meenakshi Prakashan, 1976.
- Jodhpur, Bikaner, Jaisalmer: Desert Kingdoms, by Kishore Singh, Karoki Lewis. Lustre Press Ltd. 1992.
- The House of Marwar: The Story of Jodhpur, by Dhananajaya Singh. Lotus Collection, Roli Books, 1994. ISBN 81-7436-002-6.
- Modern Indian Kingship: Tradition, Legitimacy & Power in Jodhpur, by Marzia Balzani. Published by James Currey Limited, 2003. ISBN 0-85255-931-3.
- Jodhpur and the Later Mughals, AD 1707–1752, by R. S. Sangwan. Published by Pragati Publications, 2006.
- Media related to Jodhpur State at Wikimedia Commons
- The Maharaja Gaj Singh II Of Marwar-Jodhpur (present maharaja), Official website
- Jodhpur History and Genealogy at RoyalArk
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