Badal Mahal in Rajasthan - A brilliant palace inside Kumbalgarh Fort for Panoramic Views of the mountains surrounding second largest wall of the world

Kumbalgarh Fort in Rajasthan offers very diverse experiences and Badal Mahal is part of it, which offers stunning views of Kumbalgarh hills & panoramic views of world's second largest wall, apart from beautiful architecture & history associated. This blogpost will share why Badal Mahal is one of the must exore places inside Kumbalgarh fort along with details about what to expect, what to avoid and what not to miss at all, when inside Badal mahal. 

 

Badal Mahal is the highest point inside the Kumbhalgarh Fort and above photograph shows some part of it from the path which connects Badal Mahal with Vedi temple inside the fort. In english Badal Mahal means  - Palace of Clouds. Badal Mahal is a 2 storey palace inside Kumbalgarh Fort of Rajasthan. Mahal is pretty big building which has two interconnected mahals called the Mardana Mahal (King's palace) and the Zanana Mahal (queen's palace). 

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Badal Mahal of Kumbalgarh Fort has paintings with pastel colored murals from 19th century. Palace rooms have turquoise, green and white color schemes on its wall.

While walking towards Badal Mahal from entry gate of the Kumbalgarh fort, there is a horse stable on the way and very close to Badal Mahal. Above photograph shows the horse stable and horses of royal family used to be around this place. From it's current state, it seems like this horse stable is renovated later on. 

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Above photograph shows the same horse stable on the left. All these doors open to the stable and seems like they were section dedicated to different horses of royal family inside Kumbalgarh fort. At a distance you can see people going inside a narrow lane. That lane leads to climb for Badal mahal on the left and a small temple on the right side. 

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Kumbhalgarh Fort has various other wonderful places to explore. Like - Fateh Prakesh Palace, Ram Pol, Paghra Pol, Topkhana Pol, Bhairava Pol, Vijay Stambha, Hulla Pol and Nimboo Pol.

Above photgraph shows Canon centre of the fort which comes on the way to Badal Mahal, which is located on top most part of Kumbalgarh fort of Rajasthan. Different kinds of canons are places inside this building with relevant paintings depicting how these canons used to be used. Main gates of this building are locked but you can clearly look at these canons through iron rods of the gate. Even in this photograph you can see Canons from a distance. 

Related Blogpost - Vedi Temple inside KumbalGarh Fort, Rajasthan - 3 Storey Octagonal structure standing strong on 36 pillars around world's second largest wall

Anyone visiting Kumbalgarh fort and the Badal mahal can see stone jalis in the Zanana Mahal. These jalis of zanana mahal are beautiful and were used by the queens to see the court proceedings in the frontyard. There is a  creative air conditioning system inside the chambers which is a fascinating thing to see. Such natural air conditioning systems can be seen in many palaces across Rajasthan and other state of India. The system is facilitated with a series of duct pipes which allows cool air into these beautiful rooms and further ventilating them from the bottom.

Above photograph shows Zanana mahal of Bandal mahal, which has 4 chambers for ladies of royal family of Mewars. As you go inside, the temperature goes down dramatically and sounds echos a lot. Although the rooms are not that big but sounds echoes like a huge minaret with great width as well as height. Not sure if that was an intentional attempt by the architect or not.  

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If you are at Badal Mahal, you can climb to it's 2nd level as well as top roof. Above photograph shows firstt floor of Zanana mahal and the temple top you see on right side has body of the person who was sacrificed for this fort's construction. 

Here is a story associated with that - Kumbhalgarh was built by Maharana Kumbha, who struggled for years to build the walls. According to some stories, the Maharana asked a saint called 'Baid Baba' for guidance and the baba suggested a human sacrifice as the solution. The Baba offered himself for this human sacrifice. Baba told the king to follow him as he climbs the hill and at the spot where he stops, the king will have to build the fort's main entrance. Once he resumes walking, he will stop again. That's where he will have to be beheaded and the spot where his head falls, a temple will have to be built. The saint claimed that his headless body will walk a few more steps and when it finally falls, that will mark the limit of the wall. There are a lot of different versions of this story and some claim that there was no priest, but a soldier was sacrificed. Some say a pilgrim was sacrificed. Whatever the case be, there is a temple at the main entrance ‘Hanuman Pol’ of the fort in memory of the great sacrifice and a temple inside zanana mahal of Badal mahal. 

Above photograph shows series of doors with beautiful arches and this is part of mardana mahal. The door on other end connects the mahal with main entry area and the space in between used to be the part where king would address his ministers & invited public. 

The security guard at Mardana Mahal was kind enough to share some interesting facts and stories about Mardana Mahal of Badal Mahal. Above photograph shows how much the group was focussed to hear him. Certainly he was a good story teller and knew enough about the space he was guarding for tourists at Kumbalgarh Fort in Rajasthan. Such people make your travel experiences even more beautiful. 

Not only about Mardana Mahal, this gentleman also shared about Zanana Mahal, Bheru temple and other surrounding parts inside Kumbalgarh Fort. 

You can also go to the top of the Badal mahal but it's not for faint hearted people. The path on the top is very narrow and since it's an old structure, if you see all that seriously you may come back. While this is probably the best & topmost part of the Kumbalgarh fort to enjoy panoramic views. I couldn't gain courage to walk on the roof and rather clicked a few photographs from one spot near stairs and came back. Very first photograph in this post is clicked at the top of Badal Mahal inside Kumbalgarh fort of Rajasthan. 

Above photograph shows one of the doors around stairs connecting base of the Badal Mahal to the roof-top. Overall we had good time exploring Badal Mahal at Kumbalgarh Fort. We shall a separate post about doors, ceilings windows and other interesting elements of Badal Mahal, which tell beautiful stories from history of Mewar. 

If you liked this post and found it helpful, I would request you to follow these things when traveling - 

1. Manage your waste well and don’t litter Use dustbins.

2. Tell us if you went to a place and found it hard to locate a dustbin. 

3. Avoid bottle waters in hills. Usually you get clean water in hills and water bottles create lot of mess in our ecosystem. 

4. Say big no to plastic and avoid those unhealthy snacks packed in plastic bags. Rather buy fruits. 

5. Don't play loud blaring music in forests of jungle camps. You are a guest in that ecosystem and disturbing the locals (humans and animals) is not polite.