The Bhatner fort is at

Hanumangarh Hanumangarh is a city in the Indian state of Rajasthan, situated on the banks of the river Ghaggar also identified as Ancient Sarasvati river, located about 400 km from Delhi. It is the administrative seat of Hanumangarh District. The c ...

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern ...

, India, about 419 km northwest of

Jaipur Jaipur (; Hindi: ''Jayapura''), formerly Jeypore, is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Rajasthan. , the city had a population of 3.1 million, making it the tenth most populous city in the country. Jaipur is also known a ...

along the old

Multan Multan (; ) is a city in Punjab, Pakistan, on the bank of the Chenab River. Multan is Pakistan's seventh largest city as per the 2017 census, and the major cultural, religious and economic centre of southern Punjab. Multan is one of the ol ...

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

route and 230 km north-east of Bikaner. The old name of Hanumangarh was Bhatner, which means "fortress of the Bhati". Believed to be 1700 years old, it is considered to be one of the oldest forts of India.

History

The ancient fort situated on the bank of River Ghaggar was built between 255 AD to 285 AD by the King Bhupat of Bhati Dynasty. There he constructed a safe castle for himself which came to be known as Bhatner. The entire fort is built of bricks, covering an area of 52

bigha The bigha (also formerly beegah) is a traditional unit of measurement of area of a land, commonly used in India (including Uttarakhand, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Assam, Gujara ...

s. It is in the shape of a

parallelogram In Euclidean geometry, a parallelogram is a simple (non- self-intersecting) quadrilateral with two pairs of parallel sides. The opposite or facing sides of a parallelogram are of equal length and the opposite angles of a parallelogram are of eq ...

, with a dozen

bastion A bastion or bulwark is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fi ...

s on each side.

Painted Grey Ware The Painted Grey Ware culture (PGW) is an Iron Age Indian culture of the western Gangetic plain and the Ghaggar-Hakra valley in the Indian subcontinent, conventionally dated 1200 to 600–500 BCE, or from 1300 to 500–300 BCE It is a successo ...

(circa 1100-800 BCE) and Rang-Mahal Ware (1st-3rd century CE) have been found in wells situated along the wall. In the middle of the thirteenth century CE, Sher Suri (or Sher Khan, not to be confused with the much later

Sher Shah Suri Sher Shah Suri ( ps, شیرشاه سوری) (1472, or 1486 – 22 May 1545), born Farīd Khān ( ps, فرید خان) , was the founder of the Sur Empire in India, with its capital in Sasaram in modern-day Bihar. He standardized the silver coin ...

), a cousin or nephew of

Balban Ghiyas ud din Balban (1216–1287, reigned: 1266–1287) ( ur, ); (Hindi: ग़ियास उद-दीन बलबन); (IAST: ''Ghiyās ud-Dīn Balban'') was the ninth sultan of the Mamluk dynasty of Delhi. Ghiyas ud Din was the ''rege ...

(the Sultan of Delhi), was governor in these parts of the country. He is said to have carried out repairs to the forts of

Bhatinda Bathinda is a city and municipal corporation in Punjab, India. The city is the administrative headquarters of Bathinda District. It is located in northwestern India in the Malwa Region, west of the capital city of Chandigarh and is the fift ...

and Bhatner. In 1391, Bhatner was wrested by

Timur Timur ; chg, ''Aqsaq Temür'', 'Timur the Lame') or as ''Sahib-i-Qiran'' ( 'Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction'), his epithet. ( chg, ''Temür'', 'Iron'; 9 April 133617–19 February 1405), later Timūr Gurkānī ( chg, ''Temür Kü ...

by defeating Bhatti King Rao Doolchand. A mention has been made in "Tuzuk-e-Timuri" (Autobiography of Timur) about this fort and he stated this fort one of the strongest and secured fort of India. During the Timurid invasion of India in 1398,

took 10,000 soldiers from his main army of 150,000 which was advancing towards

under his grandson and laid siege to Bhatner fort, he captured the Bhatner fort, sacked the city and destroyed its fortifications. Also

Akbar the Great Abu'l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (25 October 1542 – 27 October 1605), popularly known as Akbar the Great ( fa, ), and also as Akbar I (), was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Hum ...

described it in his book "Ain-I-Akbari". Subsequently, the fort appears to have been held by

Bhati Bhati is a clan of Rajputs History The Bhatis reportedly originated in Mathura through a common ancestor named Bhati, who was a descendant of Pradyumn. According to the seventeenth-century Nainsi ri Khyat, the Bhatis after losing Mathur ...

s, Johiyas and Chayals until 1527 when it was taken by Rao Jet Singh of Bikaner. After that, it came twice under Mughal control as well, in addition to being the possession of the royal families of Chayals and

Bikaner Bikaner () is a city in the northwest of the state of Rajasthan, India. It is located northwest of the state capital, Jaipur. Bikaner city is the administrative headquarters of Bikaner District and Bikaner division. Formerly the capital o ...

. Researchers believe that the famous Second Battle of Tarain fought between

Mohammad Ghori Mu'izz ad-Din Muhammad ibn Sam ( fa, معز الدین محمد بن سام), also Mu'izz ad-Din Muhammad Ghori, also Ghūri ( fa, معز الدین محمد غوری) (1144 – March 15, 1206), commonly known as Muhammad of Ghor, also Gh ...

and

Prithviraj Chauhan Prithviraja III (IAST: Pṛthvī-rāja; reign. – 1192 CE), popularly known as Prithviraj Chauhan or Rai Pithora, was a king from the Chahamanas of Shakambhari, Chauhan (Chahamana) dynasty who ruled the territory of Sapadalaksha, with his ca ...

is the present Talwara Jheel area of the district. This fort stands in the path of invasion of India from

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the fo ...

and had acted as a strong barricade against the attack of enemies. Finally in the year of 1805, it was captured by Emperor Soorat Singh of Bikaner and remained with it until the formation of Rajasthan. Since the day of victory was Tuesday (known as day of the Hindu God

Hanuman Hanuman (; sa, हनुमान, ), also called Anjaneya (), is a Hindu god and a divine '' vanara'' companion of the god Rama. Hanuman is one of the central characters of the Hindu epic ''Ramayana''. He is an ardent devotee of Rama and on ...

), so he named Bhatner as Hanumangarh.

References

Archaeological Survey of India
* *{{citation , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C4tRAQAAIAAJ&q=Bhatner , title=An Approach to Indian Archaeology, Volume 1 , author=Sudhir Ranjan Das , publisher=Pilgrim Publishers , year=1972 , quote=The well-known medieval Bhatner fort, near Hanumangarh, actually stands on a high mound, the lower levels of which revealed prehistoric remains. Four miles to the east of Hanumangarh, the Bhadrakali mound rises up to a height of 43 ft. * https://web.archive.org/web/20090505194825/http://hanumangarh.nic.in/places_of_interest.html Forts in Rajasthan Hanumangarh district