Dungarpur

Princely States

Dungarpur line is considered to be the elder line of Mewar tracing to Samant Singh, the eldest son of Rawal Kshem Singh of Mewar. In a war with the Solankis of Gujarat, Samant Singh injured the Solanki Raja Ajai Pal in 1179 and unable to face the retaliation, retreated into Bagar where he killed Charuasimal, the ruler of Vatpadrak or Baroda and made himself the ruler of the area. In time, he was chased out of Bagar and only by the time of Bhima Deva II in Gujarat, the Guhilots regained Bagar. There are multiple versions over the origin of the kingdom - Nainsi, for instance notes that Samatsi(Samant Singh) gave away the kingdom of Chittor to his younger brother for his services and moved to Bagar. A different version calls them as Rahap and Mahap, with Mahap settling in Bagad which is accepted by Dungarpur. The Mahap version states that Samersi, the brother-in-law of Prithviraj Chauhan was also killed at Tarain and was succeeded by his minor son Karan under the regency of his mother Karnawati. His son Mahap was ejected out of Jalore by his brother-in-law who seized the throne and had to shift his base to Sisod and in 1201, Bharat, another son of Samersi seized Chittor and placed his son Rahap on the throne. Rahap lost Chittor and settled in Bagad - because he made Sisod his base in the meanwhile, he took the patronym as Sisodia. Mahap carved his estate in Bagar. Another version states that he is disinherited. Dungarpur Khyat mentions that Samant Singh married a princess of Ajmer and it's possible that he ended up on the losing side at Tarain in 1192.