1. Outlook Traveler: SEP 2001

      .....Salim Singh is also associated with the amazing story of the Paliwal Brahmins of Jaisalmer. To hear this tale, travel 18 km west of Jaisalmer to the medieval village of Kuldhara, and speak to Sumar Lal, the Bhil guard you will meet at the gate.

As you enter, the stone remains of a string of ruined houses greet you. Built in 1291 with a great sense of geometry and urban planning, Kuldhara was the biggest of the 84 villages of the Paliwal Brahmins of Jaisalmer, who had come from Pali, just south of Jodhpur. The industrious nature of the Paliwals was matched only by their brilliance. Their immense prosperity—even the kings relied on taxes collected from Paliwals—was based primarily on agriculture and livestock.

Agriculture? Yes. Here in the heart of the desert! And they used to grow water-intensive crops like wheat. They did so for more than 600 years. The key to their prosperity was the ability to identify areas with a layer of gypsum rock running under the surface. They would build their villages around such areas. Their agriculture relied not on surface water or groundwater but a third category of water: sand water. The gypsum would prevent rainwater from percolating into the ground. The Paliwals used this moisture to grow bumper crops. Much of the skills of water management in Jaisalmer came from the Paliwals. This kind of genius has made the Thar the most densely populated desert in the world, in terms of both humans and livestock. If you go to any former Paliwal village, you will notice that the rainwater doesn’t disappear in the sand. It stays. But there are no hands today to take this bounty and make foodgrain and gold out of it. Why?

The Paliwals’ prosperity was too much for Salim Singh to bear. He began troubling them. Some say it was unfair taxation, others say the dewan became lecherous. Whatever the reason, the village chiefs met at a function one day in 1825. They decided self-respect was more important than land. With salt and water in their palms, they swore to leave Jaisalmer for good. Overnight, all 84 villages were abandoned. All that the Paliwals took with them was what they could carry.

Standing in the middle of what must have been a bustling town, I tried to imagine what it would have been like. Beautiful houses. Wealth. Magnificent cattle and camels. Thousands of everyday articles that make a household. I stood there, immobilised. A people who could make gold from the ‘infertile’ sand knew that they could prosper in another land. It is said that the Paliwals left a curse on the land. The rain gods went away with them, and Jaisalmer slowly lost all its prosperity. Till about 30-40 years ago, the 84 villages stood just as they had been left. Neighbouring villagers refused to set foot in these cursed villages. Then the government started distributing permits to take away the carved stones from the houses. Some Australian tourists were apprehended with gold they’d dug out of Kuldhara. A region that prospered due to Paliwals and Patwas today survives on tourism.....

 

 

2. Planetgypsy.com

     .....Pali is named after the Paliwal Brahmins who once inhabited the area in Rajastahan, a western province in India. Ancient Pali housed a highly evolved civilization. The land, which was leased by the then chief of Mandore (the former capital of Jodhpur district), was cultivated diligently by the Paliwals who abandoned their former priestly profession. Being a hardworking and intelligent tribe, they soon became wealthy and were noticed by the chieftain of Marwar at the time, Raja Sheoji. Wanting to replenish his treasury for the battles which lay ahead Sheoji imposed a war levy on the inhabitants of Pali in 1243 AD. The Paliwals demanded exemption under the plea that they were Brahmins.  The furious king threw some of their leaders into prison in retaliation, and passed an edict mandating punishment on every Pali resident who did not cough up the war tax. Sheoji’s persecution forced the Paliwals to flee, which they did lock stock and barrel to Jaisalmer, until Pali resembled a ghost town. Pali’s chief attraction are three exquisite temples, namely the Hatundi Rata Mahabir Temple, the Ranakpur Jain Temple and the Surya Narayan Temple......

 

 

3. 'No one comes here', Prem Panicker in Jaisalmer (Rediff.com)

      .....On my way back to Jaisalmer, a signpost pointing to a side road reads 'Kuldhara --  A heritage village'. Intrigued, I take the branch road.

Eleven kilometres later I come to a fence, a gate and an RTDC checkpost where I am      asked to cough up 45 bucks -- 25 for the vehicle, 10 apiece for the driver and myself.

I pay. We turn a corner. And come upon a huge village -- of an estimated 400 well-appointed granite and wood homes, elegant in appearance, lining broad, gravel-strewn streets.

There is not a single human being, though -- the place is a ghost town. And thereby hangs a tale.

Apparently, this village is one of 14 in the region, all inhabited, over 100 years ago, by Paliwal Brahmins.

They were famed for Vedic knowledge -- and for the stunning, ethereal beauty of their women. The first made them rich. The second proved the cross.

The story goes that the jagirdars, the Rajput chieftains of the region, were so smitten by their beauty that no Paliwal girl was safe from being kidnapped, raped, immured in various havelis and harems around Jaisalmer.

Until, to protect their women, the Paliwals one night fled en masse, leaving their prosperity behind. There are a couple of dozen in Jaisalmer today. A handful live in Bikaner. Larger numbers are in Calcutta, operating businesses. And many have migrated to the United States of America.

Two years ago, foreigners arrived with metal detectors. Discovered hoards of gold ornaments in wells and secret hiding places in the beams of the roofs. But before they could decamp, they were arrested by the police, their finds seized. The ornaments are now in Jaisalmer village.

The greater ornaments -- the Paliwal women -- are presumably breaking hearts elsewhere. And Kuldhara is now another 'tourist attraction', a tale to amaze wide-eyed foreigners.....

 

 

 

4. Paliwals and the Invention of Khadin
A khadin, also called a dhora, is an ingenious construction designed to harvest surface runoff water for agriculture. Its main feature is a very long (100-300 m) earthen embankment built across the lower hill slopes lying below gravelly uplands. Sluices and spillways allow excess water to drain off. The khadin system is based on the principle of harvesting rainwater on farmland and subsequent use of this water-saturated land for crop production.



First designed by the Paliwal Brahmins of Jaisalmer, western Rajasthan in the 15th century, this system has great similarity with the irrigation methods of the people of Ur (present Iraq) around 4500 BC and later of the Nabateans in the Middle East. A similar system is also reported to have been practised 4,000 years ago in the Negev desert, and in southwestern Colorado 500 years ago.
 

5. Paliwal villages: Kuldhara & Khaba

Source: www.rajasthanunlimited.com

The Paliwal villages around Jaisalmer are remarkably urban. Indeed it may be more correct to call them towns, since, though they now appear to have contained no more than a few score houses, they may once have been surrounded by more ephemeral ‘suburbs’, which have since disappeared. What remains is one hundred or more villages; coherent, ordered settlements of stone buildings. The street arrangement gives a  very agreeable sense of enclosure, contrasting with occasional open spaces centered on a ‘piyas’. This is an ornamental feature consisting of a pyramidal structure of delicately carved stone erected over a square stone cell, where it is customary for a Brahman to give drinking water to visitors. Another feature of these open spaces is the low stone table which probably served as a sitting and meeting place in the cool evenings. The temples, occurring in the street without any strongly marked centrality, were modest buildings, though somewhat more monumental than the neighbouring houses.

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, this highly enterprising community of the Paliwal Brahmans had to flee the desert at rather short notice, sometime prior to the year 1820. Salim Singh, the Prime Minister to Maharawal Mulraj, wielded enormous power and chose not to tolerate the prosperity of the Paliwals. He, therefore, created very difficult conditions for them to continue to live in the region. Several  of these villages lie in a state of ruin even today.

In many ways the houses in a Paliwal village could be compared to more evolved urban houses, to an extent, to the houses of modern day towns; except that they were mostly single storeyed. The street pattern was like a grid with straight, wide streets to which the houses were directly connected. This permitted a garage for the carts; a covered space in a part of the frontage of the house. The remains of these Paliwal settlements, ruined as they are, still demonstrate the very high level of urbanism that existed in the desert centuries ago. Highly evolved forms of house, temples, stepwells, and other structures clearly indicate the long period of development of these forms. The genesis of these could be traced back to, perhaps, the Harrappan settlements…..