Day 6:
Morning and evening Jungle excursion to Ranthambore
national park.About Ranthambore National Park ----------------
---------------------------------------------------------------- The great
virgin jungles of Central India were an
awesome gift of nature which have been vandalized and largely destroyed
over the years. What survives is but a small portion of its northwestern
extremity. This region, with its relics, is a historically important reminder of
the misty past. The fort of Ranthambore was the center of a Hindu Kingdom
which was invested by Allaudin Khilji's army in 1301 A.D. He later defeated its
king, Raja Hamir, and the Rajput, women are reputed to have committed the
terrible ritual of sali in the fort. However, the area soon slipped back into the
hands of the Rajputs and again became a powerful kingdom. The Mughal
Emperor, Akbar, invested it in 1569, the year after he took the fort at Chittor,
and conquered it in 40 days of warfare The Kachchwaha rulers of the
principality of Amer (later known as the Jaipur state) received the fort from the
Mughals and it remained with them till 1949 when Jaipur state was merged
into Rajasthan. The forests around the fort, then' known by the name of the
nearby township of Sawai Madhopur, were the private hunting grounds of the
Maharajas of Jaipur. Among the most famous of their hunting parties was one
organized for Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh in 1961. It was
thanks to the desire to preserve game for sport that the forest and its
inhabitants first received protection and thus survived long enough to be
rescued by Project Tiger. In 1972, it was estimated that there were 1827
tigers in India, of which Rajasthan had 74 and the number of tigers estimated
in the Ranthambore Sanctuary's 60 sq miles (155 sq km) was 14. That year
saw the launching of Project Tiger and this sanc–tuary, named after the fort,
became one of the eight sanctuaries and national parks of the new project.
Over the years, the sanctuary has become a national park with a core area of
158 sq miles (410 sq km) with a tiger population of 40 according to the 1986
census. In 1984, an additional area of 40 sq miles (104 sq km) of adjoining
forest was designated the Sawai Man Singh Sanctuary, after the late
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