Jabhua

Jabhua corresponds to Jhabua in western Malwa, a country of Bhil communities and Rathor chiefs near the approaches to Gujarat. The Rathor state is conventionally dated to 1584 and associated with Kesho Das, whose service connected the ruling family to the Mughal court. The dynasty's establishment did not erase the authority of local Nayaks: its history includes struggles over Jhabua and nearby Thandla as well as grants from distant emperors.

After Kesho Das died in 1618, his estates were attached by the Mughal government. Shah Jahan restored them to his nephew Maha Singh in 1642, but Maha Singh had to defeat the Nayaks of Jhabua and Thandla before re-establishing his capital at Jhabua. During the eighteenth century Maratha power narrowed the state's freedom of action. Holkar occupied Petlawad and Thandla in 1730, illustrating how individual districts could pass away from the Rathor ruler without ending the dynasty itself. Jhabua's early modern history thus rests on specific contests among Bhil chiefs, Rajput rulers, Mughal patrons and Maratha neighbors, rather than on an unchanging frontier beyond imperial government.