Karauli

Karauli was a Rajput capital in eastern Rajasthan. Official district histories date its foundation to Arjun Deo in 1348. Its rulers belonged to the Yaduvanshi lineage, whose association with Krishna also shaped royal religious patronage. Palace buildings and temples together gave the capital a ceremonial landscape in which dynastic authority and devotion were closely connected.

The city developed further under Gopal Singh II in the eighteenth century. District histories credit him with enlarging the palace, improving roads and fortifications, and constructing the Madan Mohan temple. Royal building thus joined defence and government to a major centre of Krishna worship. The palace itself combined an earlier foundation with substantial eighteenth-century reconstruction. Karauli's rulers also faced the changing balance of power around Rajasthan, including the pressure of Maratha expansion. In 1817 the state entered a treaty relationship with the East India Company. By the early nineteenth century, Karauli retained its ruling house and court while its external position had become tied to British power.