Kota

Kota stood on the Chambal in the Hadoti country of southeastern Rajasthan. Before it became a separate principality, it formed part of the Hada rulers' domain centred on Bundi. The crucial seventeenth-century change came in 1631, when Shah Jahan recognised Rao Madho Singh, a son of Bundi's Rao Ratan Singh, as ruler of a separate Kota state. This was a political separation within the Mughal imperial order, not the founding of an entirely new settlement on vacant land.

Rajasthan's heritage authority associates the new ruler with the construction of palaces and defensive walls within Kota Garh. It also records the installation of the image of Mathuradhish at Kota in 1744, after an earlier stay at Bundi. The shrine became an important centre of the Vallabha Vaishnava tradition. Court building and religious patronage thus supply specific landmarks for Kota's development before 1837, beyond a general description of Rajput warfare.