Sikandar Lodi v/s Man Singh Tomar

Sikandar Lodi v/s Man Singh Tomar

Raja Kalyanmall, the Tomar Rajput sultan of Gwalior, gave birth to Maharaja Man Singh Tomar. For nearly 30 years, he was in power. During his reign, the sultans of Delhi and the Tomar had their share of conflicts and alliances. The legendary warrior and music lover Tomar was both.

Sikandar was Sultan Bahlul Lodi's second child and the founder of the Lodi dynasty that ruled the Delhi Sultanate. Sikandar was a skilled leader who promoted trade across his realm. Gwalior and Bihar became part of the areas under Lodi's power thanks to him. With Alauddin Hussain Shah and his Bengali realm, he signed a pact. He gave the order for the construction of the modern city of Agra in 1503.

The War:

Man Singh Tomar, who had just been king, was unprepared for an attack from Delhi and chose to end the conflict by giving Bahlul Lodi an offering of 800,000 tankas (coins). Bahlul Lodi was succeeded as Sultan of Delhi by Sikandar Lodi in 1489. Manasimha granted sanctuary to certain Delhii rebels who were complicit in a conspiracy to topple Sikander Lodi in 1500. The Sultan led a punitive expedition to Gwalior to punish Manasimha and increase his realm. He conquered Dholpur in 1501, a Gwalior dependent whose monarch Vinayaka-Deva had fled to Gwalior.

After passing the Chambal River and experiencing an illness in his camp, Sikander Lodi began to march in the direction of Gwalior. By sending his son Vikramaditya to the Lodi camp with presents for the Sultan, Manasimha took advantage of the chance to mend fences with Lodi. On the stipulation that Vinayaka-deva be given back control of Dholpur, he agreed to drive the rebels out of Delhi. After accepting these conditions, Sikander Lodi departed. According to historian Kishori Saran Lal, this story of Vinayaka Deva losing Dholpur was made up by Delhi chroniclers to make the Sultan look good.

Sikander Lodi renewed his conflict with the Tomaras in 1504. To the east of Gwalior, he first took control of the Mandrayal Fort. He pillaged the vicinity of Mandrayal, but a following disease outbreak claimed the lives of many of his warriors, forcing him to retreat to Delhi. Later, when Agra had just been founded and was closer to Gwalior, Lodi relocated his stronghold there. He marched on Gwalior after taking Dholpur, referring to the operation as a jihad. Between September 1505 and May 1506, Lodi was successful in pillaging the countryside near Gwalior, but Manasimha's hit-and-run strategy prevented him from taking the Gwalior Fort. Due to a lack of food caused by Lodi's devastation of crops, Lodi was compelled to end the siege. Manasimha attacked his troops near Jatwar as he was on his way back to Agra, severely wounding the invaders.

After failing to take the Gwalior Fort, Lodi decided to take the minor forts close by. By this time, he had already taken control of Dholpur and Mandrayal. He took control of the Uditnagar (Utgir or Avantgarh) fort, which was located along the Narwar-Gwalior highway, in February 1507. He attacked Narwar in September 1507, whose king (a Tomara family member) alternated between being loyal to the Malwa Sultanate and the Tomaras of Gwalior. After an extended siege of a year, he took the fort. In December 1508, Lodi marched to Lahar (Lahayer), a town to the southeast of Gwalior, and put Narwar in the hands of Raj Singh Kachchwaha. He remained at Lahar for quite a short while, using that time to purge the rebels from the area around it. Lodi remained active in additional battles during the following several years. He devised a plot to seize Gwalior in 1516, but a medical condition prevented him from carrying it through. In addition to Sikander Lodi's passing in November 1517 due to sickness, Manasimha died in 1516.