The Kangra Fort is located 20 kilometers from the town of Dharamsala on the outskirts of the town of Kangra, India. The fort was first mentioned in Alexander the Great’s war records, referring to the 4th century BC.HistoryThe Kangra Fort was built by the royal Rajput family of Kangra (the Katoch dynasty), which traces its origins to the ancient Trigarta Kingdom, mentioned in the Mahabharata epic. It is the largest fort in the Himalayas and probably the oldest dated fort in India.The fort of Kangra resisted all Islamic invasions. It remained impregnable. Emperor Akbar led an unsuccessful 4 year siege. Kangra was greatly weakened by this siege. Emperor Akbar’s son Jehangir finally subdued the fort in 1622, after a siege of fourteen months. Mughal Emperor Jahangir with the help of Suraj Mal garrisoned with his troops.The Katoch Kings repeatedly looted Mughal controlled regions, weakening the Mughal control and with the decline of Mughal power, Raja Sansar Chand-II succeeded in recovering the ancient fort of his ancestors, in 1789. Maharaja Sansar Chand fought multiple battles with Gurkhas on one side and Sikh King Maharaja Ranjit Singh on the other. Sansar Chand used to keep his neighboring Kings jailed, and this led to conspiracies against him. During a battle between the Sikhs and Katochs, the gates of the fort had been kept open for supplies. The Gurkha army entered the opened scarcely armed gates in 1806. This forced an alliance between Maharaja Sansar Chand and Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Subsequently in 1809 the Gurkha army was defeated and they had to retreat across Sutlej River. The Fort remained with the Katochs until 1828 when Ranjit Singh annexed it after Sansar Chand’s death. The fort was finally taken by the British after the Sikh war of 1846.
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