Places to visit in Ajmer beyond its famous Dargah

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Places to visit in Ajmer beyond its famous Dargah

There are several lesser-known places to visit in Ajmer, besides its most famous landmark, the Dargah of Moinuddin Chistim. Since the time of Akbar, people have been coming to Ajmer to pay their respects at the dargah. The Nizam of Hyderabad even had a direct train running from his city to Ajmer for this purpose. However Ajmer had existed long before the dargah came up. As a city, it dates back to the 11th century AD, when the Chauhan King Ajayraj made it his new capital and called it Ajaymeru—combining his own name with the mythical Meru Mountain. Over years it became Ajmer, but in Ajmer you can often hear it being referred as Ajaymeru. Before Ajmer came under the domain of Akbar in the 16th century, it passed between the Chauhan kings, Mohammed Gori and Rana Kumbha of Chhittorgarh. A famous anecdote says that Akbar walked from Delhi to Ajmer on foot when his son Salim, who later became Jahangir, was born. Ajmer is a city surrounding the man-made lake Ana Sagar and is surrounded by the rocky hills of the Aravalli ranges.

When it comes to the tourist places in Ajmer, this small town in Rajasthan is an attraction not just for the fact that it has the famous Ajmer Sharif Dargah, which attracts travellers from all parts of the country and the world. Ajmer tourist places are a lot more than just the dargah; in fact, the city is home to several other offbeat and lesser-known places that can together make the Ajmer sightseeing experience really interesting. Some of the places to visit in Ajmer that every traveller must check out at least once when they are in the city include Adhai Din ka Jhopra, Lala Mandir, Ana Sagar Lake, Taragarh Fort, Foy Sagar, Mayo College, and Dargah Bazar. A sightseeing tour which includes a melange of all of these places to visit in Ajmer make the travellers’ experiences in this city really exciting. Located not too far from the famous Dargah in Ajmer, there is a dilapidated but a beautiful structure called Adhai Din ka Jhopra that literally means 'two-and-a-half-day hut'. According to different accounts, this structure was originally a Sanskrit college in a Jain or a Vaishnav temple. Muslim rulers during the time of Qutubuddin Aibak—the first sultan of Delhi—converted it into a mosque by adding seven arches in front of the original structure. Lal Mandir, on the other hand, is another offbeat touirst attraction in Ajmer which was built a little over 100 years ago by a rich Jain businessman or a seth. From the outside, it looks like another temple in red sandstone, but hidden inside is a huge hall measuring 90 ft by 65 ft by 92 ft, which contains a life-sized diorama of a complete Jain city, Ayodhya Nagari. The scenes in this huge and intricate display depict the events at the time of the birth of the Jain teerthankar Adinath.

Travellers who visit Ajmer are often attracted to the hill that looms over the city. This very hill is the one on which the Taragarh Fort is located. The fort on top of this hill dates back to at least 11th century AD and came to be known as Taragarh fort. During the Mughal and Sultanate period, there were many wars that were fought here and the fort served as a key military base. During the British period, fort was dismantled and it served as a sanatorium for British troops. Now it is known for the dargah of Miran Shah, a governor who was killed in one of these wars at the hands of Rajput warriors. This is Ajmer's little hiking spot.