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Bikaner
Bikaner
Walled desert city founded in 1488 by Rao Bika; capital of Bikaner State until 1947.
Rao Nar Singh
Second Rao of Bikaner, 1504–1505. Eldest son of Rao Bika; died childless within a year of accession and was succeeded by his younger brother Lunkaran.
p>Naro — also given as Nar Singh or Naroji — was the eldest son of Rao Bika and his Bhati wife Rang Kanwar of Pugal. He succeeded on his father's death on 17 June 1504 and died in or shortly before January 1505, since his brother Lunkaran's accession is dated to the 23rd of that month.</p><p>He left no children. The genealogical tables of the house give his dates as 1468–1505, which would make him about thirty-six at his accession — old enough that his death after a few months is unlikely to have been a matter of youth or minority. The sources do not record a cause.</p>
p>The one substantive thing recorded of Naro's reign is a rebellion. Rao Bika had built his state in part by taking land from chiefs who already held it, and those men — described in the sources simply as nobles who had lost lands under Bika — rose during Naro's tenure. The founder's personal authority had held them; his son's did not.</p><p>The revolt outlasted Naro. Lunkaran's first military action as Rao was its suppression, and only after that was settled did he turn to the campaigns of expansion that occupied the rest of his reign. It is a useful marker of how provisional Bikaner still was forty years after Bika rode out of Jodhpur.</p>
p>Richard Saran and Norman P. Ziegler, <em>The Mertīyo Rāṭhoṛs of Meṛto, Rājasthān</em> (2001), p. 194; K. K. Sehgal, <em>Rajasthan District Gazetteers — Bikaner</em> (1962), p. 28; the regnal list in the Bikaner State entry of the Imperial Gazetteer.</p><p><strong>Note.</strong> No Wikidata item has been confirmed for this ruler; a local QID has been minted pending verification. Birth year 1468 is from the dynastic genealogy and should be treated as approximate.</p>
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