The Legend Of Dhola Maru

I´d like to share the beautiful story behind this painting: The Legend of Dhola Maru.

One of the most popular paintings to be seen on the walls of havelis (traditional, ornately decorated residences) represents the legend of Dhola Maru, India’s Romeo and Juliet.

Princess Maru was born in Pugal, near Bikaner. Dhola was a young prince from Gwalior.

When Maru was two years old, there was a terribly long period of abnormally low rainfall, leading to a shortage of water in her homeland. Her father, the maharaja, moved to Gwalior, where his friend, Dhola’s father, ruled. He remained there for three years, returning to Pugal when he learned that the water shortage was over.

But before he left, as a token of friendship between the two rulers, a marriage alliance was contracted between their children, Maru and Dhola.

After 20 years, however, the promise was forgotten and Princess Maru was engaged to marry Umra.

Wedding plans would have proceeded as normal, except that a bard, who’d travelled from Pugal to Gwalior, sang at the royal court of the childhood marriage of Dhola and Maru. This is how Dhola heard about the beautiful and virtuous Maru, with whom he immediately fell in love and decided to meet.

When Maru laid eyes on him she felt the same for Dhola; and they decided to -at once — run away secretly to get married..

Umra, the person to whom Maru was engaged to, heard of their running away; and with the help of his brother, Sumra gave chase to Dhola and Maru. They pursued the camel-borne lovers on horseback as the brave Maru fired at them with arrows, though this proved of little use against the brothers, who were armed with guns.

Nevertheless, Dhola and Maru were able to elude the brothers, taking shelter in a forest where Dhola was bitten by a snake and died on the spot. Maru, devasted by Dohla´s death, wept so loudly for her lost lover that her lamentations were heard by Shiva and Gauri who, luckily, were walking nearby.

Gauri implored Shiva to restore the dead Dhola to life and thus the loving couple were reunited.