Mount Abu

The Abu plateau has been a holy mountain for far longer than it has been a town. Hindu tradition makes it the home of the sage Vashishtha, whose fire sacrifice, in the Paramara legend, created the first fire-born (Agnikula) Rajput, and names it Arbudaranya, the forest of Arbuda, after a serpent said to have saved Shiva's bull on the hill. Jains revere it among their most sacred sites: the Dilwara temples were raised between the 11th and 16th centuries, the two finest, of 1031 and 1230, by ministers of the Chaulukya (Solanki) and Vaghela rulers of Gujarat, and carved in white marble with intricate detail. The Paramara dynasty held the plateau in the medieval period, and Rana Kumbha of Mewar rebuilt Achalgarh fort in 1452.

In the 19th century the mountain belonged to the Rajput state of Sirohi, and the British leased the plateau from its ruler and made it the headquarters of the Rajputana Agency, the political office that managed the princely states. A municipality was set up in 1864, bungalows and residences of Rajput rulers, a Jaipur palace among them, were built around Nakki Lake, and the town took the shape it has now. After independence the Abu area was joined to Bombay State in 1950 and returned to Rajasthan in 1956.

In 1950 the Brahma Kumaris, a spiritual movement founded in Hyderabad, Sindh, in the 1930s, moved to Mount Abu, which became its headquarters, and its campuses are now a major presence in the town. Since then the plateau has lived on pilgrims and holidaymakers from Gujarat and Rajasthan, with the wildlife sanctuary declared over the forest in 1960 and a long argument over how much the fragile hill can be built upon.

Three religious communities give the town its character. The Jains come to Dilwara, where the temples' custodians keep strict rules of dress and conduct; the Hindu pilgrims climb to Adhar Devi, Achaleshwar and Guru Shikhar; and the Brahma Kumaris, who teach a form of Raja Yoga meditation and are known for the white-clad women who lead the movement, bring followers from across the world to their halls and gardens. The result is a town that is overwhelmingly vegetarian, largely teetotal in public and calm in manner despite the crowds.

The holiday culture is Gujarati as much as Rajasthani: families from Ahmedabad, Surat and Palanpur fill the lakeside in the evenings, hire boats, eat ice cream and thalis, and climb Toad Rock for photographs. Rajasthani folk music and dance appear at the winter festival and in the hotels. The old British and princely layer survives in the palaces of former rulers and a handful of colonial-era bungalows.

Manners are those of a conservative, religious region: modest dress, shoes off at the threshold, respect for sadhus and for the many cows and monkeys, and a general expectation that visitors will keep the plateau clean, a cause the town has campaigned on. Sport is boating and, for the plains visitors, a walk.

About 23,000 people live in the town, and the figure swells many times over on holiday weekends. Tourism is the economy: hotels, restaurants, boat hire, jeep taxis, shops and the services that support them, with the Brahma Kumaris and the state administration as the other steady employers. Many workers come up from Abu Road and the Sirohi villages, where many people speak Bhili.

Residents live in the lanes behind the bazaar and on the slopes around the lake, in Dilwara village, and in colonies along the Abu Road descent. The day begins with temple bells and the early pilgrims to Dilwara, the bazaar opens by mid-morning, and the lake and Sunset Point draw everyone at dusk; in winter the nights are cold and the town is quiet by ten. Water on the plateau depends on the lake and on monsoon storage, and shortages in a dry year are a familiar problem.

The town's chief argument is about building. An eco-sensitive zone around the wildlife sanctuary was notified in 2020, and construction, hotel expansion and traffic on holiday weekends are regulated and disputed. Wildlife wandering into the town, sloth bears above all, is a growing concern as the forest edge is built up.

The food of Mount Abu is the food of its visitors, which means Gujarati as much as Rajasthani. The unlimited Gujarati thali, a tray of rotis, several vegetable dishes, dal, kadhi, rice, pickles, a sweet and buttermilk, is the standard restaurant meal around the lake, often with a Rajasthani thali of dal baati churma, gatte ki sabzi and ker sangri offered alongside. Both are vegetarian, and many kitchens cook Jain-style, without onion, garlic or root vegetables, for the pilgrims.

Snacks are the real local pleasure: kachori and samosa with chutney, pakoras in the monsoon, bhel and sev-topped chaats, hot jalebi from the bazaar's sweet shops, and rabri, thickened sweet milk, eaten by the lake. Gujarati farsan, the fried and steamed snacks such as dhokla, khandvi and fafda, appear on every counter. Ice cream and kulfi, the dense frozen milk sweet, sell on the promenade all year, and roasted corn and peanuts are hawked to the sunset crowds.

Tea is drunk constantly, and the hill grows little of its own, with seasonal fruit coming up from the surrounding valleys. Meat and alcohol are available in a few hotel restaurants but play little part in the town's eating.