Bikaner State

State of Bikaner बीकानेर रियासत
1465–1947
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: "Jai Jungaldhar Badshah" Victory to the king of deserts
Bikaner State with Rajputana, in the Imperial Gazetteer of India (1909).
Official languages	Rajasthani and Hindi
Religion	Hinduism (state religion)[1]
Demonym(s)	Bikaner
History
• Established	1465
• Independence of India	1947
Area
• Total	60,391 km2 (23,317 sq mi)
Population
• 1931 estimate	936,218
Succeeded by India
Today part of	Rajasthan, India

Bikaner State was a princely state in the Rajputana from 1465 to 1947. The founder of the state, Rao Bika, was the eldest son of Rao Jodha, ruler of Jodhpur. Rao Bika chose to build his own kingdom instead of inheriting his father's. Bika defeated the Jat clans of Jangladesh along with his uncle Rao Kandhal and his adviser Vikramji Rajpurohit and founded his own kingdom. Its capital was the city of Bikaner in the northern area of present-day Rajasthan State in India. Karni Mata has been designated as the kuldevi of the royal family of Bikaner.

The state was noted for the Bikaner style of painting.^[2]

Covering an area of 60,391 km² (23,317 sq mi), Bikaner State was the second largest state under the Rajputana Agency after Jodhpur State with a revenue of Rs.26,00,000 in 1901.^[3] Heeding the 1947 call of Vallabhbhai Patel to integrate the princely states into the new independent India, Bikaner's last king, Maharaja Sadul Singh, advised by his dewan K. M. Panikkar, a respected historian, was one of the first rulers of a princely state to display willingness to join the Indian Union. By issuing a public appeal in April 1947 to his fellow princes to join the Constituent Assembly of India, the Maharaja of Bikaner set an example for other heads of the native states to follow.^[4]