While its consequences were politically decisive, Akbar’s siege of Chittor culminated in mass slaughter and a tragedy that haunted Mewar for generations. Akbar shoots the Rajput commander, Jaimal using a matchlock, illustration from the Akbarnama, 1590–1595. There is a sanctity in the very name of Chittor, wrote Col. James Tod in his Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan (1829-32), which from the earliest times never failed to animate its defenders. Chittor’s fame rests not upo