Palace at Bikaner in Rajasthan from the Elgin Collection: 'Autumn Tour 1896', taken by an unknown photographer on the 1st November 1896. Bikaner is the capital of the old Rajput state of the same name. The city was founded in 1488 by Bhika, the son of Rao Jodha, founder of Jodhpur from the Rajput family of the Rathor clan. Situated in an arid plain, Bikaner has an impressive fort surrounded by a crenellated wall of pink sandstone. A century after the construction of the original fort, Raja Rai Singh (1571-1611) built a larger fort called Junargarh, between 1588 and 1593. Within the fort are a series of palaces commenced during Rai Singh's reign and continued by successive rulers.

The first Gazetteer of the Bikaner State, written by Captain P.W. Powlett, was published in 1874. Erskine’s Gazetteer of Western Rajputana States and Bikaner Residency was published about three decades later in 1909. A brief description of the State and its constituent parts was also included in the Imperial Gazetteer of India and its provincial scries. The Gazetteers of the pre independence days contained onl}- such information as would prove useful to a colonial in administering a country of .continental dimensions.

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