Amrita Devi Bishnoi

In September 1730, a woman offered her own head to save a tree. Hundreds of others followed her, in the same forest, the same day.

Timeline

• September 1730: Maharaja Abhay Singh of Marwar sends soldiers to Khejarli village, to fell Khejri trees for a new palace.
• Amrita Devi, a Bishnoi woman, hugs a tree to stop them. She is beheaded on the spot.
• Her three daughters, Asu, Ratni, and Bhagu, follow her lead. They are also killed.
• Word spreads to nearby villages. Bishnois keep coming to hug trees, and keep being killed.
• By the end, 363 Bishnois have died protecting the forest.
• Abhay Singh, informed of the deaths, visits Khejarli in person and apologises. He decrees the area protected from tree-felling and hunting.

The Khejarli Massacre Need to Know

• Amrita Devi Bishnoi was a woman of the Bishnoi community, from Khejarli village in Marwar, Rajasthan.
• In September 1730, she died protecting Khejri trees, from soldiers sent by Maharaja Abhay Singh.
• She hugged a tree and offered her own head, arguing a felled tree could never be undone.
• Her three daughters followed her lead, and were also killed.
• In total, 363 Bishnois died protecting the trees, across Khejarli and nearby villages.
• The event is considered the earliest documented tree-hugging protest. It predates the 20th-century Chipko Movement by roughly two centuries.

Bishnoi Faith and the Royal Decree Good to Know

• The Bishnoi community follows 29 tenets, set by Guru Jambheshwar in 1485. Several tenets ban cutting green trees and harming animals.
• The name “Bishnoi” comes from bis (twenty) and noi (nine) in the local dialect. Together they point to the same 29 tenets.
• The Khejri tree holds special importance for Bishnois. In the Marwar desert, it is treated as a “Kalpavriksha,” a wish-fulfilling tree of life.
• When Maharaja Abhay Singh learned of the deaths, he personally visited the village and apologised.
• He then issued a royal decree, banning tree-felling and hunting on Bishnoi land. It is still respected in the region today.
• The Government of India instituted the Amrita Devi Bishnoi National Award for Wildlife Conservation, in her memory.
• See EnvEco0040 — Gaura Devi: The Woman Who Led the Reni Chipko Stand, for the 20th-century movement her sacrifice is often linked to.

Test Yourself

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1. In the September 1730 Khejarli massacre, how many Bishnois died protecting the Khejri trees, alongside Amrita Devi?

129

216

363

500

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Legacy and the Chipko Connection Great to Know

• Unlike the 20th-century Chipko Movement, the Khejarli protest ended in mass death, not just a standoff.
• Both movements share the same core tactic: physically embracing a tree, to place a human body between it and the axe.
• Chipko organisers in the 1970s pointed back to the Khejarli sacrifice as their own historical precedent. It inspired their tactic, rather than growing into one unbroken movement.
• The Bishnoi community’s environmentalism predates modern conservation law by centuries. It comes from religious tenets, not government policy.
• Bishnoi villages in Rajasthan remain known for protecting wildlife today, including blackbucks and chinkaras, continuing this same tradition.
• India marks 11 September as National Forest Martyrs Day, the date most sources give for the Khejarli deaths.
• Bishnois still gather at Khejarli every year, around this date, for a fair that honours the 363 martyrs.