Kuldhara abandoned-village curse tradition

Record summary

Kuldhara is an abandoned village in the former Paliwal Brahmin settlement network near Jaisalmer. A widely circulated tradition says residents left overnight after resisting the demands of a local official and pronounced a curse preventing later settlement. During the period covered here, heritage and tourism accounts increasingly described the site as haunted or anomalous. It is useful for comparison with depopulated places whose historical explanations are overlaid by supernatural folklore. The migration date, the identity and conduct of the alleged official, and the antiquity of the curse wording remain matters for local history and folklore research.