About Maharana Udai Singh II
Maharana Udai Singh II was the Maharana of Mewar and the founder of the city of the lake city of Udaipur in the present-day Rajasthan state of India. He was the 12th ruler of the Kingdom of Mewar.
He was the fourth son of Rana Sanga and Rani Karnavati, a princess of Bundi and was born to them in Chittor in August 1522. After the death of his father, Rana Sanga, Ratan Singh II was crowned King.
In 1544 Sher Shah Suri invaded Marwar. Udai Singh had just dealt with the civil war in Mewar and did not have the resources to fight the Sur Empire, he thus surrendered Chittor to Sher Shah Suri on the terms that Sher Shah will not harm the people of Mewar. Sher Shah also accepted the terms as he knew that the siege would be long and costly.
Udai Singh felt that Chittor was too vulnerable and thus planned to shift Mewar’s capital to a safer location. In 1559 work started in the Girwa portion of Mewar and in the same year a man made lake was made to promote cultivation. The lake was completed in 1562 and the new capital soon came to be known as Udaipur.