Bhangarh is a ruined fortified settlement in the Aravalli hills of Rajasthan's Alwar district, near the Sariska Reserve. The settlement was established in 1573 during the rule of the Kachwaha Rajput ruler Bhagwant Das as a residence for his second son, Madho Singh. The surviving complex includes fortifications, gateways, temples, palaces, residences, and the remains of a market, demonstrating that Bhangarh was once a substantial settlement rather than simply an isolated fortress.

The circumstances surrounding the settlement's eventual decline and abandonment are less dramatic than later supernatural retellings often imply and are not completely resolved by the surviving historical record. Warfare, political changes, economic decline, and famine have been proposed as contributing factors in various modern accounts. Because the historical chronology of the settlement's decline is not completely clear, claims that Bhangarh was suddenly destroyed by a curse should be treated as folklore rather than established history.

Two curse traditions dominate modern accounts of Bhangarh. In one, an ascetic commonly identified as Guru or Baba Balu Nath permitted construction near his dwelling on the condition that no building cast its shadow over his retreat. A later expansion allegedly violated that condition, bringing a curse upon the settlement. Variants differ over the ascetic's name and the ruler responsible for violating the prohibition, an indication that the story exists in multiple folkloric forms rather than as a securely documented historical event.

The second major legend concerns Princess Ratnavati and a practitioner of magic commonly called Singhia. According to popular versions of the story, Singhia became infatuated with the princess and attempted to enchant oil or another substance so that she would fall under his influence. Ratnavati recognized the deception and discarded the enchanted substance onto a stone or boulder, which then rolled toward Singhia and killed him. Before dying, he supposedly cursed Bhangarh and its inhabitants, with later versions connecting the curse to the settlement's destruction and abandonment. No surviving evidence currently available establishes this episode as a historical event, and the story should therefore be presented as a prominent tradition associated with the ruins rather than an account of Bhangarh's documented destruction.

In the modern era, Bhangarh developed an exceptionally strong reputation for paranormal activity. Visitors, guides, travel writers, television programs, and paranormal enthusiasts have repeated stories involving unexplained voices and cries, music, apparitions, shadows, unusual sensations, and other experiences among the ruins. Such reports form an important part of Bhangarh's modern folklore, but most are anecdotal and difficult to trace to identifiable witnesses, dates, or contemporaneous documentation. The continuing repetition of these stories has nevertheless made Bhangarh one of India's most recognizable locations associated with ghosts and supernatural traditions.

An important element of the modern legend is the restriction on entering the archaeological site outside daylight hours. The Archaeological Survey of India prohibits visitors from entering Bhangarh between sunset and sunrise. This rule is frequently presented in paranormal media as evidence that government authorities consider the site dangerous because of supernatural activity, but the restriction itself establishes no such conclusion. Safety, protection of archaeological remains, wildlife, terrain, and management of an unlit protected monument provide ordinary reasons for restricting access after dark. The existence of the rule is documented; the claim that it constitutes official recognition of a haunting is not.

Bhangarh therefore represents an unusually clear intersection between documented history, archaeological preservation, folklore, tourism, and modern paranormal culture. The settlement unquestionably existed, its ruins remain extensive, and the traditions concerning Balu Nath and Princess Ratnavati are now deeply associated with the site. What remains much less certain is when those traditions first entered the historical record, how they developed into their current forms, and when Bhangarh acquired its national reputation as a haunted location. None of the available evidence verifies a supernatural explanation for reported experiences at the site, but neither can fragmentary or anonymous anecdotes be individually explained without adequate information. Distinguishing Bhangarh's documented history from its evolving folklore is therefore central to understanding the case.