History & Background
The forest takes its name from the Bhawal Estate, a large zamindari once ruled by a family whose disputed succession became the basis of the famous "Bhawal Sannyasi case" of the 1920s-30s, in which a wandering ascetic claimed to be the presumed-dead Kumar of Bhawal. The forest itself, dominated by native sal trees, was declared a national park in 1974 to protect what remained of the region's natural sal woodland after decades of logging and settlement pressure near the fast-growing capital.