Lakho Fulani was born in Samvat 976 (AD 920) and was slain at the battle of Atkot in Kathiawad in Samvat 1035 (ad 979).
Lakho Fulani was the son of a Rabari (gypsy) girl who was very beautiful and intelligent. His father was a brave and a gallant warrior Ful, who ruled prosperously, as a vassal of Anahilapataka, the kingdom of Gedi as well as the territories of Guntri and Patgadh. His fame is due to the prowess of his younger son, the famous Lakho Fulani.
At an early age, Lakho Fulani showed signs of being an exceptionally strong and enterprising character. He crossed the Rann to seek his fortune at the court of his father's overlords, the Chavda rulers of Anahilapataka. Here, according to Kutch authorities, he won fame both as a gallant soldier and as an astute politician. His reputation spread through Saurashtra and Gujarat.
When Ful died, Lakho Fulani returned to Kutch and succeeded his father. Lakho Fulani fortified and enlarged Kera, once the home of his great-grandfather Lakho Guraro's second wife; Gaud Rani. This ruined city stands now on the Mundra road twelve miles south of Bhuj. Lakho Fulani made it into a splendid capital. Kera is a sad sight today, for the stones of the ancient temple and fortress of Lakho Fulani's time have been largely plundered to construct later buildings. But the shrine of a magnificently impressive Shaivite temple still stand, although they have been badly damaged by earthquake shocks, and are urgently in need of rescue operations by the Archaeological Department of India if they are not to crumble into ruins. The massive blocks, set on one another without the aid of cement, are splendid examples of mason's work in very hard stone, which retains its clear-cut edges even today. The carving of the ornamentation, which is restrained, without exuberance or overcharging, is equally precise on each face of the spire with eight triangles of sculpture, which diminish in size as they ascend, one behind the other, in the form of a window, with figures around it.
The tenth century in Kutch was a period of admirable architectural achievement; Lakho Fulani must have been a great patron of builders and architects. His fame through the mist of ages has grown until he has become a kind of a symbol of everything which is splendid and old in the estimation of the Kutchi people. But enough survives in Kera and in Padhargadh the city of Lakho's nephew and successor, Punvro, to illustrate the extraordinary mastery over hard stone, which the masons of Kutch had achieved at this time.
The 'memorised history' of Kutch gives no clue to the length of time, which Lakho Fulani spent at Kera, and some of the work on the surviving temple and spire may have been completed after his death. But Kera seemed to have been his capital until AD 979, the year in which he set forth on the greatest of his many operations against Mularaja of Anahilapataka.
Mularaja, tenacious and ambitious, spent a long life in extending his territories or in repelling invasions and he had a good deal of difficulty in enforcing his supremacy over the Kathiawad princes nearer home. Among those with whom he quarrelled was Graharipu, 'enemy of the planet' as his foes called him, who belonged to the Chudasama kings of the Junagadh region.
During a battle between the armies at Atkot on the banks of the Jambumali River, after bitter contest Graharipu was stricken from his elephant and taken prisoner. His followers fled in confusion; but Lakho boldly advanced, sought a parley, and demanded permission to ransom his friend. Mularaja refused the proposal. Lakho, either because he resented this contravention of the usual courtesies of Rajput warfare, or because hatred of his enemy got the better of him, fell upon Mularaja single-handed. But the old man was no longer the mighty warrior he had been in the heyday of his strength. His desperate venture failed and before long he lay dead on the field. More than one prince claimed the credit for slaying the most renowned warrior of his epoch. Gujarati chronicles say that he was slained by Mularaja's own spear. But Marwar insists that it was the Rathor, Raja Siyoji who killed Lakho. 'Ages shall wear away', the Marwar Bards sang, ' but this tale shall survive'. It may well be, indeed, that both Mularaja and some of the other princes, who must have joined him for the parley, had a hand in the death of Lakho. Certainly two paliyas (memorials erected on the field of the battle to commemorate the prowess of a fallen warrior) were set-up for Lakho at Atkot and were to be seen as recently as the middle of the last century. At some earlier period, the date of Lakho's death (Samvat 1036-AD 979-80) seems to have been legible on one of them; but in 1879, when Dalpatram Pranjivan Khakhar made inquiries in connection with his archaeological survey of Kutch, he was informed that no inscription could be traced.
After the death of Lakho Fulani his nephew Punvro and acknowledge heir, found it expedient to move his capital from Kera and to build a new stronghold for himself at Padhargadh, which is seventeen miles west of Bhuj and a good deal further away from Wagad than Lakho's headquarters. The buildings which survive; the remains of two palaces a mint temple though greatly decayed, resemble Kera in their general style; and may even have been the work of the same craftsman to the design of the same architects.