Jaipur

The story of Jaipur

You are standing in Jaipur, the capital and largest city of Rajasthan, and the thing that makes it stand out at once is that it was one of the earliest planned cities of modern India. Jaipur was founded in 1727 by Sawai Jai Singh II, the Kachhwaha Rajput ruler of Amer, and it carries his name.

He wanted to shift his capital from Amber to a new place, 11 kilometres away, to deal with a growing population and increasing scarcity of water. For that, he consulted several architects, and the layout was designed under Vidyadhar Bhattacharya with Vastu Shastra and Shilpa Shastra as the guiding principles. Construction began in 1726, and the city was founded on 18 November 1727. In the 19th century it grew rapidly, and by 1900 it had a population of 160,000.

What you can still sense in the city plan is the order of it. Jaipur was divided into nine blocks, with two for the state buildings and palaces and the remaining seven for the public. Huge ramparts were built, pierced by seven fortified gates. The city is also unusual among pre-modern Indian cities for the regularity of its streets, with broad streets 34 m wide dividing it into six sectors, and those urban quarters are further divided by gridded streets. Three of the gates face east, west and north: the eastern gate is Suraj pol, the western gate is Chand pol, and the northern gate faces the ancestral capital of Amer.

The city’s appearance changed later, in 1876, when during the rule of Sawai Ram Singh II it was painted pink to welcome Albert Edward, Prince of Wales. That is where the “Pink City” name comes from, and many avenues still keep that colour scheme. Jaipur’s name itself comes from Sawai Jai Singh II; in Sanskrit, “pur” or “pura” means city, so Jaipur means “The City of Jai” or “Jai’s City.”

After independence, Jaipur became the capital of the newly formed state of Rajasthan in 1949. During the British colonial period it had served as the capital of Jaipur State. More recently, on 6 July 2019, the city was placed on the World Heritage Cities list, and the heritage record notes continuing work on management, protection, heritage inventory, monitoring, and interpretation for the property.

If you are looking for what to do here, Jaipur is a major tourist destination and part of the Golden Triangle with Delhi and Agra. It also serves as a gateway to other places in Rajasthan, and visitor attractions in the city include the Albert Hall Museum, Hawa Mahal, Jal Mahal, City Palace, Amer Fort, Jantar Mantar, Nahargarh Fort, Jaigarh Fort, Birla Mandir, Galtaji, Govind Dev Ji Temple, Garh Ganesh Temple, Moti Dungri Ganesh Temple, and Gator Chhatri. The city’s cultural life is reflected in institutions such as Jawahar Kala Kendra and the Government Central Museum, along with traditional crafts like block printing, stone carving, miniature paintings, blue pottery, kundan, meenakari and jewellery.

The city is large in every practical sense as well: as of 2011 it had a population of 3.1 million, making it the tenth most populous city in the country, and the area is 467 square kilometre. If you move through the old city with its pink-coloured buildings, the street grid and the fortified gates are the clearest traces of the original plan.