The City Palace

The story of The City Palace

The City Palace is the royal residence and former administrative headquarters of the rulers of the Jaipur State, and the most striking thing about it is that it is still home to the Jaipur royal family while also housing the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum.

Construction began soon after the establishment of Jaipur under Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II, who moved his court here from Amber in 1727. The palace was completed in 1732, and it grew alongside the new capital rather than standing apart from it. Jaipur remained the capital of the kingdom until 1949, when it became the capital of the present-day Indian state of Rajasthan, and the City Palace continued as the ceremonial and administrative seat of the Maharaja of Jaipur. The palace also served as a place for religious and cultural events, and as a patron of arts, commerce, and industry.

It was built according to vastushastra, combining Mughal and Rajput architectural styles. The complex is not a single building but a group of courtyards, buildings, pavilions, gardens, and temples. The most prominent structures are the Chandra Mahal, Mubarak Mahal, Shri Govind Dev Temple, and the City Palace Museum. The palace complex has several buildings, various courtyards, galleries, restaurants, and offices of the Museum Trust.

The layout reflects how the palace worked as both public and private space. The three main entry gates are the Udai Pol near Jaleb chowk, the Virendra Pol near Jantar Mantar, and the Tripolia. Tripolia is reserved for the royal family. Visitors enter only through the Udai Pol and the Virendra Pol. The Udai Pol leads to the Sabha Niwas, also called the Diwan-e-Aam or hall of public audience, through tight dog-leg turns. The Virendra Pol leads to the Mubarak Mahal courtyard, which connects to the Sarvato Bhadra through the Rajendra Pol.

The Sabha Niwas was modeled on a Rajput hall of audience. It has multiple cusped arches supported by marble columns and a painted plaster ceiling. On the southern end, the jalis would have been used by women to oversee proceedings while following purdah. The Sarvato Bhadra is a single-storeyed, square, open hall with enclosed rooms at the four corners. It served as the Diwan-e-Khas, where the ruler could meet officials and nobles in a more private setting than the public hall next door. Because it lies between the public areas and the private residence, it has also been used for important private functions, including coronation rituals.

The palace stands inside Jantar Mantar, Jaipur, and that makes its setting especially interesting: this royal complex sits within one of the city’s most distinctive planned areas, close enough that the palace gates and the observatory belong to the same historic urban core.

The site for the palace was on the land of a royal hunting lodge, on a plain encircled by a rocky hill range, five miles south of Amber. The history of the palace is closely tied to Jaipur’s rulers, especially Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II, who is credited with initiating construction of the outer wall and the broader palace complex. Later rulers added to the architecture, and those additions continued into the 20th century.

Today, the palace still functions as both a residence and a museum. The royal family continues to live here in a private section, and the complex remains under the management of the Museum Trust, headed by Rajamata Padmini Devi of Jaipur, with Princess Diya Kumari running it as secretary and trustee. The palace is open daily from 9:30 AM to 7:30 PM, and there is also a night visit from 7.00 PM to 10.00 PM. One gallery showing pre-motorised transport such as buggies, palkis, miyana, raths, and camel saddles is currently closed for renovation.

Look for the contrast between the public gateways and the private royal spaces, then the details in the audience halls: the cusped arches, marble columns, painted ceiling, and the jalis at the southern end.