A History of Jaipur

This authentic and authoritative History of Jaipur was commissioned by Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II, the last ruler of the erstwhile Jaipur stare sir Jadunath Sarkar agreed to take up the assignment and completed the manuscript in 1939-40. The book was finally published as it was originally more than 40 years later in 1984.

The author meticulously documented the history of the Kachhwa rulers of Jaipur. He ploughed through a profusion of raw material preserved almost intact for three and a half centuries in the Kachhwa House to present a compelling history of the Jaipur dynasty.

Lucidly written this book will be of interest to scholars and general readers alike.

His highness Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II, the Maharaja of Jaipur ascended the Gaddi on the 7th September 1922 and he was invested with full ruling powers on the 14th of March 1931. The Maharaja showed early promise of becoming one of the outstanding rulers of the Jaipur dynasty and right from the beginning of his reign he was conscious of the responsibilities that he had inherited. He had been brought up in the traditional custom of the Kachhawas and while modernizing and democratizing the administration of his state he kept up the traditions of the house of Jaipur Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II was immensely proud of his forefathers and in order to perpetuate their achievement he thought of the idea of commissioning a history of Jaipur.

At that tome the most eminent and respected historian in India was Sir Jadunath Sarkar. The Maharaja asked him of he would take on this assignment and Sir Jadunath Sarkar fortunately accepted. The history of Jaipur is an integral part of the history of India and the potjikhana at the city palace in Jaipur has a valuable collection of records not easily available in other places. Perhaps this was one of the reasons that prompted him to accept.

In 1939-1940 Sir Jadunath Sarkar completed the manuscript. However due to various and adverse conditions the publication of this book has been delayed for more than 40 years and therefore it is even more gratifying that it has at last found the light of day.

I would like to thank Maharaj Kumar Raghubir Sinh of Sitamu for his dedicated work in editing this vast manuscript. It was a painstaking task which he had undertaken with great care and devotion. My grateful task which he had undertaken with great care and devotion. My grateful thanks to all those who are connected with the publication of this book and particularly to those two persons who are no longer with us – his late Highness Maharaja Sawai Man Singh Bahadur II and Sir Jadunath Sarkar one for the idea of commissioning this book and the other for writing the original work.

I hope that this book will be of interest to the general public because it is not merely a record of the achievement of the kachhawa Rulers of Amber and Jaipur but it is a very relevant part of India’s past.

A granddaughter of Shah Jahan the Magnificent Harangued hr troops on a battle field by saying. The honor of the Chaghtai Emperors is identical with that of the Rajput. In promoting the glory of the Mughal Empire and in imposing its peace upon all India no Rajput clan has played a greater part than the Kachhwa house of Jaipur. Their five color banner the panch-ranga has floated almost with insight of the Onus River in the heart of Central Asia and beyond Qandahar to the Helmand River across the Persian frontier. Within India itself the Kachhwa standard has penetrated to the Garhwal hills in the north the bank of the Brahmputra in the furthest east and the Krishna River in the south. It has crossed the terrible Rann of Cutch in the extreme west in the cause of the Mughal Empire. One prince of this house has been the viceroy of Afghanistan another has held the Khyber pass and a third was commissioned to stem the tide of Maratha advance in Malwa. For some year’s one prince of Amber held the proud position of the premier of the Mughal Empire unequalled in rank by any other grandee Hindu or Muslim. Under another ruler of this line the Kachhwa capital was known as the most beautiful and symmetrically laid out cit in India and the home of learning and the arts.

Then followed half a century of eclipse of the royal power (1778-1835), because of minorities, faction fights and the lack of statesmanship in the governing class. This unhappy period also coincided with that change in the art of warfare in India in consequence of which gunpowder killed chivalry. The Rajputs living their traditional lives in secluded corner in India, refused to adapt themselves to this change for a long time and paid the penalty of their conservatism by humiliation at the hands of the Marathas and their Frencheld battalions.

With the year 1835 a new era commenced. Modern light began slowly to triumph over a medieval order in both state and society. The improvement of administration and the spread of education and arts in this region of Rajputana assumed a more rapid advance after the Sepoy Mutiny, till and last in the twentieth century the Jaipur Government has come to take its palace in the front ranks of India states in terms of prosperity and progress.

The history of a dynasty with such a past is well worth writing. And there is a special reason why it should be written. Alone among the ruling states of India whether Hindu or Musli the Kachhwa House of Jaipur has preserved its ancient archives almost intact for three centuries and has preserved its ancient archives almost intact for three centuries and a half. Nowhere else in India can we find even a tenth of Farman’s piranhas reports, newsletter and other historical documents exchanged between the Mughal Government of Delhi and the Court of Jaipur or between the rajahs and their officers and allies with the original brocaded covers and even the wax seals intact. In more recent times, Jaipur has been the home of a school of art and a museum, the fame of which has drawn travelers form every country of the world. The historian who ahs such a rich command may well congratulate himself on holding a position unmatched elsewhere in the realm of India historiography.

H.H. Maharaja Sir Sawai Man Singh the last ruler of the erstwhile Jaipur state was very keen to get an authentic history of his dynasty and state written and published. Sir Jadunath Sarkar the doyen of Indian historian’s particularly of the Mughal period, was requested to take up this important task. Fully aware of Rajput sensitivity towards incidents relating to Mughal-Rajput relations, Sir Jadunath Sarkar had agreed that if desired some omissions might be made form the manuscript prepared by him. But it is more than forty years since Sir Jadunath Sarkar finalized his manuscript. A world of change has happened since the achievement of independence by India and the outlook of the ancient Kachhwa house indeed of the former aristocracy has been completely revolutionized. Taking advantage of the new state of affairs in Rajasthan and in India the decision was made to publish the history of Jaipur as it was originally written by Jadunath Sarkar.

However the material made available to Dir Jadunath Sarkar with respect to the origin and the early history of the Kachhawas was limited to lean fragments of vamsavalis based on bardic genealogies. As a result the earlier chapters needed to be updated on the basis of recent research an contemporary ideas on the subject.

Moreover the dating of events of the Mughal period originally given in Hijri dates were converted by Sir Jadunath Sarkar into Christian dates as given in Swami Kamru Pillai’s The Indian ephemeris. Many of these Christian dates were wrong by one or more days due to the peculiarities of the Islamic calendar as it is written out and as it finally occurs, consequent to the sighting of the new moon. After a careful detailed and deep study of the problem, I prepared some rough and ready rules some ten years ago which reduce the margin of error in converting the Hijri dates into Christian dates to a bare minimum of less than ten percent. With the help of these guidelines the converted dates have been carefully and fully revised. Where the mistake was of only one day the correction of the date has been made in the text itself but this correction has been duly indicated by adding the correct day of the week within brackets before the corrected date. Where the correction is of more than a day the correct date has been mentioned in the notes citing authorities for making the required correction.

Wherever Sir Jadunath Sarkar has unfortunately misinterpreted any Rajasthani document the entire correct interpretation of the same has been included in the main text presented of course within brackets and duly indicated to be the editor’s addition. Every effort has been made to update the work and to make it flawless.

In Chapters XV, XVII, XVIII and XIX Sir Jadunath Sarkar has quoted some extracts in French without the English translation. These translations have been made and appended in the noted at relevant places.

In am extremely grateful to the trustees of the Maharaja Swami Man Singh II museum Jaipur and more particularly to Srimati Rajmata Gayatri Devi of Jaipur for entrusting me with the prestigious though onerous tasks of revising editing and preparing the press copy of the great guru. Acharya Jadunath Sarkar the author of this long awaited work.

I must record also my gratitude to Dr. Asok Kumar Das and Shri Gopal Narayan Bahura the Director and Deputy Director respectively of the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II museum Jaipur for all their cooperation and unstinting assistance in carrying out my assignment. It was indeed kind of them to have made available to me the various notes comments Narendra Singh of Jobner who spent their loves studying the history of the culture of the Kachhwas of Amber Jaipur State. I have added a goof many footnotes to their notes and comments hoping to thus make the work more authentic and informative.

Finally o acknowledgement the valuable assistance of my junior colleagues Dr. Manohar Sinh Ranwat the Deputy Director and Shri Vidya Nand Singh the assistance research Officer of the Shri Narnagar Shodh Samsthan. Shri Amar Singh Kushwaha has to be thanked for tirelessly working during his off duty hours in preparing the press copy of this History of Jaipur.