City Palace, Jaipur

The City Palace, Jaipur was established at the same time as the city of jaipur by Maharaja sawai singh , who moved his court to Jaipur from Amber, in 1727. Jaipur is the present-day capital of the state of Rajasthan, and until 1949 the City Palace was the ceremonial and administrative seat of the Maharaja of Jaipur.  The Palace was also the location of religious and cultural events, as well as a patron of arts, commerce, and industry. It now houses the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum, and continues to be the home of the Jaipur royal family. The royal family has around 500 personal servants.The palace complex has several buildings, various courtyards, galleries, restaurants, and offices of the Museum Trust.The MSMS II Museum Trust is headed by chairperson Rajamata Padmini Devi of Jaipur (from Sirmour in Himachal Pradesh).Princess  diya kumari  runs the Museum Trust, as its secretary and trustee. She also manages The Palace School and Maharaja Sawai Bhawani Singh School in Jaipur. She founded and runs the Princess Diya Kumari Foundation to empower underprivileged and underemployed women of Rajasthan. She is also an entrepreneur. In 2013, she was elected as memever of the Legislative  assembaly  of Rajasthan from the constituency of  sawai madhopur.

History

The palace complex lies in the heart of Jaipur city, to the northeast of the very centre, located at 26.9255°N 75.8236°E. The site for the palace was located on the site of a royal hunting lodge on a plain land encircled by a rocky hill range, five miles south of Amber . The history of the city palace is closely linked with the history of Jaipur city And its rulers, starting with Maharaja sawai jai shingh  who ruled from 1699 to 1744. He is credited with initiating construction of the city complex by building the outer wall of the complex spreading over many acres. Initially, he ruled from his capital at Amber, which lies at a distance of 11 km (6.8 mi) from Jaipur. He shifted his capital from Amber to Jaipur in 1727 because of an increase in population and increasing water shortage. He planned Jaipur city in six blocks separated by broad avenues, on the classical basis of principals of vastushstra  and another similar classical treatise under the  architectural guidance of Vidyadar Bhattacharya, a bengali architect from naihathi of present-day  west  Bengal  who was initially an accounts-clerk in the Amber treasury and later promoted to the office of Chief Architect by the King.

Architecture

The City Palace is in the central-northeast part of the Jaipur city, which is laid in a unique pattern with wide avenues. It is a unique and special complex of several courtyards, buildings, pavilions, gardens, and temples. The most prominent and most visited structures in the complex are the Chandra Mahal, Mubarak Mahal, Shri Govind Dev Temple, and the City Palace Museum