Jaipur Travel Guide

Jaipur History

Raja Sawai Jai Singh had his capital in Amber, when he felt the need of shifting his capital to another place for the safety of the ever-increasing population and growing scarcity of water. In the eighteenth century, he finally built Jaipur. It was also the time when the glory of Mughal Empire was on its decline. Jaipur became the first planned city of India, which was designed by a brilliant Bengali architect who was well versed in his area of study and was known as Vidyadhar Bhattacharya. The city was planned on the edicts of the ancient Hindu treatise on Indian architecture, Shilpa Shastra. The city was planned in a grid system and boasts of wide and straight avenues and roads that are arranged dexterously in nine rectangular city sectors. As a safety measure against any possible invasions, the city was enveloped with the fortification walls with seven gates. Tourists find it astonishing that the whole city was painted in autumn pink by the then sovereign of the city to welcome his distinguished guest, the Prince of Wales in 1876.
There are different versions to the reason why the pink was chosen as the color for the city. If we believe the local fables, some people say that when the ambassadors of Prince of Wales visited the city prior to his visit, some simpleton insultingly called them the 'pink-faced monkey', as a result of the contempt for the British that had India under their clutches. To make up for his rashness and as a diplomatic tact, Raja and his ministers maintained that the person had called them so in reverence, as the 'monkey' was worshipped in the region as 'Hanuman' and pink was the sacred color of the region. To give conviction to their seemingly improbable reason they painted the city pink on the Prince's arrival. Others maintain that city was painted pink merely because the contractor was unable to supply any other color in such huge quantities that were needed to paint the whole city! Since then the pink color has been associated with hospitality in Jaipur and Rajput culture.