History
of The Jaipur City
By-
Ashim Kumar Roy
Jaipur
is the first planned city of northern India after Mohenjo-daro and the Greek
city of Sirkap in Taxila. Its builder was Sawai Jai Singh, the versatile ruler
of Amer whose multifarious activities as a statesman, an astronomer and a
patron of Hinduism form part of this book.
The
planning of the city too was perhaps done by Jai Singh himself, ably assisted
by a Bengali Brahman, Vidyadhar, who later became his favourite minister.
Within
a few years of its founding Jaipur became and has since remained the most
important city in Rajasthan. From the start it has had a good water supply
system. In providing street lighting, medical facilities, higher education,
etc., it has kept pace with modern cities of India. By the middle of the 19th
century it had become a centre of banking and jewellery trade in north India
and by the end of the century a centre of Sanskrit learning.
One
of the products of the city was Todarmal, who was perhaps the first writer of
modern Hindi prose. The city is also an important religious centre. The history
of Jaipur could thus he said to be the history of civilization in norther India
during the 18th and 19th centuries.
This
capital story of the birth and
growth of the capital of one of the most forward looking states of India should
be of interest to the lay reader as well as to specialist.
Ashim
Kumar Roy,
a product of Presidency College, Calcutta joined the Indian Administrative
Service in 1949 and served in the state and central government in various
capacities. During 1959-60 he was at Harvard University as a Ford Foundation
Fellow. He obtained his Ph.D. in History from Rajasthan University in 1976.
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