In spite of his many defects, Jai Singh’s name is destined to descend to posterity as one of the most remarkable men of his age and nation.
Erection of Buildings.
Sumptuary Laws: Tolerance.
The Asvamedha.
Sawai Jai Singh died in S. 1799 (A.D. 1743), having ruled forty-four years. Three of his wives and several concubines ascended his funeral pyre, on which science expired with him.
[1]. [The dates of the Rājas of Jaipur are uncertain. Those in the margin are given on the authority of Beale, Oriental Biographical Dict. 193[193].]
[2]. For such a sketch, the materials of the Amber court are abundant; to instance only the Kalpadruma, a miscellaneous diary, in which everything of note was written, and a collection entitled Ek sad nau gun Jai Singh ke, or ‘the one hundred and nine actions of Jai Singh’ of which I have heard several narrated and noted. His voluminous correspondence with all the princes and chiefs of his time would alone repay the trouble of translation, and would throw a more perfect light on the manners and feelings of his countrymen than the most laborious lucubrations of any European. I possess an autograph letter of this prince, on one of the most important events of Indian history at this period, the deposal of Farrukhsiyar. It was addressed to the Rana.
[3]. [For a graphic account of Jaipur city see Rudyard Kipling, From Sea to Sea, chap. ii.]
[4]. [For these observatories see A. ff. Garrett and Pandit Chandradha Guleri, The Jaipur Observatory and its Builder, Allahabad, 1902; Fanshawe, Delhi Past and Present, 247 f.; Sherring, The Sacred City of the Hindus, 131 ff. The observatory at Mathura was in the Fort, but it has disappeared; at Ujjain only scanty remains exist (Growse, Mathura, 3rd ed. 140; IGI, xviii. 73, xxiv. 113).]