Jal Mahal
Royal hunting lodge built over a lake, with four of its five storeys permanently submerged.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Jal Mahal in Jaipur traces the palace's start as an eighteenth-century hunting lodge built by Maharaja Madho Singh I at the center of Man Sagar Lake, itself created after a seventeenth-century famine forced a dam across the Darbhawati River. You'll hear how four of its five floors ended up submerged beneath the waterline, and how two centuries of neglect turned the lake into a dumping ground before a restoration begun in 2004 started reversing the damage. Look out at the palace's reflection in the now-clear water as you listen.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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