Entries about rajasthan

Udaipur is a major city in the Indian state of Rajasthan. It is the historic capital of the kingdom of Mewar in the former Rajputana Agency. Maharana Udai Singh of the Sisodia clan of Rajputs founded the city in 1559 AD and shifted his capital from the city of Chittorgarh to Udaipur.

The lakes of the city being interconnected form a lake system which supports and sustains the ground water recharge, water availability for drinking, agriculture, industries and is a source of employment through tourism. The lake system has three main lakes in its upper catchment area, six lakes within its municipal boundary and one lake in the downstream. The Udaipur Lake System can be divided into the following categories:
Upper lakes : Lake Badi, Chhota Madar & Bada Madar.
City Lakes : Lake Pichola, Fateh Sagar Lake, SwaroopSagar, RangSagar, Kumharia Talab, GoverdhanSagar.
Downstream Lake : Lake Udai Sagar.
River : River Ahar.
Udaipur, with its picturesque landscape, lakes, and historic palaces and architecture, is a major destination for most tourists, both domestic and foreign nationals visiting the state. With numerous hotels to serve visiting tourists, Udaipur is home to some of the world's most renowned and the country's best luxury hotels and resorts.
Udaipur is well known for handicrafts such as paintings, marble articles, silver arts and terracotta. The Shilpgram is a platform where regional handicraft and hand-loom products is developed. Craft bazaars are organized by the Shilpgram, with an aim to encourage the regional arts and crafts, the handicraft and hand-loom works.

Sahelion ki Bari

Sahelion ki Bari is a major garden and a popular tourist space in the northern part of the city.

The garden with its fountains and kiosks, a lotus pool and marble elephants, was laid for a group of forty-eight young women attendants who accompanied a princess to Udaipur as part of her dowry.

City Palace

Standing on the east bank of Lake Pichola is a massive series of palaces built at different times from 1559.

Its main entrance is through the triple-arched gate - the Tripolia, built in 1725.

This gate leads to a series of courtyards, overlapping parations, terraces, corridors and gardens.

The palace now houses a museum with many antique articles, paintings, decorative furniture and utensils from the royal era.

Lake Palace

Situated over an island in Lake Pichola, the Lake Palace was constructed to serve as a royal summer palace. Built of white marble, the palace is now a luxury 5 Star hotel, operating under the "Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces" banner.

Jag Mandir

Jag Mandir is a palace built on an island in the Lake Pichola. Also known as the "Lake Garden Palace", it was constructed by three Maharanas of the Mewar kingdom. The construction started in 1551, and got completed by 1652. The royal family used the palace as a summer resort and pleasure palace.

Monsoon Palace

Monsoon Palace, (in the background) also known as Sajjan Garh Palace, was built as an astronomical centre to keep track of the movement of monsoon clouds in the area and also served as the summer resort of the Maharanas.
Built with white marble, it is located on Bansdara peak of the Aravalli hill range at an elevation of 944 m (3100 ft) above mean sea level. The palace offers a panoramic view of the city's lakes, palaces and surrounding countryside.

Lake Fatehsagar

Lake Fatehsagar is an artificial lake situated in the north-west part of Udaipur. The lake was originally built by Maharana Jai Singh and later reconstructed and extended by Maharana Fateh Singh. It is one of the most popular destinations in the city for tourists and the city residents.

Lake Pichola

Lake Pichola is an artificial fresh water lake and is one of the several contiguous lakes in the city of Udaipur. The lake’s surroundings and the several islands within the lake have been developed over the centuries, with palaces, marble temples, family mansions, bathing ghats and chabutaras (a raised platform, normally within a courtyard).

Moti Magri or Pearl Hill

Moti Magri or Pearl Hill, is a memorial of the Rajput hero Maharana Pratap. It is basically a small hilloc, atop of which there is a bronze statue of the Maharana astride his favourite horse "Chetak". It was initiated by Maharana Bhagwat Singh Mewar, and carried over and completed with the help of a public trust.

In the 19th century Jaswant Thada , a royal cenotaph was built in commemoration of Maharaja Jaswant Singh II, the 33rd Rathore ruler of Jodhpur. The son of Maharaja , Maharaja Sardar Singh, in the memory of his father, built the Jaswant Thada.

It is a white marble memorial, built out of intricately carved sheets of marble. These sheets are extremely thin and polished so that they emit a warm glow when illuminated by the sun.

View of Umaid Bhavan from Jaswant Thada

View of Mehrangarh Fort from Jaswant Thada

Om Banna is a temple located in Pali district near Jodhpur, India, devoted to a deity in the form of a motorcycle.It is located 20 kilometres from Pali and 50 kilometres away from Jodphur on the Pali-Jodhpur highway. The motorcycle is a 350cc Royal Enfield Bullet.

Residents of Chotila village have built a small temple for the motorbike and his dead owner, Om Singh Rathore, also known as Om Banna or Bullet Baba, on National Highway 65 in Pali, Rajasthan.The shrine has a Royal Enfield 350cc bullet enclosed in a glass box with a photo of Om Banna, who died in a road accident around 24 years ago in that same spot.

Over two decades ago, 21-year-old Om Singh Rathore, the son of a local village leader, was on his way home when he met with a fatal accident on the highway. The police hauled away the motorcycle and that’s when the legend began.The bike was not in the police station the next day. It was found at the accident spot. The police took the bike back, this time securing it with chains and deflating its tyres. The story goes that the next morning the motorcycle was again found at the accident spot. Police tried everything possible to stop the bike from being moved. The bike somehow made it to the accident site in the dead of the night.

Thus began the legend of Om Banna, or Bullet Baba, the patron saint of all those who use the highway. Following the incident, villagers in the area build the temple to worship it.

The temple itself is an elevated concrete platform on which is a bust of Rathore. Behind it stands the Bullet, enclosed in a glass case.

Rajasthan has been blessed with varied flora and fauna even when majority of its area is desert. The forest cover is also quite limited, despite these adversities, some unique flora and fauna can be witnessed.

The flora and fauna of Rajasthan supports all kinds of animal species and forests.The flora and fauna of Rajasthan will completely spellbound the tourists.

Nilgai - Blue Bull of India:

Sometimes referred to as the "blue bull" (or horse), it is the largest of all Asian antelopes and is one of the most commonly seen wild animals in Rajasthan. The nilgai are very robust animals with bodies similar to horses, but have much smaller heads and small horns (only on the males), leading many to compare them to a cross between a horse and a goat. Females are a lighter brown color and slightly less robustly built. Both males and females have a short bristly mane.

Demoiselle crane:

The demoiselle crane is a species found in central Eurasia, ranging from the Black Sea to Mongolia and North Eastern China.These cranes are migratory birds. Birds from western Eurasia will spend the winter in Africa whilst the birds from Asia, Mongolia and China will spend the winter in the Indian subcontinent. The bird is symbolically significant in the culture of North India, where it is known as the koonj.

These cranes make one of the toughest migrations in the world by crossing the Himalayas and have literally changed the landscape of Khichan near Jodhpur in Rajasthan. The once obscure village has now become one of the most favoured bird-watching vacation hotspots in India.

The Chinkara:

The chinkara, also known as the Indian gazelle, is a gazelle species native to Iran, Pakistan and India. It has a reddish-buff summer coat with smooth, glossy fur. In winter, the white belly and throat fur is in greater contrast. The sides of the face have dark chestnut stripes from the corner of the eye to the muzzle, bordered by white stripes.

Shree Guru Jambheshwar Bhagwan also known as Jambho ji, was the founder of the Bishnoi sect. He preached the worship of Hari (a name for Lord Vishnu). He taught that God is a divine power that is everywhere. He also taught to protect plants and animals as they are important in order to peacefully coexist with nature.

Jambho ji was a great visionary, who had foreseen the consequences of man’s actions destroying nature for economic development. He saw the need for environmental protection and weaved his principles into religious commandments so that people can internalise those principals easily.

Bishnoi translates as Twenty-niners and revolves around 29 commandments. Out of these 29 commandments, 8 prescribe to preserve biodiversity and encourage good animal husbandry. Seven commandments provide directions for healthy social behaviour. Ten commandments are directed towards personal hygiene and maintaining basic good health. The other four commandments provide guidelines for worshipping God daily.

29 Rules or commandments of Bishnoi community:

1. To observe segregation of the mother and newborn for 30 days after delivery . To prevent infection to the mother and the baby during a stage when both are highly susceptible to outside infections. Also to provide forced rest to the woman when she is very weak
2. To keep woman away from all activities for 5 days during her menstrual periods .To provide compulsory rest to the woman.
3. To take early morning bath for daily personal hygiene.
4. To maintain both external and internal cleanliness and remaining content .Internal cleanliness means good intentions, humble behavior, character without envious feelings, etc.
5. To meditate twice a day i.e. morning and evening .

6. To sing the Lord Vishnu’s glory and reciting His virtues every evening.
7. To offer daily oblation to the holy fire with a heart filled with feelings of welfare, love and devotion .Daily (preferably morning) oblations with:
Feelings of welfare of all living being
Love for nature and whole world
Devotion to the Lord
8. Use filtered water, milk and carefully cleaned fuel/ firewood .To make the water and milk bacteria free! In case of firewood to see that some insects etc. do not get burned with the fuel and pollute the environment.
9. Filter your speech! Think before you speak.
10. To be forgiving in nature. Forgiveness is a parameter of greatness. This one virtue could uplift a normal person to the standards of great souls of the world. Guru said further, if somebody come to you shouting, become cool like water!

11. To be compassionate. Compassion helps in purifying the heart..
12. Not to steal trying to own someone else’s things through cheating, or stealing is theft. Theft is the dirt of the character. It pinches the soul.
13. Not to revile/ condemn someone .Reviling means insulting stealthily or disparaging behind the back.
14. Not to tell lies. A liar can never attain respect of others. It is insult to the gift of speech..
15. Not to indulge in opprobrium .One should not indulge in any unnecessary/ wasteful debates. All such discussions/ deliberations, which are anti-social, anti-human fall under this category.
16. To observe fast and meditate on no-moon night (and the same day i.e. Amavsya) To provide rest to the body and its internal systems.
17. To recite the holy name of Lord Vishnu.
18. To be compassionate towards all living beings.
19. Not to fell green trees.
20. To kill the non-perishables! To overcome the non-perishable enemies of human beings – lust, anger, envy, greed and attachment.

21. To partake food cooked by self or other religious person or one who is pure by heart and work.
22. To provide a common shelter (Thhat) for goat/sheep to avoid them being slaughtered in abattoirs .
23. Not to have bulls castrated .In rural India, bulls are castrated before they are used as bullocks for agricultural purposes.
24. Not to partake of opium, or any product made out of opium.
25. Not to use tobacco and its products.

26. Not to partake of cannabis.
27. Not to drink liquor.
28. Not to eat meat or non-vegetarian dishes .The underlying rationale of this commandment are two pronged .To protect the animals/birds from being slaughtered by creating a market barrier! To protect the man, the best creation of the nature, from stooping to such low standards as eating meat of dead animals/birds. Scientifically also the structure of man’s teeth, jaws etc. is of not a carnivorous animal but is that of a herbivorous creature.
29. Not to use blue-coloured clothes In ancient India, the blue colour used to be obtained from indigo. Thus it is possible that the Guru wanted to stop destruction of this wild shrub or promote its cultivation in lieu of other life supporting crops.

Umaid Bhawan Palace, located at Jodhpur in Rajasthan, India, is one of the world's largest private residences.

Named after Maharaja Umaid Singh, grandfather of the present owners of the palace, this monument has 347 rooms and serves as the principal residence of the erstwhile Jodhpur royal family.

The present owner of the Palace is Gaj Singh.

The Palace is divided into three functional parts - a luxury Taj Palace Hotel (in existence since 1972), the residence of the owner's royal family, and a Museum focusing on the 20th century history of the Jodhpur Royal Family.

There is also a gallery showcasing the most exotic automobiles owned by the royals.

All of us have had an encounter with a ghost or heard an eerie ghost story. The village of Kuldhara is a ghost village that has been abandoned since 1800s. It is said to carry a curse of the villagers who migrated to other places.

Kuldhara lies about 15 Km west of Jaisalmer in Rajasthan(India).No one lives in Kuldhara, as it is are believed to be cursed. The village now lies in ruins. The first sight of Kuldhara village sends one imagination running to the time it may have been inhabited.

According to folklore, Salim Singh, the minister of the state, once visiting this village fell for the beautiful daughter of chieftain (Paliwal Brahmin) and wanted to marry her. The minister threatened the villagers that if they did not marry the girl to him, he would levy huge taxes. The chief of the village with those of other 83 adjoining villages decided to abandon and migrate elsewhere as against marrying the girl to Salim Singh. Nobody saw them leave nor did anyone figure where they went, they simply vanished.

Tanot is a place located at a distance of 120 Km from Jaisalmer and name Tanot is named on goddess Tanot. One major town Ramgarh falling in between. After Ramgarh, are miles and miles of nothingness and empty sand dunes. The village is close to the border with Pakistan, and is very close to the battle site of Longewala of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

The area has a high average windspeed and as such there are now a large number of wind-based renewable energy projects in the area. The temperatures in the area can go up to 49 °C.

Ranau Village : It appeared suddenly in middle of nowhere surrounded by virgin sandunes.

It is said that during the Indo-Pakistani War, Pakistani Army dropped several bombs targeting the temple but none of the bombs could fall on the temple and large number of the bombs in the vicinity of the temple did not explode.The temple has a collection of the unexploded bombs dropped by Pakistan. The temple has also been shown in Bollywood movie Border.

Bada Bagh, also called Barabagh (literally Big Garden) is a garden complex about 6 km north of Jaisalmer. It contains a set of royal cenotaphs, or chhatris of Maharajas of Jaisalmer state.

In the 16th century, Maharaj Jai Singh II commissioned a dam to create a lake in this harsh desert region. After his death, his son Lunkaran built a beautiful garden and a cenotaph in his memory.

Bada Bagh, whose name literally means "Great Garden", was the place to be cremated and symbolically buried the former Maharajas of Jaisalmer.

One of the most popular attractions for tourists visiting Jaisalmer, Bada Bagh is attending to contemplate, apparently, beautiful sunset.

Location: In the outskirts of Jaisalmer, 42 Km from the main city.

Sam sand dunes are becoming the major attraction in Jaisalmer. This is the closest place from where you can loose yourself in 'the Great Thar Desert'.

Sam has a truly magnificent stretch of sweeping dunes, with sparse or no vegetation. The best way to get here, of course, is on camelback.