Jag Niwas (Lake Palace)
¤ The Construction of The
Palace
For over a hundred years Jag Mandir has served as the main pleasure
palace of the Sisodia rulers. During the rule of Maharana Sangram
Singh II (1716-34) his son Jagat Singh II had asked permission for a
sojourn at Jag Mandir but for reasons best known to the father the
young prince was refused. On the other hand the adjacent island was
given up for the prince’s personal use. Pavilions of the palace
were constructed before 1734 and after his coronation Gadi Rana Jagat
Singh II (1734-1751) further expanded the marble water palace. Jagat
Singh II named the palace, Jag Niwas, also known as the Lake Palace,
after himself. The palace faces east, allowing its inhabitants to pray
to the Sun god at the crack of dawn.
¤ The Extension of Many Palace
 Jagat
Singh’s period saw the extension of the palace through the Bara
Mahal, Khush Mahal, Phool Mahal, Dhola Mahal, Dilaram Palace and the
Canal The Khush Mahal (Palace of Happiness) is also known as the
Maharani suite since the Queens were occupying it, is one of the
sought after rooms in the palace. It has a perfect Moorish setting –
coloured glasswork framing the windows, marble flooring, the bed with
its luxurious bedding and offers the most enchanting way to watch the
sun set over the quiescent waters of the lake. In the heart of the
room is an antique jhoola (swing). The other palaces include Udai
Prakash with a huge terrace and Kamal Mahal with exquisite glass inlay
in designs of lotus and leaf patterns. Col. Tod when writing about his
life in the palace says: "Here they listened to the tale of the
bard and slept off their noonday opiate amidst the cool breezes of the
lake, wafting delicious odours from myriads of lotus flowers which
covered the surface of the waters."
¤ Served As A Refuge Place for British Families
During the famous Indian Sepoy Mutiny in 1857 several European
families fled from Nimach and used the island as an asylum, offered to
them by Maharana Swaroop Singh. In order to protect his guests the
Rana destroyed all the town’s boats so that the rebels could not
reach the island.
¤ The Inlay Work
The upper room of the palace is a perfect circle and is about 21 feet
in diameter. Ferguson, the noted antiquarian, is of the opinion, that
it was the prettiest room that he had ever seen or known in India. "Its
floor is inlaid with black and white marbles, the walls are ornamented
with nichés and decorated with arabesques of different coloured
stones in the same style as the Taj at Agra, though the patterns are
Hindu and dome is exquisitely beautiful in form. A room built of 12
enormous slabs of marble, Shah Jahan’s throne sculptured from a
single block of serpentine and the little mosque dedicated to Kapuria
Baba, a Muhammedan Saint, are other objects of interest on the island."
¤ The Breathtaking Beauty of Palace
About Jag Niwas it has been said that "the low yet extensive
island fringed with marble piazzas enclosing luxuriant orange-gardens
interspersed with sombre cypresses; towering palms and gilded minarets
shooting up here and there; the whole resting upon background of the
dark and lofty Aravallis, forms a scene unsurpassed by any other in
India." Ferguson has written about these two spots that "the
only objects in Europe to be compared with them are the Baromean
islands in the Lago Maggiore but I need scarcely say their Indian
rivals lose nothing by comparison. They are as superior to them as
Duomo at Milan is to Buckingham Palace. Indeed I know of nothing that
will bear comparison with them anywhere."
¤ The Fading glory of The Place
By the latter half of the 19th century time and weather took their
toll on the extraordinary water palaces of Udaipur. Pierre Loti, a
French writer, described Jag Niwas as "slowly mouldering in the
damp emanations of the lake." About the same time two colonial
bicyclists, William Hunter Workman and his wife Fanny, were distressed
by the ‘cheap and tasteless style’ of the interiors of the
water palaces with "an assortment of infirm European furniture,
wooden clocks, coloured glass ornaments, and children’s toys, all
of which seems to the visitor quite out of place, where he would
naturally expect a dignified display of Eastern splendour."
The reign of Bhopal Singh (1930-55) saw the addition of another
pavilion, Chandra Prakash, but otherwise the Jag Niwas remained
unaltered, degrading, weak, and raring to fall but increasingly silent
about it. Geoffrey Kendall, the noted theatre personality, described
the palace during his visit in the 1950s as "totally deserted,
the stillness broken only by the humming of clouds of mosquitoes."
When Maharana Bhagwat Singh ascended the throne in 1955, Udaipur’s
golden years were already on the decline. Their fierce sense of
self-respect and code of honour had given them their dignity but at
the cost of their fortunes. Other Rajput kingdoms had prospered
through their relationships with either the Mughals or the British (or
both), but the Sisodias were only dependent on their wealth. Even in
the 1960s Udaipur had no industry or business as such, with the only
one being that of sword making.
¤ Palace Converted into A Luxury Hotel
Bhagwat Singh was wise enough to realise this and prepared himself
for the future of his dynasty and kingdom. With this purpose in mind
he decided to convert the Jag Niwas Palace into Udaipur’s first
luxury hotel. Didi Contractor, an American artist, became a design
consultant to this hotel project.
Didi’s accounts gives an insight to the life and responsibility
of the new maharana of Udaipur: "I worked from 1961 to 1969 and
what an adventure! His Highness, you know, was a real monarch –
really like kings always were. So one had a sense of being one of the
last people to be an artist for the king. It felt the way one imagines
it was like working in the courts of the Renaissance. It was an
experience of going back in time to an entirely different era, a
different world. His Highness was actually working on a shoestring. He
wasn’t in dire straits, mind you, but when he came to the throne
he inherited big problems like what to do with the 300 dancing girls
that belonged to his predecessor [Maharana Bhopal Singh]. He tried to
offer them scholarships to become nurses but they didn’t want to
move out of the palace so what could he do? He had to keep them. They
were old crones by this time and on state occasions I remember they
would come to sing and dance with their ghunghats [veils] down and
occasionally one would lift hers to show a wizened old face
underneath. and he had something like twelve state elephants. and he
had all these properties which were deteriorating. The buildings on
Jag Niwas were starting to fall down and basically the Lake Palace was
turned into a hotel because it seemed the only viable way that it
could be maintained … It was really a job of conservation."
Kipling had once stated that "allpalaces in India excepting dead
ones are full of eyes," and Didi found it exactly so in case of
Jag Niwas.
¤ The Restoration Work Commenced
The palace was filled with peepholes, secret passages, and secret
chambers. There was a room that could be entered only through a trap
door at the top. The Lake Palace Hotel caught the fancy of several
distinguished guests including Elizabeth II, Jacqueline Kennedy, the
Shah of Iran and the King of Nepal.
The hotel provides an opportunity for guests to have an inimitable
glimpse of the lifestyle that was once associated with the
aristocracy. Major renovation and extension was done on the palace in
1970, which did little to debilitate it. Jag Niwas was more a garden
with several pavilions, built mostly in the 18th century. However,
recent additions on the island palace are modern in style. In 1971 the
management of the hotel was taken over by the Taj Group of Hotels and
they have made the water palace one of the most attractive Indian
tourist sites with its fantastic amalgamation of courts, apartments
and gardens.
Just behind the Lake Palace there is a small island, proud with its
own palace called the Arsi Vilas. This one was built by one of the
numerous maharanas of Udaipur to enjoy the sunset on the lake. It is
also a sanctuary catering to a variety of birds, including tufted
ducks, coots, egrets, terns, cormorants and kingfishers. The most
interesting part is that the palace has a landing, which is often used
as a helipad.
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