ABSTRACT

The wonderful city of Jaipur was created in the eighteenth century by the philosopher maharaja Jai Singh. The pink city was built in a green wooded valley near a small lake; and it is plain that, initially, Jai Singh wanted to plan the place on the basis of the 'Vastupurusha mandala', nine squares within a square which, according to the teachings of the ancient Vedic 'shastras', was a model of the cosmos, with each square corresponding to a heavenly body. Jai Singh was forced to compromise this perfect pattern to take account of a hill and to encompass an existing village, so one of the smaller squares was detached and moved to the east.