Jaigarh Fort or Victory Fort, a Defensive Structure of Amber!!!

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While Amber Palace represents the architectural beauty of Amber, Jaigarh reflects the military power of Rajputana rulers. After our tour of Amber Fort, and shopping and lunch at Rajasthan Small Scale Cottage industries complex, we drove to Jaigarh. The road is very lone and hardly had any other vehicles driving that way.

Jaigarh Fort which is also known as Victory Fort, served as the defensive structure rather a palace and housed a canon foundry too. The fort also has a subterranean passage to Amber fort, which helped the royal family to move here during enemy attack on Amber Palace. Located on one of the peaks of Aravalli hills, the fort is a red stone structure and presently houses an armory chamber and museum.

The most fascinating here is the walk from the main palace complex to Jaivana, the world's largest cannon on wheels, of its time. On the way there is a small water body(a pond) and as per our guide a scene from the Bollywood movie Shahanshah was shoot there, and he was so proud in sharing that Jaipur had always been Bollywood's favourite shooting place, for its touristy places. There is another water tank well within the palace complex, which as per him was excavated during the rule of Ex-PM Indira Gandhi, for there were rumors of previous things buried under, the excavation ended up with nothing as per government.

Jaivana, the canon, was manufactured in 1720 during the reign of Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II at a foundry in Jaigarh itself. Its said, it was never used in any battle, as Rajputs were in good relation with Mughals(which can be related to the story of Jodhaa and Akbar). The canon was just fired once with 100kg of gunpowder, which covered a distance of 35km.

Travel info:

Jaigarh is around 10kms from Jaipur city and around 500mtrs from Amber( more by road). You can take a combined tour of Amber, Jaigarh and Nahargarh forts with a jeep or there are auto rickshaws which take you to Jaigarh fort alone. There is bit of walking from the main palace complex to the Jaivana.

Timings: 9AM to 4:30PM
Entry Fee:
Indian tourists: INR 35
Foreign tourists: INR 85
Still camera INR 50

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