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The lamps
A palace of five storeys stands in the middle of a lake
Diwali brings lamps to homes, temples and workspaces. Jal Mahal, the Water Palace, stands in the middle of Man Sagar Lake. When the lake is at full capacity, its depth reaches approximately 4.5 meters, and the lower 4 storeys of the palace are submerged.
The lodge
It began as a duck-hunting lodge, not a royal home
Jal Mahal was constructed around 1699 by Sawai Jai Singh of Amer. It was a duck-hunting lodge rather than a royal residence. In the mid-18th century, Maharaja Madho Singh I renovated and enlarged the building and the lake around it.
The roof
Pink and red sandstone, with a garden on the top floor
The palace is built from local pink and red sandstone. Its top floor terrace holds a central garden with arched passages, flanked by four octagonal chhatri, or domed pavilions, that mark the corners of the building.
The hills
Hills, a temple valley and royal cenotaphs frame the lake
The hills northeast of the lake belong to the Aravalli range. From the Kanak Vrindavan valley, where a temple complex sits, they slope gently toward the lake edge. Opposite the lake, at Gaitore, stand chhatris and cenotaphs of notable Kachwaha rulers of Jaipur.
The lake today
The lake was cleaned, but the palace stayed closed below
Silt was dredged from the lakebed and reused to build check dams and three artificial nesting grounds for migratory birds. City sewage drains were diverted into a treatment plant. Yet commercial construction remains inactive, and the lower four-story interior of the palace is closed to general visitors.
500,000 m³Silt dredged from the lakebed.
Day 5, evening
It comes after Jaigarh Fort.
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Jal Mahal and the Wikipedia article Diwali, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.