Travel And More!
Our Qualis was making good time on the highway. We swept past the greens and yellows of the mustard fields and soon the terrain changed to the somber colours of the desert. Just short of the city walls loomed what seemed to be an impenetrable fortress perched on a steephillside. We were approaching the fort of Ambers’ Rajput queen, the princess of Amber and the mother of none other than the great Mughal ruler Jehangir.
In Amber Fort:
Amber had been the capital of the Kachhawaha Rajputs from the 12th century to the 18th. The members of this warrior tribe with their code of chivalry and honour spent most of their time battling invading armies and during intervals of respite, one another. But the Mughals had come to stay and it was good policy to accept a marital alliance when a martial confrontation would have been suicidal. Jodha Bai’s nephew Maharaja Man Singh was the Rajput commander of Akbars’ army and one of the nine jewels or navratnas of the Mughal court.
He began the construction of the fortress palace of Amber with war booty in 1592 but it was left to his successor Mirza Raja Jai Singh, who served not one but three Mughal emperors-Jahangir,Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, to give it its present form. After several addition it was completed in the early 18th century when the threat of the Mughals had receded.