Place · Kachwaha arsenal fort · India
Jaigarh Fort
Also known as Jaigarh, Jaivana, Cheel ka Teela
The fort on the ridge above Amber, built by Jai Singh II in 1726 as the Kachhwaha arsenal and treasury, with its own cannon foundry inside the walls. It holds the Jaivana, cast there in 1720 and among the largest wheeled cannon ever made, fired once on test.
- Date
- 1726–None
- Function
- Military & resistance
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 26.985, 75.851
Worth knowing
The fort was searched by the Income Tax Department in 1976 on a rumour that the Kachhwaha treasure taken from Afghanistan was buried in its water tanks; nothing was announced. Its rainwater tanks hold six million gallons, which is what allowed an arsenal to sit on a dry ridge.
Connections (2)
- Site adjacencyAmber Fort
Amber holds the palaces and Jaigarh on the ridge above holds the guns, the foundry and the treasury, connected by a covered passage. The division is deliberate: a Mughal ally could not obviously fortify his residence, so the arsenal went uphill out of sight and the Jaivana was cast and fired there in the 1720s.
- Site withinJaipur
Jaigarh Fort lies within Jaipur — the two sites sit about 10 km apart, well inside the city's historical boundary and part of the same urban or peri-urban landscape. Jaigarh Fort is one of the specific sites that give Jaipur its layered character, and reads differently when seen as a stop within the larger city rather than as an isolated monument on an open map. The surrounding neighbourhoods, roads and other heritage ensembles belong to the same single urban fabric.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Jaigarh Fort”. Archaeological Survey of India, Jaipur circle notices; Giles Tillotson, The Rajput Palaces (1987).
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