The so-called Royal Spring Garden (Chashme Shahi Garden) of Jaipur has an actual spring on the third of its terraces. A pavilion encloses the spring, and although it is the only pavilion in the garden now, there used to be another one on the second terrace. For some reason, only the pavilion to the south remains now. The spring it encloses runs down all the way to the first terrace, the part of the garden with the lowest elevation, and feeds into the pool with fountains on that level. The water runs down the other two terraces by means of a water-carrying channel that is locally called “chadar”, a type of small-scale aqueduct that relies on the differences in elevation created by the terracing to channel the water to the pool in the lowest terrace.
Many stories surround Chashme Shahi. One of them even claims that one of the most famous shahs, the Shah Jahan, took his [Read more…]