Jai Singh I

Raja Jai Singh I

Jai Singh I (15 July 1611 – 28 August 1667) was a senior general ("Mirza Raja") of the Mughal Empire and the Raja of the Kingdom of Amber (later called Jaipur). His predecessor was his grand uncle, Mirza Raja Bhau Singh.

Quotes

• When Maharaja Jaswant Singh of Jodhpur was informed about the death of Mirza Raja Jai Singh, he is said to have expressed his feeling through the following couplet:
  GhanÔa na bÁje DevarÁn, sank na mÁne SÁh,
  Ye karsÁn phir Ávjyo, MÁhÚrÁ JaisÁh.
  As Raja Maha Ringh’s son Wai Ringh is no more, Aurangzeb has no fear – he has stopped arti, puja and blowing of conch in the temples. Had he been alive today, he would not have allowed such a thing to happen.‛
  • (Couplet cited in Th. Surjan Singh’s Khandela ka Vrihad Itihas, p.97). in Bhatnagar, V. S. (2020). Emperor Aurangzeb and Destruction of Temples, Conversions and Jizya : (a study largely based on his court bulletins or akhbārāt darbār muʻalla) Shekhawat, Th. Surjan Singh, KhandelÁ ka Vrihad ItÍhÁs, Jaipur, 1999.

• It is no exaggeration to say that the death of Mirza Raja Jai Singh of Amber, on 28th August 1667 removed from his path an effective restraint on his hostile attitude towards the Hindus clothed till then in several layers of pretence but which exposed itself in all its nakedness in the coming years.
  • Bhatnagar, V. S. (2020). Emperor Aurangzeb and Destruction of Temples, Conversions and Jizya : (a study largely based on his court bulletins or akhbārāt darbār muʻalla)

• Though the news of the death of Raja Jai Singh (28th August 1667), whose services to Aurangzeb and his kingdom were known to the whole country, caused sorrow to everybody, the ungrateful Aurangzeb rejoiced, and rid of a Rajah whose influence might have been dangerous to his kingdom, declared that very hour an open war against Hinduism. He sent orders at once for the destruction of the fine temple called ‘Yalta’, in the neighourhood of Delhi. He also ordered every viceroy and governor to destroy all the temples within their jurisdiction. Among others was destroyed the great temple of Mathura.
  • Niccolao Manucci, Storia, II, p.143. in Bhatnagar, V. S. (2020). Emperor Aurangzeb and Destruction of Temples, Conversions and Jizya : (a study largely based on his court bulletins or akhbārāt darbār muʻalla)