Bada Bagh, translates to “Big Garden”, however it is far from a big garden.
Bada Bagh is located in the town of Jaisalmer, which is in Rajasthan, India. It is located just a few miles from where we were staying at the Marriott Resort and Spa . Bada Bagh is a royal cemetery built on top of a hill that was built in memory of the royal family. This is a must- do if you are in Jaisalmer and have time, it is beautiful.
Transportation: We hired a driver for the day and he would take us wherever we wanted to go around the town for $45/day. We only went to 3 places- so we should have gotten that price down- but you live and learn.
Cost: The entrance fee is 150 rupees for foreigners and 100 for Indian nationals, also they wanted another 50 per cell phone. So, my dad and I passed as Indian (I was scared to talk the whole time lol, I know 0 Hindi), and we said we didn’t have any cell phones- so we didn’t pay for any. I don’t feel bad because they just want to try and get anything they can from you and once you change those dollars to rupees- it feels like a lot more and they are harder to come by, and that is not in the information we had so we think they just added that on when we drove up.
Visiting hours – 8am-6pm (daily)
Duration- You could easily spend anywhere from 1-3 hours here depending how many pictures you want to take, how relaxing you find the view, and if you get a tour guide to explain everything. We had an awesome tour guide that we paid 200 rupees to, and he explained everything to us and even made a video of us walking around with music, haha it was a nice touch by him!
History: Maharaja Jai Singh Junior had built Bada Bagh for his father in the 16th Century during his reign. Maharaja’s father was known for his contribution to making the desert green – he is the one that set up a dam near the lake to help with the water shortage in the air and in the cups. So to honor his father- After Maharaja built this memorial with a cenotaph (cenotaph is typically a monument/tribute built for someone that died during war and is buried somewhere else) for his father, then other Royalty started to follow his footsteps and it became a tradition for royal rulers in Jaisalmer. This continued until the 20th century, when a son passed away before his father cenotaph was build, because people considered it bad luck to build anymore.
The Cenotaphs– they vary in size based on how powerful the ruler was, simply put the more power you held the bigger your cenotaph.
The tombstone inside each cenotaph had a picture of a man on a horse. If the houses feet are up at all, that means the king died at war, if the houses feet are down that mean he wasn’t at war when he died.
Beside the king they have a single stone with one women beside him- that represents the queen and if they have a group of women- those are his concubines. Each women beside him had to sacrifice themselves (or became Satis- tradition of sati, so they felt like it was part of their job/duty to their husband) after the king died, by jumping in a burning fire. Sadly, that is what the women represent.
Highly Recommended
The carvings/architecture for these is a must see, it is an absolutely beautiful monument. This was an interesting and at time tragic story of the royal life in Jaisalmer in the 16-20th century.
One more thing to note: The shape of the top of the domes represent the religion of the ruler, round = Muslim and square = Hindi.
