Jaswant Thada, the marble memorial below Mehrangarh

A son's tribute to a reforming king

• A lively court: the reformer Swami Dayananda Saraswati was among the guests who stayed in Jodhpur during his reign.
• The commission: Jaswant Singh died in 1895 and his son Sardar Singh succeeded him. In 1899 the young maharaja commissioned a memorial on a rocky rise just north of Mehrangarh, within sight of the fort's walls.
• Finished: in 1906.
• Something new: Sardar Singh, who also gave Jodhpur its clock tower and the market that carries his name, wanted something different from the sandstone devals, temple-like cenotaphs, of his ancestors at Mandore.
• Two choices: marble, and a site in the new capital rather than the old.
• The cremation ground: from then on the family's cremations took place here, with smaller memorials to later family members around the main cenotaph.
• Still in use: which is why it is a place for quiet even when it is busy.
• The Taj Mahal of Marwar: every guide uses the phrase, but the comparison only goes so far. The Taj is a tomb. This marks the place where a king's body was given to the fire.
• The whole line: our Jodhpur royal family piece tells the story.

Two kings and a hard decade

• A name that stuck: Rajasthan remembers the famine as the chhappaniya akal, after the year 1956 of the Vikram Samvat calendar.
• Still in use: grandmothers in desert villages use the phrase to mean the worst thing imaginable.
• The cost: cattle died in their lakhs, and many villages lost a great part of their people.
• The railways: built under Jaswant Singh, they carried grain into Marwar in those years. That was part of his legacy too.
• One king's signature: Sardar Singh is the king you meet again and again in the old city. The clock tower over the bazaar was built in his reign, and the market around it bears his name.
• Three gifts: a memorial for his father, a public clock for his city and a market for its traders.
• The story continues: in our guide to the clock tower and Sardar Market.

A white pavilion on volcanic rock

• After the monsoon: the water is high and the reflection of the domes lies on its surface.
• Late in the dry season: the lake shrinks to show its rock bed, but the garden stays green.
• Wildlife: ducks paddle in the shallows, and in winter you may see a few water birds.
• A private chapel: the place is small, and that is its charm after the scale of Mehrangarh.
• Same keepers: the Mehrangarh Museum Trust, set up under Maharaja Gaj Singh II, cares for it, with the same good labelling and careful conservation.
• Small gallery: royal portraits and panels on the history of Marwar.

A walk through the memorial, step by step

Marble so thin it glows

• See the craft: our marble craft experience takes you to workshops where the skill is still alive.
• The plan: a pavilion with a dome, like the chhatris that mark royal cremation grounds all over Rajasthan.
• The roofline: its smaller domes and spires recall a Hindu temple.
• The jalis: pierced marble screens from the Mughal and Rajput palaces of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, letting breeze and light into the interior.
• A building of its time: the turn of the twentieth century, when Rajput builders looked back at their own traditions with fresh confidence.
• Against Mandore: the red sandstone devals there are heavy, temple-like and dark. This is light, open and almost delicate.
• The bridge: between the old memorials and the new palace on Chittar Hill, traditional in its forms and modern in its taste.
• The vocabulary: our architecture guide explains domes, screens and pavilions across Rajasthan.

What a cenotaph means in Rajput tradition

• Chhatris: the usual name across Rajasthan, meaning umbrellas, after their domed canopies.
• Devals: the older memorials at Mandore, so called because they look like small temples.
• What they record: each marks a life, and many record in carving the queens and concubines who once followed the king onto the pyre.
• A living tradition: Jodhpur families visit their ancestors' memorials on death anniversaries and at festivals, and the royal family holds its ceremonies here.
• Keep your distance: if you see flowers, lamps or a small group by a memorial.
• Across Rajasthan: our explainer on what a chhatri is runs from Bada Bagh in Jaisalmer to the chhatris of Bundi and Alwar.

The people you will meet here

• Few tourists: most visitors are local, which gives the place a warmth larger monuments lose.
• The musicians: usually from families of hereditary performers who have played for travellers and patrons for generations.
• The ravanhattha: a fiddle with a coconut-shell body and a bamboo neck, bowed with a horsehair bow hung with tiny bells.
• The Bhopas' instrument: the singer-priests who perform the epic of the folk hero Pabuji before a painted scroll. Read the Bhopa and the phad.
• More desert music: our Manganiyar music page covers the other great musical families.
• Family ceremonies: you may see one at a memorial, with marigolds, a lamp and a priest.
• Etiquette: a smile and a nod from a distance is always welcome. A camera pointed at a ceremony is not.

The best hour and the best season

• A classic day: fort in the morning, a long lunch and a rest, Jaswant Thada, then down to the clock tower for the evening.
• Early morning: works too, especially in summer. The garden is being watered, the light is cool and the place is almost empty.
• April to June: avoid the middle of the day, when the white marble throws back heat and glare.
• The reflection months: the lake is fullest after the monsoon, from September to November.
• Crisp days: January and February bring clear light and crisp air.
• Month by month: our Jodhpur month-by-month guide.

How to visit well

• Dress modestly: this is a memorial and still a cremation ground.
• Photography: allowed in the grounds. Be discreet inside and never photograph a family's ceremony.
• Steps: the site is on a slope with some steps up to the memorial. Most guests manage easily, but tell us if you need fewer stairs.
• Sun: bring a hat and water outside the winter months.
• Time: an hour, or an hour and a half with a guide and the portrait gallery.

Photographing Jaswant Thada

• Fort and memorial together: climb the higher rocks at the garden's edge and shoot north-east with Mehrangarh behind.
• Inside: soft, even light. Turn off your flash, for the picture and out of respect.
• Mornings: the eastern face is lit and the garden empty, good if you dislike people in your pictures.
• Drones: they need permission, and are not something to try on a whim near a royal cremation ground and the fort.
• More reading: our photography tips and Rajasthan for photographers cover light, permissions and etiquette.

What most visitors miss

• The northern face: Mehrangarh's other side, which few people photograph.
• The rock underfoot: rhyolite, the same volcanic stone the fort stands on.
• The quieter memorials: at the back of the grounds, simpler and in some ways more moving.
• The sound: sit five minutes on the terrace and you hear the city far below, and almost nothing else.

Who will love it, and who can skip it

• Photographers: for the light, the lake and the view of the fort.
• Tired travellers: older guests and anyone weary after a long fort morning find a gentle, restful hour, with a garden to sit in and no long climb.
• Short of time: skip it if you have only half a day, when Mehrangarh and the old city must come first.
• Fresh from Agra: if you expect the scale of the Taj Mahal, you will be disappointed. Come for the light, not the size.

What to pair it with

Where to stay close by