I have gone through the work of Prof. Pushpendra Singh Ranawat entitled “UDAIPUR: Since 1553! Its Founding & a Concise Photo-Fact-File” and found it very informative and enlightening. A significant trend in Indian historiography since last fifty years is the emergence of urban history as an area of research, but surprisingly no serious efforts were made to the study of the founding and development of Udaipur. I am sure that the present contribution of Prof. Ranawat will go a long way in doing away with this short coming. Prof. Ranawat has discussed the various factors regarding the founding of Udaipur by Maharana Udai Singh. He has rightly said that the decision was not as simple as narrated in some of the books written earlier. This decision was of far reaching consequences and it is an outcome of reasoned considerations of risk-benefit analysis, especially in view of the fact that Ayad was an earlier stable human settlement that functioned as the Capital of Mewar during 10th to 13th centuries. Ayad was also a prominent center of trade, these facts surprisingly remained unconsidered so far. The new town Udaipur was constructed on the accepted principles of medieval town planning. The author has rightly discarded the theory of selecting Moti Magri as the first settlement of Udaipur, which was in fact at the ridge east of the Pichola Lake, which was constructed by a Banjara possibly in 1362. The author is to be congratulated for convincingly setting at rest many of the myths related to Udaipur. The logical description of the defensive mechanism of the city clearly demonstrates that there was a strong link between the human thought and the will that develops a city. The succinct historical and architectural description of the various palaces, lakes, temples, gardens, monuments enhances the value of this publication. Use of maps, charts, and images has made the work very instructive and useful. Instances of pride and sense of self-respect amongst the inhabitants of Udaipur is rightly highlighted through the example of discarding of invader-imposed names for Udaipur & Chittaurgarh. The learned author of the book deserves admiration for having written on a subject of such a popular interest. I am sure this book will provide a much needed impetus to the historical enquiries on the problems of urbanization in India in general and of Rajasthan in particular. The tourists and especially the present-day generation have to be told the factual and logical aspects that they can convincingly accept as feasible-this book achieves this objective!

“Story” of Udaipur’s founding and later developments too are not free of this problem of myth and reality. Most of the “tourist/popular” literature is not updated with authentic historical information that may not be easily available to a destination-promoting writer. Despite efforts through newspapers articles and letters to editors, the matter could not achieve the desired result. Through FaceBook uploads, the matter generated a lot of interest in the subject and positive public response. This book is essentially a compilation of FaceBook uploads, Flash Multimedia presentations and Internet publications…
The dates are given, if not mentioned, in CE-Current Era=AD, VS dates refer to Vikram(i) Samvat which predates CE by ~57 years. Height above mean sea level of a location i.e. Mean Reduced Level (MRL) has been given in meters (m) to have idea about the physiography of the spot described. This work is intended to be a starting point of setting-the-house (history) in order. We earnestly solicit your feedback and inputs at psranawat@yahoo.com to improve the content of this book. Readers’ convincing responses will definitely be incorporated in subsequent editions with acknowledgement. And in the present-day social network the rule is-Keep It Short & Sweet (KISS they call it!). For the reason that we are mostly using US information technology, hence US English spellings are used in this publication.

Preface to the Second Edition
Happily the first edition of this book on UDAIPUR was received well and quite a few valuable responses were received from the knowledgeable public figures, some of the important suggestions have been incorporated in this revised and updated edition. My sincere thanks to all the feedback contributors, especially to Prof. Devkarn Singhji Roopaheli for quite a few useful inputs including the dohas (couplets) which have been added in this edition. I express my sincere gratitude to the following dignitaries for their words of encouragement which motivated me to pursue the rational interpretation of the past.