Located in the historic town of Deeg, roughly 32 kilometers north of Bharatpur, Deeg Palace is a magnificent 18th-century royal complex. Built primarily by the legendary Jat ruler Maharaja Suraj Mal and his successor Jawahar Singh, this sprawling estate served as the luxurious summer resort and secondary capital for the rulers of Bharatpur.

While Rajasthan is famous for its rugged mountain strongholds, Deeg Palace turns its back on typical desert themes. Instead, it features an elegant layout of formal Mughal-style charbagh gardens, vast artificial lakes, and open-air pavilions. The estate was engineered with a highly sophisticated network of thousands of water fountains designed to simulate the cool, misty weather of the monsoon season.

The Jat rulers frequently clashed with the Mughal Empire, often raiding Delhi and bringing back wealth, structural materials, and elite architectural ideas. When designing Deeg, Maharaja Suraj Mal aimed to create an artificial oasis that could completely mask the oppressive summer heat of the north Indian plains.

The palace complex is flanked by two massive water reservoirs—the Gopal Sagar and the Rup Sagar. At the heart of the garden sits a massive, elevated water tank holding hundreds of thousands of gallons of water. Workers would spend days filling this overhead reservoir. When opened, gravity pushed the water down into a sprawling underground network of clay pipes, triggering over 500 fountains simultaneously. To make the experience truly sensory, small organic color spheres were inserted into the pipe vents to tint the spraying water, while large stone balls were rolled inside the hollow ceilings of the pavilions to mimic the rumbling sound of thunder.