Place · royal mirror palace · India
Bhuj Aina Mahal
Also known as Aina Mahal, Aina Mahal (Ram Singh Malam), Bhuj
The 1750-1761 Aina Mahal ('Mirror Palace') at Bhuj in Kutch district, Gujarat — the royal palace of Rao Lakhpatji (ruled 1741-1760), the Jadeja Kutch king. The palace was designed by Ram Singh Malam (c.1700-1775), a Kutch tilemaker and glassworker who had spent 17 years in Holland after being shipwrecked, returning to India trained in Dutch glass-blowing, mirror-working, and enamel techniques. Ram Singh Malam built the Aina Mahal's mirror-tiled Hira Mahal pavilion (walls entirely covered in Venetian-glass mirrors), the Pleasure Pool with its silver and gold ornamental fountains, and the Fuvara Mahal (fountain pavilion). The palace was 60% destroyed in the 2001 Bhuj earthquake; the 2003-2015 restoration by the Jadeja royal family and the Gujarat government preserved the surviving half. The adjacent Prag Mahal (1865 Italian Gothic) complements it.
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 23.240, 69.665
Connections (2)
- Kutch royalVijay Vilas Palace, Mandvi
The Aina Mahal at Bhuj and the Vijay Vilas at Mandvi are the court architecture of the Jadeja rulers of Kutch, two centuries apart — one an eighteenth-century hall of mirrors built with Ram Singh Malam, a Kutchi sailor shipwrecked off Holland who trained there for seventeen years and came back with glass, clock and tile-making; the other a 1929 seaside palace in Indian-Saracenic. Both survived the 2001 earthquake damaged.
- Patronage networkKutch Rann salt & embroidery
The Aina Mahal at Bhuj was built by Rao Lakhpatji with Ram Singh Malam, a Kutchi sailor shipwrecked off Holland who spent seventeen years in Europe and came back able to make glass, tiles, clocks and enamel — and the Jadeja court then funded the workshops that taught it. Kutch's craft density is not accidental: it was a maritime state whose rulers deliberately imported and endowed technique.
Sources
Wikipedia, “Aina Mahal”. Archaeological Survey of India and State Archaeology monument records, and the standard regional literature.
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