Place · Bundela palace · India
Datia Palace
The seven-storey palace at Datia in Madhya Pradesh, built by the Bundela king Bir Singh Deo (reigned 1605-1627) in approximately 1620 as a lodge for Mughal emperor Jahangir — who never visited and never occupied it. The Datia Mahal was built without a single piece of timber: every floor, ceiling, bracket, dome and arch is carved stone, held together by architectural geometry. The palace rises 35 metres on a square plan with corner towers and a central courtyard, with a Jahaz Mahal-like placement over an artificial lake. The seven storeys include three visible from outside and four more partially underground. The Datia Palace is the finest surviving Bundela structure and one of the architecturally most ambitious Rajput buildings. UNESCO tentative list 2024.
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Patron dynasty
- Chandela
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 25.667, 78.460
Connections (1)
- Architectural modelOrchha
Orchha and Datia are forty kilometres apart and largely the work of one ruler in one generation, and they divide the Bundela achievement between them: Orchha's Jahangir Mahal is a Rajput palace with Mughal detail built for an imperial visit, and Datia's is a structural experiment — seven storeys without a single timber beam, arched and vaulted throughout, and never occupied. Bundela architecture is a small state's answer to Mughal scale, and much of it was built to be looked at.
On these journeys
Sources
History of India — Wikipedia
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