Place · Tagore family mansion · India
Jorasanko Thakurbari, Kolkata
Also known as Jorasanko Thakurbari, Kolkata, Tagore family home
The 1784 Jorasanko Thakurbari at Jorasanko in central Kolkata, West Bengal — the birthplace of Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) and the ancestral mansion of the Tagore family that was the central institution of the Bengal Renaissance. The 20-room mansion was built by Prince Dwarkanath Tagore (1794-1846), one of the wealthiest Indians of the 19-century. Rabindranath Tagore was born here on 7 May 1861 and died here on 7 August 1941. The house hosted Dwarkanath Tagore's Brahmo Samaj gatherings (from 1830), Devendranath Tagore's Tattwabodhini Sabha (1839), the Hindu Mela (1867, first modern Indian cultural festival), and the Tagore family's literary and artistic salons that produced writers, painters and musicians across three generations. The 1943 conversion to the Rabindra Bharati University museum preserved the mansion. The 2011 Rabindranath Tagore 150th anniversary brought major restoration.
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 22.586, 88.362
Connections (2)
- Life routeRabindranath Tagore
Jorāsānko is where Tagore was born and died, and where three generations of one household produced most of what is called the Bengal Renaissance. Debendranath's Brahmo reform, Jyotirindranath's theatre, Abanindranath and Gaganendranath's painting and Rabindranath's writing all came out of the same address. Abanindranath's Bengal School of painting and Rabindranath's two thousand songs both came out of that house, and the family also produced the first Indian woman to write an autobiography.
- Site withinKolkata
Jorasanko Thakurbari, Kolkata sits inside Kolkata and forms one piece of its layered sacred, royal or civic landscape. The city carries this entry as one of the sites that make its urban fabric legible — a shrine, monument, institution or craft tradition specifically anchored at this location — and the city's broader history reads better when the stop is seen in its context rather than in isolation. The surrounding streets, markets and other heritage ensembles around it belong to the same single city.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Kolkata”. Archaeological Survey of India and State Archaeology monument records, and the standard regional literature.
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