Place · lake palace · India
Neermahal
The 1930 lake-palace of the Manikya royal family of Tripura on the Rudrasagar Lake in Sepahijala district, Tripura — commissioned by Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya (ruled 1923-47) in the Indo-Saracenic style with Mughal domes, Rajput chhatris and Bengali chala roofs. The two-storey palace stands in the centre of the 5.3-square-kilometre lake and is reached only by boat. The Neermahal served as the Manikya summer palace until the 1947 Tripura accession to India; it is now a state heritage site with the annual Neermahal Water Festival each July. The palace's four corner-towers, 24 rooms and open-air durbar room are preserved in their original condition. The site echoes the Udaipur Jag Mandir and the Mandu Jahaz Mahal in its island-palace typology.
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 23.510, 91.260
Connections (1)
- Contemporary capital withKangla Fort, Imphal
Tripura's Manikya dynasty and Manipur's Meitei kings were the region's two long-lived courts, both patrons of Bengali or Sanskritic letters and both Vaishnava by the eighteenth century. Tripura acceded in 1949 and Manipur in the same year under a disputed instrument; the Manikya rulers had been Tagore's first royal patrons, and Manipur had fought a war in 1891.
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Sources
Wikipedia, “Neermahal”. Archaeological Survey of India and State Archaeology monument records, and the standard regional literature.
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