Fort and palace, Mymensingh
Muktagachha Rajbariমুক্তাগাছার রাজবাড়ি
- Time needed
- About an hour, two with the temples.
- best months
- Nov–Feb
The Aat Ani palace of the Muktagachha zamindars, behind a great gate, once home to the first revolving stage in Asia outside Kolkata.
At a glance
- Founded
- After 1757, by the sons of Srikrishna Acharya Chowdhury
- Grounds
- About 100 acres
- Known for
- Bhupendra Rangapeeth, a revolving stage
About
Srikrishna Acharya Chowdhury, a revenue officer at the Nawab's court in Murshidabad, took the lease of Alapsingh pargana in 1132 of the Bengali era. After the battle of Plassey in 1757 his four sons, Ramram, Hararam, Vishnuram and Shivaram, moved here from Bogura and founded the town of Muktagachha. Their descendants split into sixteen shares, the "sixteen-anna zamindars", and the British made the head of the family first raja and then maharaja, which is why the house is called the Rajbari.
This is the Aat Ani (eight-anna) house of Hararam's line. Its best-remembered zamindar, Jagat Kishore, had four sons, and one of them, Bhupendra Kishore, loved theatre so much that he built a revolving stage, the Bhupendra Rangapeeth, the first in Asia outside Kolkata.
The palace was built on about 100 acres, entered through a huge gate. Muktagachha's stone Shiva temple and twin temples are a short walk away.
Getting there: 16 km west of Mymensingh, about 1 km north-east of the junction of the Tangail and Jamalpur highways.
Things to do
- Walk in through the great gate.
- Buy monda in town before you leave.
Good to know
- See the stone Shiva temple and the twin temples on the same walk.
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