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THE ITALIAN LUTYENS OF BIHAR

Emerging from the undergrowth in a town in North Bihar are the choice and frequenting stays of a failed to remember regal capital. However, these are no customary vestiges. The superb complex, which incorporates an amazing royal residence, a secretariat, other authoritative structures and numerous sanctuaries, flaunts fluted columns, tall pilasters, resplendent domes, complicatedly cut patios and scalloped curves planned in particularly European style yet mixed with Indian components.

Rajnagar was  the seat of the Maharaja of Raj Darbhanga, in present-day Madhubani locale in Bihar. Found 50 km away from Darbhanga town and 190 km from Patna, this regal capital was plainly worked with much love and intricate details.
Developed in the mid twentieth century by a Maharaja who encircle himself with plushness, Rajnagar is presently just a sorry excuse for its self, a considerable lot of its designs diminished to staggering yet shallow veneers that keep on overshadowing the scene.If we enter this distinguished complex through one of the four curved doors, the charm of Rajnagar is quite pronounced.
Raj Darbhanga or Darbhanga Raj used to be one of the biggest and richest zamindaris, or land holdings, in India. This area, also known as Mithilanchal or Tirhut, is today famous for its Madhubani art.  The first Zamindar of Darbhanga, a Brahmin, Pandit Mahesh Thakur, laid the foundation of the Khandawala Dynasty in Mithila when he obtained Darbhanga Raj as a grant through a farmaan or edict issued by Mughal Emperor Akbar in 1577.

Since it was common practice to assign land grants to the younger brother while the elder brother sat on the throne, Maharaja Laxmeshwar Singh (1860 – 1898) gave his brother Rameshwar Singh (1898 – 1929) Rajnagar as a land grant. But he went one step further. The Maharaja also drew up plans for Rajnagar as a ‘royal abode’ for Rameshwar Singh. As fate would have it, Rameshwar Singh also went on to become the king of Raj Darbhanga as his elder brother died childless in 1898.

Taking his brother’s plans forward, Rameshwar Singh began to develop Rajnagar as a royal township in 1904.

This was to be a gigantic Secretariat and was built in a classical style by renowned Italian Architect M A Corone. Several magnificent temples devoted to various gods and goddesses were also built within the royal complex of Rajnagar.

Maharaja Rameshwar Singh himself was an accomplished tantrik and, as a result, the palace complex was graced by a beautiful Kaali Temple constructed entirely from white marble. The complex also housed temples dedicated to Goddess Durga and Lord Shiva.

This was a time when architects and engineers were only just beginning to use cement to construct buildings in India. It is said that when Corone, the architect-in-chief, was extolling the virtues of cement before the Maharaja, he had said that a “pillar made of cement would be so strong that even an elephant would not be able to break it”.

Expressing amusement at the claim, the Maharaja asked Corone to create an elephant made from cement. The architect obliged and the Maharaja was so pleased with his work that he asked Corone to incorporate cement elephants into the design of his Secretariat.


Then, on 15th January 1934, one of the most powerful earthquakes ever in the region, dubbed the Nepal-Bihar Earthquake, flattened North Bihar and delivered a death blow to Corone’s Italian Lutyens of Rajnagar. The Navlakha Palace was badly damaged and the beautiful Shiva Temple was rendered unfit for use by the earthquake. Some portions of the Secretariat and the revenue office building were the only things left standing – handsome ruins that remind us of the fury of that fateful day.


If Sir Rameshwar Singh’s death robbed Rajnagar of its glory as the capital of Darbhanga Raj, the earthquake of 1934 condemned his beautiful erstwhile capital city to a lifetime of neglect, encroachment and most painful of all – a slow and continuous death.


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