Mughal Tahakhana

The Mughal Tahakhana or Shah Shuja Tahakhana is a three-story building that used to be a palace. It's located in Gauḍa in the Firozpur area, 15 km away from Chapai Nawabganj District in Shahbajpur Union at Shibganj Upazila.

Shah Shuja, who was the Subahdar of Bengal, built this palace in honor of his Murshed Shah Syed Niyamatullah. He built it between 1619 and 1658 to keep the palace cool in the winter. There's a famous saying that Shah Shuja used to stay in the middle room when he came to meet his Murshed.

The Tahakhana Complex has many unknown graves, believed to be companions or Khadems of Shah Syed Niyamatullah. The building's architecture is unique and rare, like Gauḍa. The ceilings and partitions are made of concrete casting, and the building is made mostly of bricks. Black stones were used for the threshold and wooden vim for the plain roof.

The palace has a mosque and Tahakhana on the Dafe-ul-Balah lake, with two staircases sunk into the lake. Two more structures, a three-domed mosque and a one-domed tomb with a bolted veranda are on the northwest side of the palace. All the buildings were built at the same time and are considered complex units.

From the west side, the building appears to be single-storied, but it is assumed to be double-storied from the east side. The rooms were directly raised from the archway from the lake. There's a hammam on the west side of the building that gets its water from an octagonal reservoir.

The complex has a small family mosque on the north, and at its backside, there's an open room connected to an octagonal tower, which was possibly used for contemplation. This tower balanced the complex. The palace is engraved and plastered with Mughal architecture.

Category:Punjab, India
Category:Palaces in India