Ujjayanta Palace at Agartala was established by
2022
Ujjayanta Palace at Agartala was established by
- A.
Maharaja Bir Bikram Manikya
- B.
Maharaja Radha Kishore Manikya
- C.
Maharaja Bir Chandra Manikya
- D.
Maharaja Trilochan Manikya
Attempted by 27 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Concept
State-level General Awareness questions on heritage buildings test whether you can attach a specific monument to the ruler credited with actually commissioning or completing it — as distinct from an earlier occupant who built a preceding structure on the site, a later ruler associated with the region for unrelated reasons, or a legendary dynastic figure from long before any built heritage existed.
Application
The Manikya rulers of Tripura had an earlier royal palace outside Agartala; it was destroyed in the 1897 Assam earthquake.
Maharaja Radha Kishore Manikya then commissioned a new palace at Agartala, built during 1899–1901 at a cost of about ₹10 lakh despite the state's tight finances.
The new palace was designed by the British architect Sir Alexander Martin in the Indo-Saracenic style, blending Mughal, Roman, and British influences, and was later poetically named "Ujjayanta" by Rabindranath Tagore.
Contrast
Maharaja Bir Bikram Manikya's reign is remembered for 20th-century institution-building in Tripura (education and aviation), a phase that began only after this palace already stood.
Maharaja Bir Chandra Manikya is credited with modernising Agartala's administration in the latter half of the 19th century, a phase that had already ended before the earlier palace was lost and the present one commissioned.
Trilochan belongs to the earliest, largely legendary generations of the Manikya line recorded in the Rajmala chronicles, many centuries before Agartala had any such built heritage.
So the present Ujjayanta Palace at Agartala was established by Maharaja Radha Kishore Manikya, following the destruction of the earlier palace and its 1899–1901 reconstruction under his patronage.