Top Tourist Places – Mysore Palace
Mysore Palace
In the southern part of India, Mysore Palace is earmarked in Mysore, Karnataka state. Palace is splendidly famous for its alluring paintings, spacious halls, and architectural embellishments. A blend of Hindu, Rajput, Muslim and Gothic style of Architecture is implanted and it has been described as Indo-Saracenic. During 14th Century, the Palace was architected and built by Wodeyar Kings spacing 12 temples inside the Palace complex covering different architectural styles resembling the designs from 14th to the 20th centuries. The word “mysooru” has been broken to rename the word “Mysore” which is basically derived from the word “mahishur” or “Mahishasurana Ooru” which signifies the town of Mahishasura in Kannada in local language.
A century later, Hyder Ali got the power and then his famous son Tippu Sulthan during the period from 1760 to 1799. It was marked as great trunmoil in Mysore because Tippu was challenging the British East India Company’s expensive targets. Virtually, Tippu Sultan demolished the structures inside the palace to get way to his new capital – Nazarabad resulting building of new fortifications and thus “Mysore” got its new name as the City of Nazarabad. However, all the temples were kept untouched as it is. In 1799, Tippu Sultan was killed by British force at Battle of Seringapatam and rules of Mysore was reinstalled by the Wodeyar Kings.
The palace is on a three-storied stone structure along with marble domes and a five storied tower measuring 145 ft tall.The palace is of a three storied structure with a 44 meter (145 feet) central tower. The number of towers has been configured in unified symmetry in pinkish marble. Among attractions, Doll Pavilion is the first attraction at entry gate of the museum. It is an omnibus of sliver, marble, gold, ivory collected across the world to make “antique” display. Factually, some of them are as old as around 900 years. There is a capacious open court at the central portion of the palace. The Royal Marriage Hall (Kalyana Mantapa) –an awesome inspiring portion of the palace is just beyond the open court. The five storied tower of the palace makes a majestic dome over the hall.The walls along the corridors are carved with oil paintings of royal themes. The festivals and ceremonies of the by-gone era are vividly depicted in these painting.
Factually, the Mysore palace is undoubtedly magnificent in all angles. For public visit, parts of it are open while the remaining is under retention of Raja of Mysore’s descendants. The most suitable visiting time is during Dussera festival that is generally scheduled in the months of September or October. Especially a 10 daylong Dashhrara festival is performed to pay holy prayer to Goddess Chamundeshwari and is symbolized as a celebration of victory of good over evil. A grand procession is leaded by the king sitting on an elephant and travels around the town with his court men along with a glamorous procession to honor Goddess Chamundeshwari, who is the supreme deity of the town and the Maharaja’s family Goddess. The entire palace is illuminated with thousands of lights in the evenings making the whole town a festive look.