Navlakha Palace, Rajnagar

Navlakha Palace, also called Rajnagar Palace, stands in Rajnagar, a town close to Madhubani in Bihar. Rameshwar Singh, younger brother of Maharaja Lakshmeshwar Singh of Darbhanga, built it between 1884 and 1929 as the administrative capital of the Darbhanga Raj. The complex covers 1,500 acres and takes in 11 temples along with several forts and palaces. The 1934 Bihar–Nepal earthquake badly damaged it, and it was never rebuilt.

As many as 22 layers of carving went into the building. Its Kali temple, of ivory and white marble, resembles the Taj Mahal, and the arches of the portico rest on four elephants made of cement, claimed to rank among the earliest cement structures in the country. The Gasauni Ghar, the room of the family deity, holds the oldest surviving Mithila painting, made in 1919 for the wedding of the Maharaja's daughter. The palace still belongs to the Raj Darbhanga and suffers from continuing encroachment.