नुवाकोटको सात तल्ले दरबार

Located in Bidur municipality in Kathmandu’s neighboring hill district of Nuwakot is where the Saat Talle Durbar or “The Seven Storied Palace” is at.  This old part palace part fortress was built by Prithivi Narayan Shah during his efforts to conquer Kathmandu.  At the time, Nepal was a loose collection of small kingdoms.   The ambitious Shah king, who was the militaristic king of Gorkha at the time, launched a campaign to extend his territory.  The primary objective of his campaign early on, was to conquer the Newari city states in the Kathmandu valley which would provide him with enough resources to conquer the rest of Nepal.  His strategy was to annex all of the territory surrounding the valley so that he could control Kathmandu’s imports and exports.  To oversee this operation, Shah shifted his capital from Gorkha to Nuwakot which had seen three Malla kings before he captured the place.  He commissioned artisans and masons from Patan to build the Saat Talle Durbar in what is modern day Bidur municipality.

A tall looming figure on the top of a hill, this palace is composed of raw history.  Made of bricks with wooden internal structures, this building is built with old Newari aesthetics combined with a militaristic approach.  If one was to study the layout of the building then one would notice that this palace was A quasi fortress:

1st floor :- Reception for the museum

2nd floor :- This floor contains a room used for various religious purposes, including daily (nitya) puja and pujas during certain festivals

3rd floor :- This floor contains the living quarters of the king and his two wives. The rooms of the wives of king was designed so that they could be entered only from the king’s room. A balcony encircles the entire floor from which provides a panoramic view of the surrounding hills and the valleys carved by Tadi and Trisuli rivers

4th floor :- This floor contains a dimly lit room where a small battalion was supposedly kept to ensure the king’s safety in the lower (4th) floor

5th floor :- This floor comprises of a large feast room where the king carried out social fuctions

6th floor :- This floor is a dungeon of sorts. With four foot high ceilings, Rajdrohi (Traitors) were kept in captivity and possibly tortured here.

7th floor :- This is the smallest floor and is called “Burja” (Burjis an Arabic word which means tower, and the Burja room is definitely a rooming the tower) and serves as a place where a guard(s) was kept to look out for trouble and blow the bugle when necessary.

To get to this palace/fortress,  one needs to go through the Pasang Lhamu Highway which starts at Balaju, Kathmandu and craves through Nuwakot and ends in the Tibeto-Nepal border.  The turnoff point for the Nuwakot durbar is at Battar bazaar (some 75 kilometers from Kathmandu’s Ring Road) in Bidur municipality.  The Saat Talle Durbar lies a little over five kilometers to the east of Battar bazaar.

The Saat Talle Durbar was turned into a museum in April 2011.   Tickets are priced at twenty rupees for adults.  Ten rupees for students with an pictured identity card and on Saturdays, it is just two rupees for students.  Surrounding the palace is an old Newari village with a Taleju temple and a Bhairab temple.  Two historical buildings from the past which are located in front of the palace have been turned into police and army barracks.

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