Bara Katra an Architectural Relic of Dhaka City.

Bara Katra an Architectural Relic of Dhaka City.

Bara Katra an architectural relic of Dhaka city. it's situated to the south of Chawk Bazar on the brink of the bank of the river buriganga.

Originally, the Katra enclosed a quadrangular courtyard with 22 rooms on all of its four sides. Its southern wall is 67.970m long. Probably the length of its Northern wall was same. Its west and eastern wall was 70.104m long, though at the present it's difficult to live its actual length. Two gateways were erected, one each on the north and south. The ruins contains an edifice having a river frontage. The southern wing of the structure was planned on a grand scale and was marked with an elaborate three-storeyed gate containing an octagonal central chamber. The remaining portion was two-storeyed and encased by projected octagonal towers. The gateway structure is rectangular in plan. it's lofty tall and its fronton is projected towards the river.

Bara Katra an Architectural Relic of Dhaka City

A tall alcove rising to the second storey reduces the mass of this projection. The wall surface is relieved with panels that are square also as rectangular which contain a spread of decorations of four-centred, cusped, horseshoe and flat arches. Above the apex of the alcove open the windows of the third storey.

Under the alcove is that the main arched entrance which results in the guardroom. Furthermore, together passes through two successive archways, one comes across an octagonal domed hall, the ceiling of which is plastered and bears various net-patterns and foliaged designs. The double storeyed structure resolves on each side of the central entrance into a row of 5 vaulted rooms within the ground floor and living rooms with endless corridor on the upper one.

Likewise, the upper floors of the doorway are provided with rooms. The three storyed corner towers are hollow and may be approached from the subsidiary structures.

Following the normal pattern of the caravan-sarai of Central Asia, the Bara Katra was highly fortified and was embellished with all the features of the imperial Mughal style.

The Bara Katra contains two inscriptions in Persian: one records that it had been inbuilt 1053 AH (1643-44 AD) and therefore the other contains the date 1055 AH (1645-46 AD) and confirms that shah shuja gave the building to Mir Abul Qasim to be used as a Katra on the condition that the officials responsible of the endowments (waqf) shouldn't take any rent from any deserving person alighting therein.

It should be noted here that quite half the Katra building has already been destroyed and therefore the building as an entire is during a dilapidated condition. It couldn't be appropriated by the Department of Archaeology due to the resistance of its owners. The owners have made several alterations to the first character of the building and have also started construction of a replacement multi-storeyed building within the area. Nevertheless, the surviving ruins stand together of the foremost important monuments of Bengal. it's perhaps the foremost magnificent Mughal edifice of Bangladesh which features a monumental central archway.