| Picnic
                                        & Tourist Spot - 
                                      Shantiniketan (Distance
                                        from tarapith 90K.M.) 
                                      Shantiniketan is a small town
                                      near Bolpur in the Birbhum District of
                                      West Bengal and about 212 kms north of
                                      Kolkata. It is famous due to Nobel
                                      laureate Rabindranath Tagore, whose vision
                                      became what is now a University town -
                                      Visva-Bharati University. The place now
                                      attracts thousands of visitors each year.  
                                       
                                      Shantiniketan was earlier called
                                      Bhubandanga (named after Bhuban Dakat, a
                                      local Dacoit), and was owned by the Tagore
                                      family. In 1862, Maharishi Devendranath
                                      Tagore, the poet s father, while on a boat
                                      journey to Raipur, came across a landscape
                                      with red soil and lush green paddy fields.
                                      He decided to plant more saplings and
                                      built a small house. He called his home
                                      Shantiniketan. He founded an ashram here
                                      in 1863 and became the initiator of the
                                      Bramho Samaj.  
                                      
                                      
                                     Hazarduari
                                          (Murshidabad) (Distance from
                                          tarapith 85K.M.) 
                                      Hazarduari Palace Museum is located in the
                                      Hazarduari Palace in Murshidabad, former
                                      capital of Bengal. Murshidabad is at a
                                      distance of 219 kms from Kolkata by road.
                                      It was built during the reign of Nawab
                                      Nazim Humayun Jah (1824   1838 AD) by
                                      famous architect McLeod Duncan following
                                      Greek (Doric) style. The name of the
                                      palace owes to more than thousand real and
                                      false doors, vast corridors in it. 
                                    In 1985, the palace was
                                      handed over to the Archaeological Survey
                                      of India for better preservation. The
                                      museum is regarded as the biggest site
                                      museum of Archaeological Survey of India
                                      and has got 20 displayed galleries
                                      containing 4742 antiquities out of which
                                      1034 has been displayed for the public. 
                                      
                                      
                                      
                                        Massanjore (Distance from
                                        tarapith 75K.M.) 
                                      Massanjore dam, across the
                                      Mayurakshi River, is in Dumka district of
                                      Jharkhand State. Built with Candian aid,
                                      it is also called Canada Dam or Pearson
                                      Dam. It was commissioned in 1956. 
                                    The dam is 155 feet high from its base
                                      and is 2170 feet long. The reservoir has
                                      an area of 16,650 acres when full and has
                                      a storage capacity of 500,000 acre feet.
                                      Apart from the Massanjore Dam there is a
                                      barrage at Tilpara, near Siuri. The
                                      barrage is 1,013 feet long. 
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