Explore Uttar Pradesh
Facing the Turkish Sultana’s house from the other side of the Anup Talao are Akbar’s former private sleeping and living quarters, the Daulat Khana (“Abode of Fortune”). The room on the ground floor with alcoves in its walls was the emperor’s library, where he would be read to (he himself was illiterate) from a collection of fifty thousand manuscripts he allegedly took everywhere with him. Behind the library is the imperial sleeping chamber, the Khwabgah (“House of Dreams”), with an enormous raised bed in its centre.
One of Fatehpur Sikri’s most famous structures, the Panch Mahal or “Five-Storeyed Palace”, looms northwest of here, marking the beginning of the zenana (women’s quarters) which make up the entire western side of the palace complex. The palace tapers to a final single kiosk and is supported by 176 columns of varying designs; the ground floor contains 84 pillars – an auspicious number in Hindu astrology. The open spaces between the pillars were originally covered with latticed screens, so that ladies of the zenana could observe goings-on in the courtyard of the mardana below without themselves being seen.
