The National Institute of Sports at Patiala was established in 1961 in the Moti Bagh palace, which the Maharaja of Patiala's family gave up after the merger of the states.
It trains almost all of India's national coaches. Its diploma is the standard coaching qualification in the country and its sports science, physiology and biomechanics laboratories are the main such facilities in India.
The building is a nineteenth-century palace with a sports institute inside it, which is the clearest physical image available of what happened to the Punjab princely states after 1948.
Patiala also holds Punjabi University, the Government Medical College, Qila Mubarak with its arms collection, and the Punjab State Archives.
A princely capital of a state that ceased to exist in 1948 is now the state's main repository of records, its language university and the country's coaching institution, all in buildings the ruling family stopped using.
The palace was given by the state for the institute, which opened in 1961 and is the country's principal coaching qualification centre.
Almost every senior Indian coach across sports has passed through it and its diploma is the standard credential.
The palace is one of the largest princely buildings in India and the parts of it not in institutional use are in poor condition.