| Baber | A.D. 1494 |
| Humayun | 1531 |
| Shere Shah | 1539 |
| Selim | 1545 |
| —— dies | 1553 |
| Akbar | 1556 |
| Jehangir | 1605 |
| Shah Jehan | 1628 |
| Aurungzebe | 1658 |
| Bahadûr Shah | 1707 |
Till very recently, a description of the style introduced by the Mogul emperors would have been considered a complete history of Mahomedan architecture in India. It is the style which was described by Roe and Bernier, and all subsequent travellers. It was rendered familiar to the public in Europe by the drawings of Daniell in the beginning of this century, and, since Agra and Delhi became practically British cities, their buildings have been described, drawn, and photographed till they have become almost as well known as any found in Europe. It will take a very long time before even photography will render the mosques or tombs of such cities as Ahmedabad or Bijapur as familiar or as easily understood. Yet it is, perhaps, true to assert that the buildings of other dynasties, commencing with the mosques at the Kutub and at Ajmir, and continuing till the last Dekhani dynasty was destroyed by Aurungzebe, make up a whole as extensive and more interesting, in a historical point of view, than even all that was done by the Moguls. On the other hand, however, there is a unity in the works of that dynasty, and a completeness in their history, which makes the study of their art peculiarly fascinating, and some of their buildings will bear comparison, in some respects, with any architectural productions in any part of the world. Their buildings, however, are so original, and so unlike any of the masterpieces of art that we are generally acquainted with, that it is almost impossible to institute any comparison between them which shall be satisfactory. How, for instance, can we compare the Parthenon with the Taje? They are buildings of nearly equal size and magnificence, both in white marble, both admirably adapted for the purposes for which they were built; but what else have they in common? The one is simple in its outline, and depending on pillars for its external adornment; the other has no pillars, and owes its greatest effects to its singularly varied outline and the mode in which its various parts are disposed, many of them wholly detached from the principal mass. The Parthenon belongs, it is true, to a higher class of art, its sculptures raising it into the region of the most intellectual branch of phonetic art; but, on the other hand, the exquisite inlay of precious stones at the Taje is so æsthetically beautiful as, in a merely architectural estimate, almost to bring it on a level with the Grecian masterpiece.[535]
Though their value, consequently, may be nearly the same, their forms are so essentially different that they hardly look like productions of the same art; and in an art so essentially conventional as architecture always is and must be, it requires long familiarity with any new form, and a knowledge of its origin and use, that can only be acquired by constant study, which makes it very difficult for a stranger to realise the real beauty that often underlies even the strangest forms. When, however, these difficulties are conquered, it will probably be found that there are few among the Eastern styles that deserve more attention, and would better repay any study that might be bestowed upon them, than the architecture of the Moguls.
Some little interruptions are experienced at the beginning of the narrative from the interpolation of the reigns of Shere Shah and his son Selim in the reign of Humayun. He was an Afghan by descent and an Indian by birth, and, had he been left to follow his own devices, would, no doubt, have built in the style of architecture used at Agra and Delhi before his countrymen were disturbed by the Mogul invasion. We have, it is true, very little to tell us what that style was during the 170 years that elapsed between the death of Tugluck Shah and the first invasion of Baber, but it seems to have been singularly plain and solid, and very unlike the florid art introduced by the Moguls, and practised by Shere Shah and his son apparently in rivalry to the new master of Hindustan. So little difference is there, however, between the architecture of Shere Shah and of Akbar that they must be treated as one style, beginning in great sobriety and elegance, and ending in something nearly approaching to wildness and exuberance of decoration, but still very beautiful—in some respects superior to the chaste but feeble elegance of the later Mogul style that succeeded it.
There is, again, a little difficulty and confusion in our having no examples of the style as practised by Baber and Humayun. The well-known tomb of the latter king was certainly built by his son Akbar; Baber was buried near Cabul, and no building known to be his has yet been identified in India. Yet that he did build is certain. In his own ‘Memoirs’ he tells us, “In Agra alone, and of the stone-cutters belonging to that place only, I every day employed on my palaces 680 persons; and in Agra, Sikri, Biana, Dhulpur, Gualior, and Koel, there were every day employed on my works 1491 stone-cutters.”[536] In the following pages he describes some of these works, and especially a Bowlee of great magnificence he excavated in the fort of Agra.[537] This was in the year 1526, and he lived to carry on these works for five years longer. During the ten years that his son retained the empire, we learn from Ferishta and other sources that he adorned his capital with many splendid edifices: one, a palace containing seven pavilions or audience-halls—one dedicated to each of the planets, in which he gave audience on the day of the week dedicated to the planet of the day.[538] There are traditions of a mosque he is said to have built on the banks of the Jumna, opposite where the Taje now stands; and his name is so frequently mentioned in connexion with buildings both at Agra and Delhi that there can be little doubt that he was a builder to as great an extent as the troubled character of his reign would admit of. But his buildings have perished, so that practically the history of Mogul architecture commences with the buildings of an Afghan dynasty who occupied the throne of India for sixteen years during the last part of Humayun’s reign.
It is probable that before long very considerable light will be thrown upon the origin of the style which the Moguls introduced into India, from an examination of the buildings erected at Samarcand by Timur a hundred years before Baber’s time (A.D. 1393-1404). Now that the city is in the hands of the Russians, it is accessible to Europeans. Its buildings have been drawn and photographed, but not yet described so as to be available for scientific purposes, but sufficiently so to indicate the direction in which light may be expected. Though a frightful savage in most respects, Timur was possessed of a true Turki love for noble architecture; and though he generally massacred the inhabitants of any town that resisted him, he always spared the architects and artists, and sent them to work on the embellishment of his capitals. Samarcand was consequently filled with splendid edifices, but, so far as can be judged from the materials available, more resembling in style those of Persia than anything now known to exist in India. The bulbous dome appears everywhere, and was not known at that time in India, unless it was in the quasi-Persian province of Scinde. Coloured tiles were the favourite mode of decoration, and altogether their style was gorgeous in the extreme as compared with the sobriety of the later Pathan buildings in India. A few years hence all this may be made quite clear and intelligible, meanwhile we must pass on to
Shere Shah, A.D. 1539-1545.
Certainly one of the most remarkable men who ever ruled in northern India, though his reign was limited to only five years’ duration; and during that brief space, disturbed by all the troubles incident to a usurpation, he left his impress on every branch of the administration. The revenue system, the police, the army administration, all the great reforms, in fact, which Akbar so successfully carried out, were commenced, and to some extent perfected, by this usurper, as the Moguls call him. In architecture, too, which most concerns us here, he certainly pointed out the path by which his successor reached such eminence.
The most perfect of his buildings that I am acquainted with is the mosque in the Purana Kìlah at Delhi. The walls of this place were repaired by Humayun in A.D. 1533, and I do not feel quite sure he had not something to do with the mosque. According to the latest authorities, however, it is said to have been built—I have no doubt it was finished—by Shere Shah in A.D. 1541.[539] It is a single hall, with five openings in front through pointed arches of what we would call Tudor form, but beautifully varied in design, and arranged in panels carved with the most exquisite designs and ornamented with parti-coloured marbles. One important dome, pierced with twelve small windows, crowns the centre; it has, however, no minarets and no courtyard, but even without these adjuncts it is one of the most satisfactory buildings of its class in India.[540]