In the citadel at Agra there stands—or at least stood when I was there—a fragment of a palace built by Shere Shah, or his son Selim, which was as exquisite a piece of decorative art as anything of its class in India. Being one of the first to occupy the ground, this palace was erected on the highest spot within the fort; hence the present Government, fancying this a favourable site for the erection of a barrack, pulled it down, and replaced it by a more than usually hideous brick erection of their own. This is now a warehouse, and looms, in whitewashed ugliness, over the marble palaces of the Moguls—a fit standard of comparison of the tastes of the two races.[541]
Judging from the fragment that remains, and the accounts received on the spot, this palace must have gone far to justify the eulogium more than once passed on the works of these Pathans—that “they built like giants, and finished like goldsmiths:” for the stones seem to have been of enormous size, and the details of most exquisite finish. It has passed away, however, like many another noble building of its class, under the ruthless barbarism of our rule. Mosques we have generally spared, and sometimes tombs, because they were unsuited to our economic purposes, and it would not answer to offend the religious feelings of the natives. But when we deposed the kings and appropriated their revenues, there was no one to claim their now useless abodes of splendour. It was consequently found cheaper either to pull them down, or use them as residences or arsenals, than to keep them up, so that very few now remain for the admiration of posterity.
The tomb of Shere Shah has been already described (ante, p. 516), as it is essentially Pathan in style. It was erected at his native place in Behar, to the south of the Ganges, far from Mogul influence at that time, and in the style of severe simplicity that characterised the works of his race between the times of Tugluck and those of Behlol Lodi (A.D. 1450-1488), the last really independent king of his line.
It is not quite clear how much of the tomb was built by himself, or how much by his son Selim, who certainly finished it. Selim also built the Selimghur on an island in the Jumna, to which Shah Jehan afterwards added his palace in New Delhi. Whether, however, he erected any buildings inside is not certain—nothing at least now remains of any importance. Generally he seems to have carried on and completed his father’s buildings, and between them they have left a group of architectural remains which, if collected together and illustrated, would form an interesting chapter in the history of Indian-Mahomedan styles.[542]
Akbar, 1556-1605.
It would require a volume to describe all the buildings erected by this remarkable man during his long reign of forty-nine years, and a hundred plates would hardly suffice to make known all their peculiarities. Had Akbar been content to follow in the lines of the style invented by the Pathans and perfected by Shere Shah, it might be easy enough to follow the sequence, but nothing in his character is so remarkable as the spirit of tolerance that pervaded all his acts. He seems to have had as sincere a love and admiration for his Hindu subjects as he had for those of his own faith, and whether from policy or inclination, to have cherished their arts as much as he did those that belonged exclusively to his own people. The consequence is a mixture throughout all his works of two styles, often more picturesque than correct, which might, in the course of another half century, have been blended into a completely new style if persevered in. The spirit of tolerance, however, died with him. There is no trace of Hinduism in the works of Jehangir or Shah Jehan, and Aurungzebe would have been horrified at the suggestion that arts of the infidels could influence anything he did.
One probably of his earliest works was the mausoleum, which he erected over the remains of his father, Humayun, at Delhi. Though it certainly was finished by Akbar, it most probably was designed and commenced by his father; for, as frequently remarked in the previous pages of this work, the great architectural peculiarity of the Tartar or Mongolian races is their tomb-building propensity, in which they are so strongly distinguished from the Aryan, and also from the great Semitic families, with whom they divide the greater part of the habitable globe. Nowhere is this more forcibly illustrated than in India—where the tombs of the Pathans and Moguls form a complete and unbroken series of architectural monuments from the first years of the Moslem invasion to the present hour.
The tombs of the Pathans are less splendid than those of the Moguls; but nevertheless the whole series is singularly interesting, the tombs being far more numerous than the mosques. Generally speaking, also, they are more artistic in design, and frequently not only larger but more splendidly decorated than the buildings exclusively devoted to prayer.
The princes of the Tartar races, in carrying out their love of tombs, made it the practice to build their own in their lifetime, as all people must who are really desirous of sepulchral magnificence. In doing this they rejected the Egyptian mode of preparing dark and deep chambers in the heart of the rock, or of the massive pyramid. The Tartars, on the other hand, built their sepulchres of such a character as to serve for places of enjoyment for themselves and their friends during their lifetime, and only when they could enjoy them no longer they became the solemn resting-places of their mortal remains.
The usual process for the erection of these structures is for the king or noble who intends to provide himself a tomb to enclose a garden outside the city walls, generally with high crenellated walls, and with one or more splendid gateways; and in the centre of this he erects a square or octagonal building, crowned by a dome, and in the more splendid examples with smaller and dome-roofed apartments on four of the sides or angles, the other four being devoted to entrances. This building is generally situated on a lofty square terrace, from which radiate four broad alleys, generally with marble-paved canals ornamented with fountains; the angular spaces are planted with cypresses and other evergreens and fruit-trees, making up one of those formal but beautiful gardens so characteristic of the East. During the lifetime of the founder, the central building is called a Barrah Durrie, or festal hall, and is used as a place of recreation and feasting by him and his friends.