In every angle of the building is a small domical apartment of two storeys in height, 26 ft. 8 in. in diameter, and these are connected, as shown in the plan, by various passages and halls.
The light to the central apartment is admitted only through double screens of white marble trellis-work of the most exquisite design, one on the outer, and one on the inner face of the walls. In our climate this would produce nearly complete darkness; but in India, and in a building wholly composed of white marble, this was required to temper the glare that otherwise would have been intolerable. As it is, no words can express the chastened beauty of that central chamber, seen in the soft gloom of the subdued light that reaches it through the distant and half-closed openings that surround it. When used as a Barrah Durrie, or pleasure palace, it must always have been the coolest and the loveliest of garden retreats, and now that it is sacred to the dead it is the most graceful and the most impressive of the sepulchres of the world.
This building, too, is an exquisite example of that system of inlaying with precious stones which became the great characteristic of the style of the Moguls after the death of Akbar. All the spandrils of the Taje, all the angles and more important architectural details, are heightened by being inlaid with precious stones, such as agates, bloodstones, jaspers, and the like. These are combined in wreaths, scrolls, and frets, as exquisite in design as beautiful in colour; and, relieved by the pure white marble in which they are inlaid, they form the most beautiful and precious style of ornament ever adopted in architecture; though, of course, not to be compared with the intellectual beauty of Greek ornament, it certainly stands first among the purely decorative forms of architectural design. This mode of ornamentation is lavishly bestowed on the tombs themselves and the screen that surrounds them, though sparingly introduced on the mosque that forms one wing of the Taje, or on the fountains and surrounding buildings. The judgment, indeed, with which this style of ornament is apportioned to the various parts is almost as remarkable as the ornament itself, and conveys a high idea of the taste and skill of the Indian architects of that age.
The long rows of cypresses, which line the marble paths that intersect the garden at right angles, are now of venerable age; and, backed up by masses of evergreen foliage, lend a charm to the whole which the founder and his children could hardly have realised. Each of the main avenues among these trees has a canal along its centre studded with marble fountains, and each vista leads to some beautiful architectural object. With the Jumna in front, and this garden with its fountains and gateways behind; with its own purity of material and grace of form, the Taje may challenge comparison with any creation of the same sort in the whole world. Its beauty may not be of the highest class, but in its class it is unsurpassed.
340. Plan of Mûti Musjid.
(From a Plan by Gen. Cunningham.)
Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.
Though neither so magnificent nor so richly ornamented as some of his other buildings, the Mûti Musjid, or Pearl Mosque, which Shah Jehan erected in the fort of Agra, is one of the purest and most elegant buildings of its class to be found anywhere ([Woodcut No. 340]). It is not large, measuring only 187 ft. by 234 ft. over all externally; and though raised on a lofty stylobate, which ought to give it dignity, it makes no pretentions to architectural effect on the outside; but the moment you enter by the eastern gateway the effect of its courtyard is surpassingly beautiful. The whole is of white marble, and the forms all graceful and elegant. The only ornament introduced which is not strictly architectural, is an inscription in black marble, inlaid in the frieze of the mosque itself. The courtyard is nearly a square, 154 ft. by 158 ft. On three sides it is surrounded by a low colonnade 10 ft. 10 in. deep; but on the west, by the mosque itself, 159 ft. by 56 ft. internally. It opens on the court by seven arches of great beauty, and is surmounted by three domes of the bulbous form that became universal about this time ([Woodcut No. 341]). The woodcut cannot do it justice, it must be seen to be appreciated; but I hardly know, anywhere, of a building so perfectly pure and elegant, or one that forms such a wonderful contrast with the buildings of Akbar in the same palace.
