Few things can show how steadily and rapidly the decline of taste had set in than the fact that when that monarch was residing at Aurungabad between the years 1650-70, having lost his favourite daughter, Rabia Dûranee, he ordered his architects to reproduce an exact copy of his father’s celebrated tomb, the Taje Mehal, in honour of her memory. They believed they were doing so, but the difference between the two monuments, even in so short an interval, is startling. The first stands alone in the world for certain qualities all can appreciate; the second is by no means remarkable for any qualities of elegance or design, and narrowly escapes vulgarity and bad taste. In the beginning of the present century a more literal copy of the Taje was erected in Lucknow over the tomb of one of its sovereigns. In this last, however, bad taste and tawdriness reign supreme. It is difficult to understand how a thing can be so like in form and so unlike in spirit; but so it is, and these three Tajes form a very perfect scale by which to measure the decline of art since the great Mogul dynasty passed its zenith and began its rapid downward career.
Aurungzebe himself lies buried in a small hamlet just above the caves of Ellora. The spot is esteemed sacred, but the tomb is mean and insignificant beyond what would have sufficed for any of his nobles. He neglected, apparently, to provide for himself this necessary adjunct to a Tartar’s glory, and his successors were too weak, even had they been inclined, to supply the omission. Strange to say, the sacred Tulsi-tree of the Hindus has taken root in a crevice of the brickwork, and is flourishing there as if in derision of the most bigoted persecutor the Hindus ever experienced.
We have scarcely any remains of Aurungzebe’s own works, except, as before observed, a few additions to the palace at Delhi; but during his reign many splendid palaces were erected, both in the capital and elsewhere. The most extensive and splendid of these was that built by his aspiring but unfortunate son Dara Shekoh. It, however, was converted into the English residency; and so completely have improvements, with plaster and whitewash, done their work, that it requires some ingenuity to find out that it was not wholly the work of the Anglo-Saxons.
In the town of Delhi many palaces of the age of Aurungzebe have escaped this profanation, but generally they are either in ruins or used as shops; and with all their splendour show too clearly the degradation of style which had then fairly set in, and which is even more apparent in the modern capitals of Oude, Hydrabad, and other cities which have risen into importance during the last hundred years.
Even these capitals, however, are not without edifices of a palatial class, which from their size and the picturesqueness of their forms deserve attention, and to an eye educated among the plaster glories of the Alhambra would seem objects of no small interest and beauty. Few, however, are built of either marble or squared stone: most of them are of brick or rubble-stone, and the ornaments in stucco, which, coupled with the inferiority of their design, will always prevent their being admired in immediate proximity with the glories of Agra and Delhi.
In a history of Mahomedan art in India which had any pretensions to be exhaustive, it would be necessary to describe before concluding many minor buildings, especially tombs, which are found in every corner of the land. For in addition to the Imperial tombs, mentioned above, the neighbourhoods of Agra and Delhi are crowded with those of the nobles of the court, some of them scarcely less magnificent than the mausolea of their masters.
Besides the tombs, however, in the capitals of the empire, there is scarcely a city of any importance in the whole course of the Ganges or Jumna, even as far eastward as Dacca, that does not possess some specimens of this form of architectural magnificence. Jaunpore and Allahabad are particularly rich in examples; but Patna and Dacca possess two of the most pleasing of the smaller class of tombs that are to be met with anywhere.
Oude and Mysore.
If it were worth while to engrave a sufficient number of illustrations to make the subject intelligible, one or two chapters might very easily be filled with the architecture of these two dynasties. That of Mysore, though only lasting forty years—A.D. 1760-1799—was sufficiently far removed from European influence to practise a style retaining something of true architectural character. The pavilion called the Deriah Doulut at Seringapatam resembles somewhat the nearly contemporary palace at Deeg in style, but is feebler and of a much less ornamental character.[561] The tomb, too, of the founder of the dynasty, and the surrounding mausolea, retain a reminiscence of former greatness, but will not stand comparison with the Imperial tombs of Agra and Delhi.
On the other hand, the tomb of Saftar Jung, the founder of the Lucknow dynasty, situated not far from the Kutub at Delhi, is not quite unworthy of the locality in which it is found. Though so late in date (A.D. 1756), it looks grand and imposing at a distance, but it will not bear close inspection. Even this qualified praise can hardly be awarded of any of the buildings in the capital in which his dynasty was finally established.