two most famous among its buildings are the Diwan-i-Am or
Hall of Public Audience, and the Diwan-i-Khas or Hall of
Private Audience. The Diwan-i-Am is a splendid building
measuring 100 ft. by 60 ft., and was formerly plastered with
chunam and overlaid with gold. The most striking effect now
lies in its engrailed arches. It was in the recess in the back
wall of this hall that the famous Peacock Throne used to stand,
“so called from its having the figures of two peacocks standing
behind it, their tails being expanded and the whole so inlaid with
sapphires, rubies, emeralds, pearls and other precious stones of
appropriate colours as to represent life.” Tavernier, the French
jeweller, who saw Delhi in 1665, describes the throne as of the
shape of a bed, 6 ft. by 4 ft., supported by four golden feet,
20 to 25 in. high, from the bars above which rose twelve columns
to support the canopy; the bars were decorated with crosses
of rubies and emeralds, and also with diamonds and pearls. In
all there were 108 large rubies on the throne, and 116 emeralds,
but many of the latter had flaws. The twelve columns supporting
the canopy were decorated with rows of splendid pearls, and
Tavernier considered these to be the most valuable part of the
throne. The whole was valued at £6,000,000. This throne was
carried off by the Persian invader Nadir Shah in 1739, and has
been rumoured to exist still in the Treasure House of the Shah
of Persia; but Lord Curzon, who examined the thrones there,
says that nothing now exists of it, except perhaps some portions
worked up in a modern Persian throne. The Diwan-i-Khas
is smaller than the Diwan-i-Am, and consists of a pavilion of
white marble, in the interior of which the art of the Moguls
reached the perfection of its jewel-like decoration. On a marble
platform rises a marble pavilion, the flat-coned roof of which
is supported on a double row of marble pillars. The inner face
of the arches, with the spandrils and the pilasters which support
them, are covered with flowers and foliage of delicate design and
dainty execution, crusted in green serpentine, blue lapis lazuli
and red and purple porphyry. During the lapse of years many of
these stones were picked from their setting, and the silver ceiling
of flowered patterns was pillaged by the Mahrattas; but the
inlaid work was restored as far as possible by Lord Curzon. It is
in this hall that the famous inscription “If a paradise be on the
face of the earth, it is this, it is this, it is this,” still exists. It is
given in Persian characters twice in the panels over the narrow
arches at the ends of the middle hall, beginning from the east on
the north side, and from the west at the south side. At the time
of the Delhi Durbar held in January 1903 to celebrate the
proclamation of Edward VII. as emperor of India these two
halls were used as a dancing-room and supper-room, and their
full beauty was brought out by the electric light shining through
their marble grille-work.
The native city of Delhi is like most other cities in India, a huddle of mean houses in mean streets, diversified with splendid mosques. The Chandni Chauk (“silver street”), the principal street of Delhi, which was once supposed to be the richest street in the world, has fallen from its high estate, though it is still a broad and imposing avenue with a double row of trees running down the centre. During the course of its history it was four times sacked, by Nadir Shah, Timur, Ahmad Shah and the Mahrattas, and its roadway has many times run with blood. Now it is the abode of the jewellers and ivory-workers of Delhi, but the jewels are seldom valuable and the carving has lost much of its old delicacy. A short distance south of the Chandni Chauk the Jama Masjid, or Great Mosque, rises boldly from a small rocky eminence. It was erected in 1648–1650, two years after the royal palace, by Shah Jahan. Its front court, 450 ft. square, and surrounded by a cloister open on both sides, is paved with granite inlaid with marble, and commands a fine view of the city. The mosque itself, a splendid structure forming an oblong 261 ft. in length, is approached by a magnificent flight of stone steps. Three domes of white marble rise from its roof, with two tall minarets at the front corners. The interior of the mosque is paved throughout, and the walls and roof are lined, with white marble. Two other mosques in Delhi itself deserve passing notice, the Kala Masjid or Black Mosque, which was built about 1380 in the reign of Feroz Shah, and the Moti Masjid or Pearl Mosque, a tiny building added to the palace by Aurangzeb, as the emperor’s private place of prayer. It is only 60 ft. square, and the domes alone are seen above the red sandstone walls until the opening of two small fine brass gates.
To the west and north-west of Delhi considerable suburbs cluster beyond the walls. Here are the tombs of the imperial family. That of Humayun, the second of the Mogul dynasty, is a noble building of rose-coloured sandstone inlaid with white marble. It lies about 3 m. from the city, in a terraced garden, the whole surrounded by an embattled wall, with towers and four gateways. In the centre stands a platform about 20 ft. high by 200 ft. square, supported by arches and ascended by four flights of steps. Above, rises the mausoleum, also a square, with a great dome of white marble in the centre. About a mile to the west is another burying-ground, or collection of tombs and small mosques, some of them very beautiful. The most remarkable is perhaps the little chapel in honour of a celebrated Mussulman saint, Nizam-ud-din, near whose shrine the members of the imperial family, up to the time of the Mutiny, lie buried, each in a small enclosure surrounded by lattice-work of white marble.
Still farther away, some 10 m. south of the modern city, amid the ruins of old Delhi, stands the Kutb Minar, which is supposed to be the most perfect tower in the world, and one of the seven architectural wonders of India. The Minar was begun by Kutb-ud-din Aibak about A.D. 1200. The two top storeys were rebuilt by Feroz Shah. It consists of five storeys of red sandstone and white marble. The purplish red of the sandstone at the base is finely modulated, through a pale pink in the second storey, to a dark orange at the summit, which harmonizes with the blue of an Indian sky. Dark bands of Arabic writing round the three lower storeys contrast with the red sandstone. The height of the column is 238 ft. The plinth is a polygon of twenty sides. The basement storey has the same number of faces formed into convex flutes which are alternately angular and semicircular. The next has semicircular flutes, and in the third they are all angular. Then rises a plain storey, and above it soars a partially fluted storey, the shaft of which is adorned with bands of marble and red sandstone. A bold projecting balcony, richly ornamented, runs round each storey. After six centuries the column is almost as fresh as on the day it was finished. It stands in the south-east corner of the outer court of the mosque erected by Kutb-ud-din immediately after his capture of Delhi in 1193. The design of this mosque is Mahommedan, but the wonderfully delicate ornamentation of its western façade and other remaining parts is Hindu. In the inner courtyard of the mosque stands the Iron Pillar, which is probably the most ancient monument in the neighbourhood of Delhi, dating from about A.D. 400. It consists of a solid shaft of wrought iron some 16 in. in diameter and 23 ft. 8 in. in height, with an inscription eulogizing Chandragupta Vikramaditya. It was brought, probably from Muttra, by Anang Pal, a Rajput chief of the Tomaras, who erected it here in 1052.[1]
Among the modern buildings of Delhi may be mentioned the Residency, now occupied by a government high school, and the Protestant church of St James, built at a coast of £10,000 by Colonel Skinner, an officer well known in the history of the East India Company. About half-way down the Chandni Chauk is a high clock-tower. Near it is the town hall, with museum and library. Behind the Chandni Chauk, to the north, lie the Queen’s Gardens; beyond them the “city lines” stretch away as far as the well-known rocky ridge, about a mile outside the town. From the summit of this ridge the view of the station and city is very picturesque. The principal local institution until 1877 was the Delhi College, founded in 1792. It was at first exclusively an oriental school, supported by the voluntary contributions of Mahommedan gentlemen, and managed by a committee of the subscribers. In 1829 an English department was added to it; and in 1855 the institution was placed under the control of the Educational Department. In the Mutiny of 1857 the old
- ↑ See the paper by V. A. Smith in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Soc. (1897), p. 13.
