National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

GWALIOR.

Fortress and town in Gwalior State; the capital of the Maharaja Sindhia's dominions. One of the most celebrated hill-forts of India, placed on an isolated rock. The Lashkar or standing camp of the Maharaja Scindia, extends several miles from the south-west end of the rock; whilst the old town of Gwalior is situate along the eastern base of the rock.

Many of the shops in the principal street of the Lashkar are decorated with projecting balconies of carved stone pillars and screen work (see Plate 31). Although whitewashed like everything else, the houses are most picturesque and pleasing in appearance. Such architecture is capable of application to modern Indian bazaars, and furnishes models for the various municipalities that are now trying to introduce improvements throughout the Empire.

DELHI.

DIWAN-I-AM IN THE FORT. Plate 32.—Mosaic work at the back of the Marble Throne, showing the original design before the mosaic plaques were removed at the time of the Mutiny. Entering the Delhi Fort by the Lahore Gate, one traverses a long and handsome red sandstone arcade, all that now remains of the fine entrance to the Palace. A large open court lay beyond, from which extended, right and left, noble double-storeyed bazaars. One of these led to the Delhi Gate, the other to the Haiyat Baksh Garden. Immediately in front stands the Nakar Khana, or band-house. Passing beneath its archway one reaches the Diwan-i-Am, once surrounded by the second court of the Palace. Further towards the river front came a garden and then, right and left, small courts connected by galleries, enclosing the private buildings of the Palace. Of these, the king's Baths, the Pearl Mosque, the Saman Burj, the Diwan-i-Khas and the Rang Mahal alone remain. Every other structure of importance has been swept away to make room for barracks.

The Diwan-i-Am, 179 feet 2 inches long by 68 feet wide, is supported by 6o columns of red sandstone, with cusped archways. The total height of the building is 36 feet 6 inches. The pavilion is open at three sides, the throne occupying the centre of the fourth or north side. The wall of the small raised apartment behind the throne is covered with mosaics in panels of black marble, surrounded by floral scrolls on white marble. Doubtless its introduction is due to Austin de Bordeaux, who was in high favour with Shah Jahan. Bernier, the traveller, writing from Delhi in A.D. 1663, says the Frenchman designed the famous Peacock Throne formerly in the Diwan-i-Khas.

THE DIWAN-I-KHAS.—This handsome pavilion, overlooking the river Jumna on the east face of the fort, is built of white marble, 240 feet long by 78 feet wide, and raised on a marble terrace 4? feet high. On each of the four corners of the roof is a kiosque, surmounted by a marble dome, which like the cupolas of Shah Jahan's Agra palaces, was originally plated with copper gilt.

The plan consists of a central apartment surrounded by an open corridor. The side of the hall overlooking the river is fitted with a marble screen, now glazed. A water channel passes under the marble floor in the centre of the hall. A flat roof, with a coving of marble, rests on 32 piers, spanned by cusped arches. The outline and proportions are in the best style of Mogul architecture. The lower portions of the piers are inlaid with Pietra Dura. The upper portions, as well as the arches, soffits, spandrils, and coving of the ceilings are covered with gilded patterns and tracery. The ceilings of both centre room and verandahs are of wood, with mouldings dividing the surface into equal and similarly shaped lozenges, in the centre of which are red roses, highly gilt.

Though the palace at Agra is perhaps more picturesque, and historically certainly more interesting, than that of Delhi, the latter had the immense advantage of being built at once, on one uniform plan, and by the most magnificent—as a builder—of all the sovereigns of India. It had, however, one little disadvantage, in being somewhat later than Agra. All Shah Jahan's buildings there seem to have been finished before he commenced the erection of the new city of Shah Jahanabad with its palace, and what he built at Agra is soberer, and in somewhat

better taste than at Delhi.   Notwithstanding these defects, the palace at Delhi is, or rather was, the most
magnificent palace in the East—perhaps in the world—and the only one, at least in India, which enables us to understand what the arrangements of a complete palace were when deliberately undertaken and carried out on one uniform plan.