Delhi: Purana Quila (Old Fort)
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Extracted from:
Delhi: Past And Present
By H. C. Fanshawe, C.S.I.
Bengal Civil Service, Retired;
Late Chief Secretary To The Punjab Government,
And Commissioner Of The Delhi Division
John Murray, London. I9o2.
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Delhi: Purana Quila (Old Fort)
The extremely picturesque walls of the Purana Kila come into full view, and after passing along the north-west side of these, and, on the right, the second city gate above noticed, a road turns to the left and leads to the bridge in front of the south gateway of the Fortress.
Opposite the point of junction of the two roads is a fine enclosure with a handsome portal of red sandstone, and a large mosque, known as the Khair-ul-Manazil (the Auspicious of Houses), or Lal Chauk (Red Enclosure). This was built in 1561 A.D. by Máham Anagah, the foster-mother of the Emperor Akbar, and mother of Adham Khan from it a few years later an attempt was made by an archer to assassinate the Emperor.
The Purana Kila was constructed on the site of the historical Indrapat—one of the five villages 1 over which the war celebrated in the “Ramayana” {??? Perhaps The Mahabharat is meant} was waged—by the Emperor’s Sher Shah and Humayun. [1 These five were Panipat, Sonpat, Baghpat, Indrapat, and Tilpat.]
The historian who describes its phenomenally rapid completion, under the designation of Din Panah, to the latter before his expulsion by the former, was probably more courtly than truthful, and it is practically certain that the present walls and gates and the buildings which they surround are the work of the Pathan Usurper and his successors. The lofty south gate will probably be considered as effective as any of the buildings of Delhi previous to 1640 A.D.—the decoration on it is very pleasing.
From the gate a lane leads northwards to the back of the Mosque of Sher Shah, and the Sher Mandal near it. The facade of the former is quite the most striking bit of coloured decoration at Delhi, and has been satisfactorily restored. The red sandstone used in it is of an unusually deep tone, and very beautiful. The brackets under the balconies are an early type of those which are so marked in the red sandstone palace of Akbar or Jehangir in the Agra Fort.
The interior is extremely fine, the patterns in the pendentives below the dome being very effective. The Sher Mandal is interesting as the building on the steps of which the Emperor Humayun slipped when rising from evening prayer, and met with his death in 1556 A. D. The date of his death is embodied m the anagram : “Humáyun Badshah az bám uftad” (“King Humáyun fell from the roof”), but this does not really give the exact date.
Proceeding down the road from the Purana Kila to Humayun’s Tomb, there is seen first on the left a lofty Kos Minara,2 or milestone, and then on the right the picturesque tombs, known as the Lal Bangala built by the Emperor Shah Alam II., and named after his mother, and on the left again an octagonal tomb, once covered with fine encaustic work, called the Nili Chhatri, or Blue Tomb, of Naubat Khan, an Amir of the Court of Akbar. [2 These milestones were placed in the centre of the old royal high roads radiating from Delhi to the Provinces, and many still exist along these. Another very complete one stands opposite the entrance of the Mubarik Bagh According to Sir Henry Elliott, measurements of the distances between nearly twenty of them near Delhi showed they were placed just two and a half miles apart, so that the kos they marked was what is known as the double kos.]
The channel connecting the Western Jumna and Agra canals runs parallel to the right of the road here, and at three and a quarter miles from the Delhi gate, where a fine tomb, known from the colour of its dome as the Sabz Posh, or Green Top, one route diverges across the canal to the Dargah of Nizam-ud-din-Aulia, and another leads on the left to the Mausoleum of Humayun, the second great Moghal Emperor. In approaching this, the road passes under the picturesque bright kiosks of the walls of the Bu Halima garden, first admitting of a view of the tomb of Isa Khan and then turns left again at the gate of the garden and the very handsome gateway of Arab Sarai to the portal leading into the garden round the mausoleum.
The wings of this are thrown forward, and standing as it does at the top of a fine flight of steps, it forms a worthy approach to the tomb. It was into this portal that Captain Hodson rode on 22nd September 1857, and called upon the retainers of the Delhi Princes to surrender their arms
The trees which formerly hid the mausoleum too much have been cut back, and the building is now fully seen rising finely from a lofty platform under its great dome of white marble. In mere beauty it cannot of course compare with the Taj, but there is an effect of strength about it which becomes the last resting-place of a Moghal warrior whose life was marked by many struggles and vicissitudes, and most people will probably prefer its greater simplicity to either the son’s tomb at Sikandra, near Agra, or the grandson’s tomb at Shahdara, near Lahore.
The ground plan of the tomb is peculiar, as the angles project beyond the central bay on each side, and the freer use of white marble on them adds to the prominence of their position. The decoration of white and grey marble and of fawn-coloured stone on the red sandstone is very effective, and the pierced marble screens in the openings to the interior are among the very finest specimens of this work.
The railing on the edge of the platform has recently been restored all round it, much to the improvement of the general effect. The interior is entered from the south side, and the actual vault can also be visited from the lower terrace on this side. The central chamber, which is a very fine and lofty one, contains only the marble tomb of the Emperor His faithful wife, known as Haji Begam, who built the tomb and Arab Sarai, is buried in the north-east corner of the building.
The other corner rooms also contain graves, which are nameless, but are known to include those of the unfortunate Dara Shekoh, of two of the brothers of Shah Alam Bahadur Shah, who fought against him for the Empire, and three sons of these, and of the Emperors Jahandar Shah and Alamgir II. (d. 1712 and 1761 A.D.)
The Emperor Jehangir records in his memoirs that while in pursuit of his son, Prince Khusru, he visited the tomb of his grandfather, and distributed alms at it and at the tomb of Nizam-ud-din-Aulia, to which also he went. He would doubtless have appreciated the scene in which his father is represented with Shah Tahmasp in the hall of the Chihal Situn (Forty Pillars) at Isfahan, of which the account given in the note below will perhaps be found interesting.1
On the top of the building, round the drum below the dome, are a number of rooms and pavilions, once occupied by a college attached to the mausoleum, and reminding one of the colony of St Peter’s dome. The view from the top is extremely fine, and includes nearly everything of interest round Delhi, except Tughlakabad, hid by rising ground to the south. The fine mass of trees on the further bank of the river marks Patparganj and the site of the battle-field of Delhi in 1803
Nili Burj
In the south-east corner of the garden is a nameless picturesque tomb of red sandstone, with some beautiful pierced grilles in the windows, and outside, in the same direction, is the Nili Burj. This tomb, with its beautiful dark blue dome, is that of Fahim Khan, and was, it is believed, erected to his memory about 1625 A. D., by the Khan-i-Khanan, in whose cause he fought and fell.
The large tomb of this chief, son of the great Turk noble Bairam Khan, who won back the Moghal Empire for Humayun at Sirhind and for Akbar at Panipat, and rebelled against the latter, is also seen from the top of the mausoleum. It must once have been an extremely beautiful structure, but it was stripped of most of its marble by the Nawab Wazir of Oudh, Asaf-ud-daulah, and is now only a grand ruin of red sandstone—the centre bays of the sides are particularly fine.
The gate which led to the enclosure of this tomb stands on the east side of the Grand Trunk Road, and both can be reached by proceeding half a mile down this from the Sabz Posh Tomb. Khan Khanan himself was Governor of Gujrat and the Punjab, and fought one of the most desperate battles waged with the Bijapur power. A few hundred yards beyond these is the old Moghal bridge, known as the Barah Palah, or Twelve-Arched, which is decidedly picturesque, as viewed from down stream, and well deserves a visit.
This bridge was crossed by Mr William Finch in his journey from Agra to Lahore. “The city of Delly” (that is, the Delly of Sher Shah, whom Finch calls Salim), he writes, “lies in a delightful plain, compassed with curious gardens and monuments.
It is a matter of two cose (kos) in length from gate to gate, and has the fate of a great many other noble cities of India, to lie partly in ruines. . . . . The ruines of old Delly (i.e. Kila Rai Pithora, Jahanpanah, Siri, and Tughlakabad) lie a little distance from here, separated by an arm of the Gemini (Jumna), over which is a bridge of eleven or twelve arches. . . . . Particularly there appears amongst these ruines the carkase of that ancient building called the castle, that had to the number of 52 gates (this is Tughlakabad, a thing of surprising glory and stateliness in its time, hot now worn out and disfigured to the last degree.
Mr Finch noted quite correctly that there were four Old Delhis, one of Sher Shah and three built by the Pathan Kings, viz., the original Delhi, with its extensions of Jahanpanah and Siri, Tughlakabad, and Firozabad.
Outside the north-east corner of the garden of Humayun’s tomb are the remains of a house and a mosque in the severe middle Pathan style, which, according to credible tradition, formed the residence of Shekh Nizam-ud-din-Aulia.
To the east side of the gateway leading into Arab Sarai are two pleasing buildings, known merely as the Afsarwalla (Afsar means crown, as well as officer) mosque and tomb. The graceful proportions of this gateway, and the handsome balcony above it, are noticeable. Fifty yards inside it a lane leads to the right to the tomb and mosque of Isa Khan, which should be visited, especially if those of Khairpur cannot be Isa Khan was a leading noble of the times of Sher Shah and his sons, and was buried here in 1547 A.D.
The structures are similar to those of the Syad and Lodi Kings, and were once profusely decorated with encaustic tiles. The octagonal tomb, with its raised outer gallery and pavilions round the dome, is specially picturesque.
