Architecture of India    
The Mughal Empire
Splendor and Decadence
in Delhi – 2

The walls themselves are clad with finely dressed red and pink sandstone, the joints of which are surprisingly fine. The massive round bastions set off the main Delhi and Lahore gates, massive defensive entry portals which tower over the walls. The entries from these gates meet in a square public place which finally leads off to the hall of public audience, or the Diwan-i-am.

The roof of this building, today looking strangely naked and exposed, is supported on columns and arches which are more ornate than utilitarian, the simple pointed arch giving way to a multi-cusped version. Various bays of these arches make up the hall, the whole being clad in white marble with inlays of semi-precious stones. Inside the hall, the emperor’s dais is raised on a high platform.

The other buildings in the complex are the tiny Moti Masjid – a mosque entirely in marble. This, though started by Shah Jahan, was completed by his son Aurangzeb, and is different in style, with the extra decoration that was the first sign of impending decadence and decay. the Shish Mahal or the Hall of Mirrors, the treasury and magazine or Daulat Khana, the emperor’s private chambers and harems for the queens.

Running through and around most of these structures is a system of open water channels which, combined with carved marble screens fronting the river, kept the interiors amazingly cool. A visitor today to the Red Fort can still not help be surprised by the coolness of the interiors even in the hottest summer.

The Red Fort was a defensive structure, a last resort for an attack that seemed improbable and even impossible during the heyday of the Mughal empire. Who could tell that in less than a hundred years an irreversible decline would begin? Those days, however, were still far away, and outside the walls of the fort, a city flourished, full in its importance as the capital of one of the richest empires of the world.

The old city of Chandni Chowk from an English drawing.

This was the old city of Delhi, the grandeur of which is not now apparent in its narrow streets and crumbling buildings. But in its time it was home to merchants and poets, courtesans and artists, soldiers and workmen, all busily turning the cogs of the Mughal empire.  

– Ashish Nangia
May 25, 2003

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