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Architecture | Share This Page | |
The Tughlaq Years
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by Ashish Nangia |
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It was a time of elation. It was a time of rediscovery. From the corners of the land they came, the master builders, for a new Sultan had taken his seat. And in his old years, he had seen history. Seen empires rise and fall. And was laying the foundation of what he hoped would be an empire that would last far beyond his approaching death. Of the three rulers of the Tughlaq dynasty, the first, Ghiyas-ud-Din Tughlaq (1320-1325 A.D.) was already aged when he became Sultan, and ruled for barely five years. The warlike conditions prevailing throughout his reign are best exemplified by his architecture, which though secular or religious, always has strong military overtones, being able to be adapted for a spirited defence if necessary. The major efforts of this man were concentrated on the building of his citadel, the city of Tughlaqabad, one of the historical seven cities of Delhi. Today a neglected but magnificent ruin. According to Percy Brown, “all that remains of this great enterprise is a haunting scene of savage splendor...Nothing resembling this picture (of treasures and palaces) can now be seen in the huge masses of broken masonry, the unadorned nature of which suggests that the project took more the form of a stern and practical stronghold, than a work of architectural significance.” The Tomb of Ghiyas-ud-Din
The Bara-Khamba ![]() However, the name Bara-khamba or Twelve Pillars derives from the house of a nobleman originally erected there, of which little remains. The surviving evidence is of interest because this is one of the few cases when secular architecture - as opposed to religious or military - has been found in any degree of preservation this far back in time. A reconstruction of the house would show it enclosed in a high perimeter wall containing an open courtyard with rooms around, a roof terrace, a court with a chabootra or platform for sitting in the open, as well as a quirky three-story high tower, probably used for looking at the city. Sultan Mohammed Tughlaq (1325-1351 A.D.) in whose reign this was built, was not known for much else except his wacky, ill-timed policy decisions which, visionary though they may have been, lacked the authority and persistence of the Sultan to make them really work. Among these were the shifting of the Capital to Daulatabad in the Deccan (to administer the empire from a central location). One side effect of this was the undoing of all the good work of the previous generations in Delhi, which became for a time desolate and abandoned. A significant proportion of the population died en route to Daulatabad, and another percentage on the way back, some years later, when it was apparent that the scheme had failed. The introduction of token money instead of precious metals also had similar results, with confusion and even chaos resulting for a time. The throne of Delhi, emasculated by years of incessant warfare in the Deccan and the profligacies of Muhammed bin Tughlaq, had its coffers nearly empty by the time Firoz Shah (1351-1388 A.D.) came to power. This ruler leaves behind a wealth of architectural evidence that is a testimony both to the age in which they were built, as well as to his propensity for architecture. Today, Firoz Shah Kotla and Hauz Khas are more famous, respectively, as a cricket ground and the feeding grounds of Delhi’s hoi-polloi, but they stand as mute witnesses to the dying flickers of the Sultanate. These, and more, in the next column. |
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23-Feb-2002 | ||
More by : Ashish Nangia | ||
Views: 6966 Comments: 0 | ||
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