Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/333

CHAP. X. MUGHAL ARCHITECTURE. 285 left to follow his own devices, would, no doubt, have built in the style of architecture used at Agra and Delhi before his country- men were disturbed by the Mughal invasion. We have, it is true, very little to tell us what that style was during the 170 years that elapsed between the death of Tughlaq Shah and the first invasion of Babar, but it seems to have been singularly plain and solid, and very unlike the florid art introduced by the Mughals, and practised by Sher Shah and his son apparently in rivalry to the new master of Hindustan. So little difference is there, however, between the architecture of Sher Shah and of Akbar that they must be treated as one style, beginning in great sobriety and elegance, and ending in something nearly approach- ing to wildness and exuberance of decoration, but still very beautiful in some respects superior to the chaste but feeble elegance of the later Mughal style that succeeded it. There is, again, a little difficulty and confusion in our having no examples of the style as practised by Babar and Humayun. The well-known tomb of the latter king was certainly built by his son Akbar ; Babar was buried near Kabul, and no building known to be his has yet been identified in India. Yet that he did build is certain. In his own 'Memoirs' he tells us, "In Agra alone, and of the stone-cutters belonging to that place only, I every day employed on my palaces 680 persons ; and in Agra, Sikri, Biana, Dholpur, Gwaliar, and Koil, there were every day employed on my works 1,491 stone-cutters." 1 In the following pages he describes some of these works, and especially a Baoli of great magnificence he excavated in the fort of Agra. 2 This was in the year 1526, and he lived to carry on these works for five years longer. During the ten years that his son retained the empire, we learn from Ferishta and other sources that he adorned his capital with many splendid edifices : one, a palace containing seven pavilions or audience halls one dedicated to each of the planets, in which he gave audience on the day of the week dedicated to the planet of the day. 3 There are traditions of a mosque he is said to have built on the banks of the Jamna, opposite where the Taj now stands ; and his name is so frequently mentioned in connection with buildings both at Agra and Delhi that there can be little doubt that he was a builder to as great an extent as the troubled character of his reign would admit of. But his buildings have perished, so that practically the history of Mughal architecture commences with the buildings of an Afghan dynasty who occupied the throne of India for sixteen years during the last part of Humayun's lifetime. 1 ' Memoirs,' translated by Erskine, I 2 Loc. cit. pp. 341-342. p. 334. 3 Brigg's translation, vol. ii. p. 71.