Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/357

CHAP. X. MUGHAL ARCHITECTURE. 305 that from the court of the Sara'e on the west having a marble arch and being about 50 ft. high. The mausoleum in the centre stands on a low plinth, 256 ft. square, and itself consists of a terraced platform, 209 ft. square and about 2oj ft. high, with octagonal minarets of three storeys above the terraced roof, surmounted by white marble cupolas, and rising 85 ft. from the plinth. It is surrounded by arcades, having a central arch flanked by a doorway and five other arches on each side ; the arcades have behind them forty rooms in all, through one of which on each side a passage leads through other two oblong apartments into the tomb chamber, which is thus enclosed in nearly solid walls of masonry 56 ft. thick on all sides. The sarcophagus is of white marble, inlaid with pietra dura work and stands in an octagonal chamber of 26^ ft. diameter and about 21 ft. high. On the roof over this is a raised platform 53 ft. square with a tessellated marble pavement, the marble parapet of which was carried off by Ranjit Singh, but has now been restored. 1 The building is of red sandstone inlaid with marble, and the details are all in excellent taste, but the long low fagade between the minars is not architecturally very effective. On the west of this is the Sara'e, and beyond it the octagonal tomb of Asaf Khan, the brother of Nur-Jahan, who died in 1641, and across the railway is that of the queen herself both stripped by Ranjit Singh of their marbles and inlaid work. 2 At the other end of his dominions also he built a splendid new capital at Dacca, in supersession to Gaur, and adorned it with several buildings of considerable dimensions. These, however, were principally in brick-work, covered with stucco, and with only pillars and brackets in stone. Most of them, consequently, are in a state of ruinous decay ; marvellously picturesque, it must be confessed, peering through the luxuriant vegetation that is tearing them to pieces but hardly worthy to be placed in competition with the stone and marble buildings of the more northern capitals. There is one building the tomb known as that of Ftimadu- d-daulah at Agra, however, which belongs to this reign, and though not erected by the monarch himself, cannot be passed over, not only from its own beauty of design, but also because it marks an epoch in the style to which it belongs. It was erected by Nur-Jahan, in memory of her father, who died in 1 There is a plan of the tomb and garden, but to a very small scale, among Major Cole's plates in Griggs' ' Photo- graphs and Drawings of Historical Build- ings, ' plate 68. The elevation and section with coloured details (plates 69-76) are to adequate scales however. a Thornton's ' Lahore ' and Syad Muhammad Latif's ' Lahore ' give detailed accounts of the place. VOL. II, U