Page:Aurangzíb and the Decay of the Mughal Empire.djvu/95

Rh to a people who had been accustomed for centuries to worship and delight in the glorious spectacle of august monarchs enthroned amid a blaze of splendour. With Orientals, more even than with Europeans, the clothes make the king; and not his own subjects only, but the ambassadors of foreign Powers would have thought meanly of the Emperor if he had wholly cast off the purple and ﬁne linen of his rank and neglected to receive them sumptuously, as became a grand monarque. Accordingly Aurangzíb followed, at least in his earlier years and in the more essential ceremonial details, the Court custom which had been handed down unchanged from the ﬁrst organizer of the Empire, his great-grandfather Akbar.

The Emperor divided his residence between Delhi and Agra, but Delhi was the chief capital, where most of the state ceremonies took place. Delhi was the creation of the Mughals, for the old city of former kings had been dismantled and neglected to form the new capital of Sháh-Jahán-ábád, 'The City of Sháh-Jahán,' which that Emperor built in 1638-48, and, more Mongolico, named after himself. Agra had been the metropolis of Akbar, and usually of Jahángír; but its sultry climate interfered with the enjoyment of their luxurious successor, and the Court was accordingly removed, at least for a large part of the year, to New Delhi, the 'City of Sháh-Jahán.' The ruins of this splendid capital, its mosques, and the noble remains of its superb palace are familiar to every reader. To see it as it was in its glory, however, we