Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/363

 CHAP. X. MUGHAL ARCHITECTURE. the visitor entered the second or great court of the palace, measuring 550 ft. north and south, by A 385 ft. east and west. In the centre of this stood the Diwan-i-'Amm (B), or great audience hall of the palace, very similar in design to that of Agra, but more magnificent. Its dimensions are about 200 ft. by 100 ft. over all. In its centre is a highly ornamental niche, in which, on a platform of marble richly inlaid with precious stones, 1 and directly facing the entrance, once stood the celebrated peacock throne, the most gorgeous example of its class that perhaps even the East could ever boast of. 2 Behind this again was a garden-court ; on its eastern side was the Rang Mahall (C), or painted hall, containing a bath and other apartments. This range of buildings, extending 1600 ft. east and west, divided the palace into two nearly equal halves. In the northern division of it were a series of small courts, surrounded by build- ings apparently appropriated to the use of distinguished guests ; and in one of them overhanging the river stood the celebrated Diwan-i-KhSss (D), or private audience hall if not the most beautiful, certainly the most highly ornamented of all Shah Jahan's buildings. 3 It is larger, certainly, and far richer in ornament than that at Agra, though hardly so elegant in design ; but nothing can exceed the beauty of the inlay of precious stones with which it is adorned, or the general poetry of the design. It is round the roof of this hall that the famous inscription runs : " If there is a heaven on earth, it is this, it is this," which may safely be rendered into the sober English assertion, that no palace now existing in the world possesses an apartment of such singular elegance as this. Beyond this to the northward were the gardens of the palace, laid out in the usual formal style of the East, but adorned with fountains and little pavilions and kiosks of white marble, that render these so beautiful and so appropriate to such a climate. 1 When we took possession of the palace every one seems to have looted after the most independent fashion. Among others, a Captain (afterwards Sir John) Jones tore up a great part of this platform, but had the happy idea to get his loot set in marble as table tops. Two of these he brought home and sold to the Government for .500, and placed in the India Museum. No one can doubt that the one with the birds was executed by Florentine, or at least Italian artists ; while the other, already mentioned, which was apparently at the back of the platform, is a bad copy from Raphael's picture of Orpheus charming the beasts. As is well known, that again was a copy of a picture in the Catacombs. There Orpheus is playing on a lyre, in Raphael's picture on a violin, and that is the instrument represented in the Delhi mosaic. Even if other evidence were wanting, this would be sufficient to set the question at rest. It certainly was not put there by the bigot Aurangzib. 2 It was broken up and carried off by Nadir Shah in 1739. 3 South of this and between it and the Rang Mahall is the Samman-burj, pro- jecting from the line of the walls. At the north end is the Shah Burj and at the south the Asad Burj.