Page:The Architecture of Ancient Delhi Especially the Buildings Around the Kutb Minar 1872 by Henry Hardy Cole.djvu/191

 Tomb of Adam KJian. 125 of respectful submission, back into the city. During the following year Muhammad Khan Atka was appointed Prime Minister at Delhi and soon acquired great influence with Akbar ; Adam Khan, being jealous of the power which threatened to accrue to this new favourite, resolved to compass his ruin ; but all endeavours failed and brought the author to shame and degradation. However, Adam Khan had determined to destroy his rival ; and one day, when Muhammad Khan was reading the Koran aloud in the hall of audience, Adam Khan entered and saluted him ; but the minister, according to the custom on such occasions, continued his prayers, and took no notice of the salute. Adam Khan, in the heat of the moment, stabbed the minister to the heart and left the court. The king, who was in the adjoining apartment asleep, came out on hearing the disturbance and, on finding the body of the minister weltering in blood, drew his sword and was about to pursue and put the murderer to death with his own hand, but remembering his dignity, refrained and ordered his attendants to throw the culprit over the parapet. Maham Atka died forty days afterwards from grief, and both father and son were interred in the tomb at Delhi which, it is stated, Akbar had caused to be built for the purpose. It is difficult to account for the construction of a labyrinth in a building intended to contain the body of a murderer ; and unless the building had been designed before Adam Khan's death, 1 one can only imagine that the staircase labyrinth in the wall was for the wandering spirit of the unhappy culprit. The building goes by the name of " Bhul-bahliyan," or, " place where one loses oneself." The sarcophagus, which consists of a block of stone of simple outline, was formerly situated in the centre of the tomb, under the dome ; but since the building has been converted into a rest house or road bungalow for the civil officers of the district, it has been placed in the verandah, facing the north. The position of Adam Khan's tomb is indicated on Plan No. I. (see page 11). It is situated on the extreme south-west limit of the area which included the various sites occupied by the cities of Delhi for over 2,300 years, i.e. from the year b.c. 1450 to the present day. It was in this building that I stayed during the casting operations at the Kutb ; and in spite of the somewhat dismal character 1 Which is not unlikely ; the building like other tombs of Muhammadan'a may have been used during Adam Khan's life as a place of recreation.