Modern India by William Eleroy Curtis

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It is needless to review the slow but gradual decay of the Great
Mogul Empire. With the adoption of Aurangzeb's policy of intolerance
it began to crumble, and none of his successors proved able to
restore it. He died in 1707, and the throne of the Moguls was
never again occupied by a man of force or notable ability. The
history of the empire during the eighteenth century is merely a
record of successive failures, of disintegration, of successful
rebellions and of invasions by foreign foes, which stripped the
Moguls of their wealth and destroyed their resources. First came
the Persians; then the Afghans, who plundered the imperial capital,
desecrated tombs and temples, destroyed the fortresses and palaces
and left little but distress and devastation when they departed.
One by one the provinces separated themselves from the empire and
set up their own independence; until in 1804 the English took
possession of the remnant and have maintained their authority
ever since.

Within the wall of the great citadel at Delhi, for reasons of
policy, the English allowed the great Mogul to maintain a fictitious
court, and because the title continued to command the veneration of
the natives, at state ceremonies the nominal successor of Timour
the Tartar was allowed to sit upon a throne in the imperial hall
of audience and receive the homage of the people. But the Moguls
were not allowed to exercise authority and were idle puppets
in the hands of their advisers until the great mutiny of 1857
brought the native soldiers into the palace crying:

"Help, oh King, in our Fight for the Faith."

It is not necessary to relate the details of that awful episode
of Indian history, but it will do no harm to recall what we learned
in our school days of the principal incidents and refer to the
causes which provoked it. From the beginning of the British
occupation of India there had been frequent local uprisings caused
by discontent or conspiracy, but the East India Company, and the
officials of the British government who supported it, had perfect
confidence in the loyalty of the sepoys--the native soldiers who
were hired to fight against their fellow countrymen for so much
pay. They were officered by Englishmen, whose faith in them was
only extinguished by assassination and massacre. The general
policy and the general results of British administration have
been worthy of the highest commendation, but there have been
many blunders and much injustice from time to time, due to
individuals rather than to the nation. A weak and unwise man
in authority can do more harm in a year than can be corrected
in a century. Several so-called "reforms" had been introduced
into the native army; orders had been issued forbidding the use
of caste marks, the wearing of earrings and other things which
Englishmen considered trivial, but were of great importance to
the Hindus. Native troops were ordered over the sea, which caused
them to lose their caste; new regulations admitted low-caste men
to the service; the entire army was provided with a new uniform
with belts and cockades made from the skins of animals which the
Hindus considered sacred, and cartridges were issued which had been
covered with lard to protect them from the moisture of the climate,
and, as everybody knows, the flesh of swine is the most unclean
thing in existence to the pious Hindu. All these things, which
the stubborn, stupid Englishmen considered insignificant, were
regarded by the sepoys as deliberate attacks upon their religion,
and certain conspirators, who had reasons for desiring to destroy
British authority, used them to convince the native soldiers
that the new regulations were a long-considered and deliberate
attempt to deprive them of their caste and force them to become
Christians. Unfortunately the British officers in command refused
to treat the complaints seriously, and laughed in the faces of
their men, which was insult added to injury, and was interpreted
as positive proof of the evil intentions of the government.

This situation was taken advantage of by certain Hindu princes
who had been deprived of power or of pensions previously granted.
Nana Sahib, the deposed raja of Poona, was the leader, and the
unsuspecting authorities allowed him to travel about the country
stirring up discontent and conspiring with other disloyal native
chiefs for a general uprising and massacre, which, according to
their programme, occurred in northern India during the summer
of 1857. If the British had desired to play into the hands of the
conspirators they could not have adopted a policy more effective
in that direction. Utterly unconscious of danger and unsuspicious
of the conspiracies that were enfolding them, they relieved city
after city of its guard of English troops and issued arms and
ammunition in unusual and unnecessary quantities to the sepoys,
at whose mercy the entire foreign population was left.

The outbreak occurred according to the programme of Nana Sahib,
who proved to be a leader of great ability and strategic skill,
and in nearly every city of northern India, particularly at Delhi,
Lucknow, Cawnpore and other places along the Ganges, men, women and
children, old and young, in the foreign colonies were butchered
in cold blood. In Agra 6,000 foreigners gathered for protection
in the walls of the great fort, and most of them were saved.
Small detachments of brave soldiers under General Havelock, Sir
Henry Lawrence, Sir Colin Campbell, Sir Hugh Rose, Lord Napier and
other leaders fought their way to the rescue, and the conspiracy
was finally crushed, but not without untold suffering and enormous
loss of life.

On the evening of May 11, 1857, about fifty foreigners, all unarmed
civilians, were brought into the palace at Delhi, and by order of
Bahander Shah, the Mogul whom the mutineer leaders had proclaimed
Emperor of India, were thrust into a dungeon, starved for five
days and then hacked to pieces in the beautiful courtyard. The
new emperor, a weak-minded old man with no energy or ability,
and scarcely intellect enough to realize his responsibilities,
pronounced judgment and issued the orders prepared for him by
the conspirators by whom he was surrounded. But retribution was
swift and sure. A few weeks later when the British troops blew
in the walls of the palace citadel after one of the most gallant
assaults ever recorded in the annals of war, the old man, with
two of his sons, fled to the tomb of Humayon, who occupied the
Mogul throne from 1531 to 1556, as if that sanctuary would be
revered by the British soldiers.

This tomb is one of the most notable buildings in India. It stands
on the bank of the Jumna River, about five miles from the present
city of Delhi. It is an octagonal mass of rose-colored sandstone
and white marble, decorated with an ingenuity of design and delicacy
of execution that have never been surpassed, and is crowned by a
marble dome of perfect Persian pattern, three-fourths the diameter
of that of St. Paul's Cathedral of London, and almost as large as
that of the Capitol at Washington. In this splendid mausoleum,
where twelve of his imperial ancestors sleep, the Last of the Moguls
endeavored to conceal himself and his sons, but Colonel Hodson,
who commanded a desperate volunteer battalion of foreigners whose
property had been confiscated or destroyed by the mutineers, whose
wives had been ravished and whose children had been massacred,
followed the flying Mogul to the asylum he sought, and dragged
him trembling and begging for mercy from among the tombs.

Hodson was a man of remarkable character and determination and
was willing to assume responsibility, and "Hodson's Horse," as
the volunteer battalion was called, were the Rough Riders of the
Indian mutiny. He took the aged king back to Delhi and delivered
him to the British authorities alive, but almost imbecile from
terror and excitement. The two princes, 19 and 22 years of age,
he deliberately shot with his own revolver before leaving the
courtyard of the tomb in which they were captured.

This excited the horror of all England. The atrocities of the
mutineers were almost forgotten for the moment. That the heirs
of the throne of the great Moguls should be killed by a British
officer while prisoners of war was an offense against civilization
and Christianity that could not be tolerated, although only a
few weeks before these two same princes had participated in the
cold-blooded butchery of fifty Christian women and children.
There was a parliamentary investigation. Hodson explained that
he had only a few men, too few to guard three prisoners of such
importance; that he was surrounded by fifty thousand half-armed
and excited natives, who would have exterminated his little band
and rescued his prisoners if anyone of their number had possessed
sufficient presence of mind and courage to make the attempt.
Convinced that he could not conduct three prisoners through that
crowd of their adherents and sympathizers without sacrificing
his own life and that of his escort, he took the responsibility
of shooting the princes like the reptiles they were, and thus
relieved the British government from what might have been a most
embarrassing situation.

Hodson was condemned by parliament and public opinion, while
the bloodthirsty old assassin he had captured was treated as
gently and as generously as if he had been a saint. Bahandur
Shah was tried and convicted of treason, but was acquitted of
responsibility for the massacre on the ground that his act
authorizing it was a mere formality, and that it would have occurred
without his consent at any rate. Instead of hanging him the British
government sent him in exile to Rangoon, where he was furnished
a comfortable bungalow and received a generous pension until
November, 1862, when he died. Bahandur Shah had a third son, a
worthless drunken fellow, who managed to escape the consequences
of his participation in the massacre and accompanied him into
exile. He survived his father for several years and left a widow
and several children at Rangoon, including a son, who inherited
his indolence, but not his vices. The latter still lives there on
a small pension from the British government, is idle, indifferent,
amiable and well-liked. He goes to the races, the polo games
and tennis matches, and takes interest in other sports, but is
too lazy to participate. He has married a Burmese wife and they
have several children, who live with him in the bungalow that was
assigned to his grandfather when he was sent to Burma forty-five
years ago, and, judging from appearances, it has not been repaired
since. Although he is perfectly harmless, the Last of the Moguls
is required to report regularly to the British commandant and
is not allowed to leave Burma, even if he should ever desire
to do so.

XIV

THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE MOGULS

Although the Moguls have vanished, their glory remains in the
most sublime and beautiful monuments that were ever erected by
human hands, and people come from the uttermost parts of the
earth to admire them. In the form of fortresses, palaces, temples
and tombs they are scattered pretty well over northern India,
and the finest examples may be found at Agra, a city of 200,000
inhabitants, only a short ride from Delhi, the Mogul capital. Agra
was their favorite residence. Akbar the Great actually removed
the seat of government there the latter part of the sixteenth
century, and expended genius and money until he made it the most
beautiful city in India and filled it with the most splendid
palaces that were ever seen. Shah Jehan, his grandson, who was
a greater man than he, and lived and reigned nearly a hundred
years after him, even surpassed him in architectural ambition
and accomplishments. Jehan built the fort at Agra, and the best
specimens of his architectural work are within its walls, erected
between 1630 and 1637, and he was confined within them, the prisoner
of his son Aurangzeb, for seven years before his death, from 1658
to 1665.

The fortress at Agra is probably the grandest citadel ever erected.
It surpasses in beauty and strength the Kremlin at Moscow, the
Tower of London, the citadel at Toledo and every other fortress
I know of. Nothing erected in modern times can compare with it.
Although it would be a poor defense and protection against modern
projectiles, it was impregnable down to the mutiny of 1857. The
walls are two miles and a quarter in circumference; they are
protected by a moat 30 feet wide and 35 feet deep; they are 70
feet high and 30 feet thick, and built of enormous blocks of
red sandstone. There are two entrances, both very imposing, one
called the Delhi Gate and the other the Elephant Gate, where
there used to be two large stone elephants, but they were removed
many years ago. Within the walls is a collection of the most
magnificent oriental palaces ever erected, with mosques, barracks,
arsenals, storehouses, baths and other buildings for residential,
official and military purposes, all of them on the grandest scale.
Since the British have had possession they have torn down many
of the old buildings and have erected unsightly piles of brick
and stone in their places, but while such vandalism cannot be
condemned in terms too strong, the world should be grateful to
them for leaving the most characteristic and costly of the Mogul
residences undisturbed. A small garrison of English soldiers is
quartered in the fortress at present, just enough to protect it
and keep things in order, but there is room for several regiments,
and during the mutiny of 1857 more than 6,000 foreigners, refugees
from northern India, found refuge and protection here.

Although the palaces seem bare and comfortless to us to-day, and
we wonder how people could ever be contented to live in them,
we are reminded that when they were actually occupied the open
arches were hung with curtains, the marble floors were spread
with rugs and covered with cushions, and the banquet halls were
furnished with sumptuous services of gold, silver and linen.
The Moguls were not ascetics. They loved luxury and lived in
great magnificence with every comfort and convenience that the
ingenuity and experience of those days could contrive. It is
never safe to judge of things by your own standard. You may always
be sure that intelligent people will adapt themselves in the
best possible manner to their conditions and environment. Those
who live in the tropics know much better how to make themselves
comfortable than friends who visit them from the arctic zone.
Wise travelers will always imitate local habits and customs so
far as they are able to do so. While these wonderful compositions
of carved marble seem cold and comfortless as they stand empty
to-day, we must not forget that they were very different when
they were actually inhabited. Some idea of the luxury of the
Mogul court may be gained from an account given by M. Bernier,
a Frenchman who visited Agra in 1663 during the reign of Shah
Jehan. He says:

"The king appeared sitting upon his throne, in the bottom of
the great hall of the Am-kas, splendidly appareled. His vest was
of white satin, flowered and raised with a very fine embroidery
of gold and silk. His turban was of cloth-of-gold, having a fowl
wrought upon it like a heron, whose foot was covered with diamonds
of an extraordinary bigness and price, with a great oriental topaz,
which may be said to be matchless, shining like a little sun. A
collar of big pearls hung about his neck down to his stomach,
after the manner that some of the heathens wear their great beads.
His throne was supported by six pillars, or feet, said to be
of massive gold, and set with rubies, emeralds and diamonds. I
am not able to tell you aright either the number or the price
of this heap of precious stones, because it is not permitted to
come near enough to count them and to judge of their water and
purity. Only this I can say: that the big diamonds are there
in confusion, and that the throne is estimated to be worth four
kouroures of roupies, if I remember well. I have said elsewhere
that a roupie is almost equivalent to half a crown, a lecque to
a hundred thousand roupies and a kourour to a hundred lecques,
so that the throne is valued at forty millions of roupies, which
are worth about sixty millions of French livres. That which I
find upon it best devised are two peacocks covered with precious
stones and pearls. Beneath this throne there appeared all the
Omrahs, in splendid apparel, upon a raised ground covered with a
canopy of purified gold, with great golden fringes and inclosed
by a silver balistre. The pillars of the hall were hung with
tapestries of purified gold, having the ground of gold; and for
the roof of the hall there was nothing but great canopies of
flowered satin, fastened with great red silken cords that had
big tufts of silk mixed with threads of gold."

The gem of the architectural exhibition at Agra, always exempting
the Taj Mahal, is the "Pearl Mosque," so called because it is
built of stainless white marble, without the slightest bit of
color within except inscriptions from the Koran here and there
inlaid in precious stones. It was the private chapel of the Moguls,
as you might say; was built between 1648 and 1655, and has been
pronounced by the highest authority to be the purest and most
elegant example of Saracenic architecture in existence. No lovelier
sanctuary was ever erected in honor of the Creator. One of the
inscriptions tells us that it was intended to be "likened to a
mansion of paradise or to a precious pearl." It is built after
the usual fashion, a square courtyard paved with white marble and
surrounded by a marble colonnade of exquisite arches, supported
by pillars of perfect grace. The walls upon three sides are solid;
the western side, looking toward Mecca, being entirely open, a
succession of arches supported by columns exquisitely carved.
And the roof is crowned with a forest of minarets and three white
marble domes. In the center of the courtyard is a marble tank
thirty-seven feet square and three feet deep, in which the faithful
performed their ablutions before going to prayer.

Near by the mosque is the Diwan-i-'Am, or Hall of Public Audience,
201 feet square, in which the Moguls received their subjects
and held court. The roof is supported by nine rows of graceful
columns cut from red sandstone and formerly covered with gold.
The rest of the building is marble. The throne stood upon a high
platform in an alcove of white marble, richly decorated, and above
it are balconies protected by grilles or screens behind which the
sultanas were permitted to watch the proceedings. Back of the
audience-room is a great quadrangle, planted with trees, flowers
and vines. White marble walks radiate from a marble platform and
fountain basin in the center, and divide the garden into beds
which, we are told, were filled with soil brought from Cashmere
because of its richness. And even to-day gardeners say that it
is more productive than any found in this part of the country.
Around this court were the apartments of the zenana, or harem,
occupied by the mother, sisters, wives and daughters of the sultan
who were more or less prisoners, but had considerable area to
wander about in, and could sit in the jasmine tower, one of the
most exquisite pieces of marble work you can imagine, and on the
flat roofs of the palaces, which were protected by high screens,
and enjoy views over the surrounding country and up and down the
Jumna River. From this lofty eyrie they could witness reviews
of the troops and catch glimpses of the gay cavalcades that came
in and out of the fortress, and in a small courtyard was a bazar
where certain favored merchants from the city were allowed to
come and exhibit goods to the ladies of the court. But these were
the only glimpses female royalty ever had of the outer world.

No man was ever admitted to the zenana except the emperor. All
domestic work was done by women, who were watched on the outside
by eunuchs and then by soldiers. They had their own place of
worship, the "Gem Mosque" they called it, a beautiful little
structure erected by Shah Jehan, and afterward used as his prison.

The baths are of the most sumptuous character. The walls are
decorated with raised foliage work in colors, silver and gold,
upon a ground of mirrors, and the ceiling is finished with pounded
mica, which has the effect of silver. Fronting the entrance of
the bathrooms are rows of lights over which the water poured in
broad sheets into a basin, then, running over a little marble
causeway, fell over a second cluster of lights into another basin,
and then another and another, five in succession, so that many
ladies were able to bathe in these fascinating fountains at the
same time. Below the baths we were shown some dark and dreary
vaults. In the center of the most gloomy of them there is a pit--a
well--which, the guide told us, has its outlet in the bottom of
the river, three-quarters of a mile away. Over this pit hangs
a heavy beam of wood very highly carved, and in the center is
a groove from which dangles a silken rope. Here, according to
tradition, unfaithful inmates of the harem were hanged, and when
life was extinct the cord was cut and the body fell into the
pit, striking the keen edge of knives at frequent intervals,
so that it finally reached the river in small fragments, which
were devoured by fishes or crocodiles, or if they escaped them,
floated down to the sea. After each execution a flood of water was
turned from the fountains into the pit to wash away the stains.

But let us turn from this terrible place to the jasmine tower
containing apartments of the chief sultana, which overhangs the
walls of the fort and is surpassingly beautiful: a series of
rooms entirely of marble--roof, walls and floor--and surrounded
by a broad marble veranda supported, by noble arches springing
from graceful, slender pillars arranged in pairs and protected
by a balustrade of perforated marble. One could scarcely imagine
anything more dainty than these lacelike screens of stone extremely
simple in design and exquisite in execution. The interior walls
are incrusted with mosaic work of jasper, carnelian, lapis-lazuli,
agate, turquoise, bloodstone, malachite and other precious materials
in the form of foliage, flowers, ornamental scrolls, sentences
from the Koran in Arabic letters and geometrical patterns. The
decoration is as beautiful and as rich as the Taj Mahal, so far
as it goes, and was done by the same artists.

There is a broad field for the imagination to range about in
and picture this palace when it was a paradise of luxury and
splendor, filled with gorgeous and costly hangings, draperies,
rugs, couches and cushions. The writers of the time tell us that
the sultanas had 5,000 women around them who were divided into
companies. First were the three chief wives, next in rank were
300 concubines and the remainder were dancing girls, musicians,
artists, embroiderers, seamstresses, hair dressers, cooks and
other servants. The mother of the Mogul was always the head of
the household. The three empresses were subject to her authority,
according to the oriental custom, and while they might stand
first in the affections of the Mogul they were subordinate to
his mother, who conducted affairs about the harem, we are told,
with the same regularity and strictness that were found in the
executive departments of the state. Each of the wives received an
allowance according to her rank. If she had a child, especially
a son, she was immediately promoted to the highest rank, given
larger and better quarters, provided with many more servants
and furnished with a much larger allowance in money.

The apartments of the emperor are quite plain when compared with
the adjoining suite of the favorite sultana, but are massive,
dignified and appropriate for a sovereign of his wealth and power,
and everything is finished with that peculiar elegance which is
only found in the East. In all the great cluster of buildings
there is nothing mean or commonplace. Every apartment, every
corridor, every arch and every column is perfect and a wonder
of architectural design, construction and decoration.

From the emperor's apartments you may pass through a stately
pavilion to a large marble courtyard. Upon one side of it, next
to the wall that overhangs the river, is a slab of black marble
known as "The Black Marble Throne." And upon this he used to
sit when hearing appeals for justice from his subjects or other
business of supreme importance. Upon the opposite side of the
court is a white marble slab upon which the grand vizier sat
and to the east is a platform where seats were provided for the
judges, the nobles and the grandees of the court. In this pavilion
have occurred some of the most exciting scenes in Indian history.

Perhaps you would like to know something about the women who
lived in these wonderful palaces, and are buried in the beautiful
tombs at Agra. They had their romances and their tragedies, and
although the Mohammedan custom kept them closely imprisoned in
the zenanas, they nevertheless exerted a powerful influence in
arranging the destinies of the Mogul empire. The most notable
of the women, and one who would have taken a prominent part in
affairs in whatever country or in whatever generation it had
pleased the Almighty to place her, was Nur Jehan, sultana of the
Mogul Jehanghir. She lived in the marble palace of Agra from 1556
to 1605; a woman of extraordinary force of character, the equal
of Queen Elizabeth in intellect and of Mary Stuart in physical
attractions, and her life was a mixture of romance and tragedy. Her
father, Mizra Gheas Bey, or Itimad-Ud Daula, as he was afterward
known, was grand vizier of the Mogul empire during the latter
part of the reign of Akbar the Great. An obscure but ambitious
Persian scholar, hearing of the generous patronage extended to
students by Emperor Akbar in India, he started from Teheran to
Delhi overland, a distance of several thousand miles. He had
means enough to buy a donkey for his wife to ride, and trudged
along with a caravan on foot beside the animal to protect her and
the panniers which contained all their earthly possessions. The
morning after the caravan reached Kandahar, Turkestan, a daughter
was born to the wife of Mirza, and was, naturally, a great source
of anxiety and embarrassment to him, but the principal merchant
of the caravan, struck with the beauty of the child and with
sympathy for the mother, provided for their immediate needs, took
them with him to Agra and there used his good offices with the
officials in behalf of the father, who was given employment under
the government. His ability and fidelity were soon recognized. He
was promoted rapidly, and finally reached the highest office in
the gift of the Mogul--that of prime minister of the empire--which
he filled with conspicuous ability, wisdom and prudence for many
years. As his daughter grew to girlhood she attracted the attention
of Prince Jehanghir, who became violently in love with her, and,
to prevent complications, the emperor caused her to be married to
Shir Afghan Kahn, a young Persian of excellent family, who was
made viceroy of Bengal, and took his wife with him to Calcutta.

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