WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:15.230 --> 00:00:22.960 Today we will review what we have studied in the week, which is to say the Mughal dynasty, 00:00:22.960 --> 00:00:30.890 their architectural contributions and the kind of effect they had on the Rajput states 00:00:30.890 --> 00:00:37.180 and how Maratha architecture eventually borrows from the Mughals, but initially is really 00:00:37.180 --> 00:00:42.300 heavily shaped by the sultanates of the Deccan. 00:00:42.300 --> 00:00:49.329 We started off the week with looking at the Mughals, who they were, where they came from, 00:00:49.329 --> 00:00:56.000 what their sources of inspiration were and how their architecture evolved through 200 00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:01.410 years of being in India and being Indian. 00:01:01.410 --> 00:01:08.479 The Mughals when they first arrived, as we saw with Baghe Babur, were heavily influenced 00:01:08.479 --> 00:01:15.610 by their central Asian routes choosing to lay out extensive gardens. 00:01:15.610 --> 00:01:22.539 These gardens were typically along hill slopes and various kinds of ornamental and utilitarian 00:01:22.539 --> 00:01:24.869 trees were cultivated. 00:01:24.869 --> 00:01:31.369 Most of these gardens had a channel of water flowing through; fed by gravity this water 00:01:31.369 --> 00:01:34.640 permeated the whole garden. 00:01:34.640 --> 00:01:38.310 And many of these gardens were also described as orchids. 00:01:38.310 --> 00:01:45.120 As the Mughals settled in India, they still were shaped heavily by ideals such as you 00:01:45.120 --> 00:01:48.679 see in the Sabz Burj in Delhi. 00:01:48.679 --> 00:01:57.430 But eventually they went on particularly under Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan to have a completely 00:01:57.430 --> 00:02:04.149 Indian sensibility and a new style of architecture which was unlike anything the rest of the 00:02:04.149 --> 00:02:05.709 world had seen. 00:02:05.709 --> 00:02:11.970 So if you take something like Humayun's Tomb, built by Akbar, though the plan is modeled 00:02:11.970 --> 00:02:19.580 along Iranian designs, the elevations and sections are completely Indian as is the material. 00:02:19.580 --> 00:02:27.500 By the end of Shah Jahan’s rule a number of completely elements such as the curvilinear 00:02:27.500 --> 00:02:35.379 roof that you see from Bengal, therefore called the Bangla Roof, has become a stock element 00:02:35.379 --> 00:02:36.879 in Mughal architecture. 00:02:36.879 --> 00:02:44.510 Mughal buildings after Jahangir are incomplete without having this kind of roof, these chhatris, 00:02:44.510 --> 00:02:50.079 the baluster columns and the multi-foiled arches, all elements that we will see slowly 00:02:50.079 --> 00:02:51.079 being introduced. 00:02:51.079 --> 00:03:00.049 If we first consider Akbar, he is a very innovative ruler who tries innovation not just in architecture 00:03:00.049 --> 00:03:05.110 but also in music, in religion and in other arts. 00:03:05.110 --> 00:03:10.189 A lot of his buildings look really very different from each other, because as he is conquering 00:03:10.189 --> 00:03:16.370 parts of central India, western India, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, he is bringing 00:03:16.370 --> 00:03:22.430 back elements of architecture from all these regions and creating a new imperial style 00:03:22.430 --> 00:03:25.519 in his heartland of Delhi and Agra. 00:03:25.519 --> 00:03:32.430 On your left, you see a palace building which was built by Akbar in Ajmer, which looks anything 00:03:32.430 --> 00:03:35.989 unlike palaces built before this. 00:03:35.989 --> 00:03:41.999 If you look at the bottom left, you have another palace from Akbar’s big capital, his field 00:03:41.999 --> 00:03:48.200 project as Fatehpur Sikri, where though the lack of water forces an abandonment of the 00:03:48.200 --> 00:03:57.400 capital, Fatehpur Sikri is a fantastic example of tight urban planning and of various buildings 00:03:57.400 --> 00:04:00.639 that were supposed to have very specific and unique functions. 00:04:00.639 --> 00:04:07.950 A vocabulary of heavy cornices supported on brackets and little kiosks or chhatris is 00:04:07.950 --> 00:04:09.829 already coming into play. 00:04:09.829 --> 00:04:14.459 This will be taken much further by Akbar's son, Jahangir. 00:04:14.459 --> 00:04:22.800 Jahangir commissions a number of buildings himself but a number of buildings are constructed 00:04:22.800 --> 00:04:28.240 by his feudatories and his allies sometimes in his honor. 00:04:28.240 --> 00:04:32.780 Like the palace you see at the bottom left built in Orchha. 00:04:32.780 --> 00:04:40.580 The king of Orchha being a good ally of Jahangir, allegedly built this palace for one night 00:04:40.580 --> 00:04:43.850 stay, in which Jahangir visited Orchha. 00:04:43.850 --> 00:04:50.170 For us what is important is not the story but the architecture of this palace which 00:04:50.170 --> 00:04:53.650 is exactly like all imperial Mughal buildings. 00:04:53.650 --> 00:04:59.510 In fact, it is not very different from the Red Fort in Agra. 00:04:59.510 --> 00:05:06.720 If you look at the top left, that is the tomb of Itmad-ud-Daula, Jahangir’s father-in-law, 00:05:06.720 --> 00:05:08.450 an important court official. 00:05:08.450 --> 00:05:15.420 Again, there is an interpretation of stock elements borrowed from an Indian context and 00:05:15.420 --> 00:05:19.870 elements that are coming in from central and western Asia, from Iran. 00:05:19.870 --> 00:05:26.010 But all these are being composed in completely new and novel ways to make buildings that 00:05:26.010 --> 00:05:29.690 are truly innovative and Indian. 00:05:29.690 --> 00:05:36.060 If you look at the top left, you will see the building that is built as a pavilion in 00:05:36.060 --> 00:05:38.600 the middle of Shalimar gardens. 00:05:38.600 --> 00:05:46.810 If you look at the top left, you will see a building which is built in Kashmir as a 00:05:46.810 --> 00:05:52.330 garden pavilion in the middle of Nishat gardens. 00:05:52.330 --> 00:05:57.070 This building looks unlike a lot of the architecture that you will associate with the Mughals. 00:05:57.070 --> 00:06:03.390 But that is because it is a building that responds to the climatic requirements of Kashmir 00:06:03.390 --> 00:06:09.470 which are significantly different from the rest of India and also pays heed to local 00:06:09.470 --> 00:06:11.900 artisanal and crafts traditions. 00:06:11.900 --> 00:06:19.410 Jahangir was an avid naturalist, a very good observer of phenomena that he saw around him. 00:06:19.410 --> 00:06:25.970 His diaries, The Tuzuk-e-Jahangiri have fantastic descriptions of things that he sees and things 00:06:25.970 --> 00:06:27.560 by which he is captivated. 00:06:27.560 --> 00:06:33.960 It is his discerning eye that would allow even the building crafts to be a lot more 00:06:33.960 --> 00:06:38.030 nuanced than predecessors. 00:06:38.030 --> 00:06:46.340 His son, Shah Jahan, probably known as the greatest builder in all of the Mughal dynasty, 00:06:46.340 --> 00:06:53.810 presided over an empire that was enormous, powerful and very rich. 00:06:53.810 --> 00:07:00.740 He was an aesthete and immediately embarked upon a massive program of building construction, 00:07:00.740 --> 00:07:06.670 constructing a grand new capital for himself in Delhi called Shahjahanabad on the banks 00:07:06.670 --> 00:07:08.060 of the Yamuna river. 00:07:08.060 --> 00:07:15.050 This capital which we today know as the Red Fort became an icon for the nation of India 00:07:15.050 --> 00:07:21.860 as the declaration of Indian Independence in 1947 was made from here by the first Prime 00:07:21.860 --> 00:07:24.150 Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. 00:07:24.150 --> 00:07:30.770 Inside the Red Fort are now poor gorse of what would have been grand buildings constructed 00:07:30.770 --> 00:07:37.810 by the nobles such as the bed chambers which you see above, completely decorated in carved 00:07:37.810 --> 00:07:40.180 marble with inlaid stone. 00:07:40.180 --> 00:07:46.200 This technique of pietra dura being borrowed from Italy particularly from Fluorescence. 00:07:46.200 --> 00:07:51.750 Shah Jahan, of course, can never be forgotten because of the one monument that he built 00:07:51.750 --> 00:07:57.530 in memory of his wife, the grand mausoleum, called the Taj Mahal. 00:07:57.530 --> 00:08:03.590 This building which is wonderfully interpreted by a scholar called Wayne Begley, to this 00:08:03.590 --> 00:08:09.890 day remains one of the most visited tourist spots in India. 00:08:09.890 --> 00:08:16.450 Built completely out of white marble, inlaid with semi-precious stones, this building is 00:08:16.450 --> 00:08:22.970 built on that plan that we have described as being plan, with groupings of rooms in 00:08:22.970 --> 00:08:29.470 4 corners all of them connected by Evans that open into a central chamber above which is 00:08:29.470 --> 00:08:31.380 a big dome. 00:08:31.380 --> 00:08:38.110 Shah Jahan’s son, Aurangzeb has not been celebrated as a builder and quite rightly 00:08:38.110 --> 00:08:39.110 so. 00:08:39.110 --> 00:08:46.310 He presided over an empire that was absolutely enormous in terms of geographical area and 00:08:46.310 --> 00:08:48.120 population. 00:08:48.120 --> 00:08:53.860 But the Mughal model of governance required them to be expansionist and his treasury was 00:08:53.860 --> 00:08:59.850 drained in a number of futile wars, both on the western frontier and also on the Deccan 00:08:59.850 --> 00:09:04.829 where he could not subdue a new independent kingdom that had just emerged. 00:09:04.829 --> 00:09:10.810 Aurangzeb himself moved to the Deccan and lived there for the last 30 years of his life 00:09:10.810 --> 00:09:16.980 and which is why two of the buildings that we see here from his reign are from the Deccan. 00:09:16.980 --> 00:09:24.129 But in the north, he did construct never on the same grand scale and never to promote 00:09:24.129 --> 00:09:28.970 himself as the emperor but largely in the service of religion. 00:09:28.970 --> 00:09:34.000 Buildings like the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore which you see on your top left, similar in 00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:43.860 scale to the Jami Masjid built by his father and similar again in scale to the big mosque, 00:09:43.860 --> 00:09:48.870 the Jami masjid in Fatehpur Sikri built by his great grandfather. 00:09:48.870 --> 00:09:54.040 But if you look at Aurangzeb’s personal commissions, they tend to be of a very modest 00:09:54.040 --> 00:10:01.300 scale such as this building on the bottom left which was a small baradari with a viewing 00:10:01.300 --> 00:10:07.550 jharokha on top built by his camp site, was outside of the city of med Nagar. 00:10:07.550 --> 00:10:13.220 It was this enclosure in which he died and it was here that he spent many years waging 00:10:13.220 --> 00:10:15.209 war against the Marathas. 00:10:15.209 --> 00:10:20.950 His presence in the Deccan had caused a large number of his nobles to move to the Deccan, 00:10:20.950 --> 00:10:28.100 one of them being a gentleman called Pahad Singh who was moved to Aurangabad, made an 00:10:28.100 --> 00:10:30.050 important officer. 00:10:30.050 --> 00:10:35.749 And Pahad Singh built himself this palace which is currently situated within the Dr. 00:10:35.749 --> 00:10:44.170 Babasaheb Ambedkar University, Marathwada University and which is a typical Mughal palace 00:10:44.170 --> 00:10:49.730 set in a quadripartite garden that is bisected by channels of water. 00:10:49.730 --> 00:10:55.290 Because of its placement with the mountain behind it, it almost looks like the building 00:10:55.290 --> 00:11:00.279 evinced from the mountain, from which comes out the water. 00:11:00.279 --> 00:11:10.430 But during the reign of Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, most of the Rajputs became 00:11:10.430 --> 00:11:14.149 important officers at the Mughal court. 00:11:14.149 --> 00:11:20.600 In fact, many of them were related initially by marriage and then later by blood. 00:11:20.600 --> 00:11:25.819 And it is therefore no surprise that Mughal architecture has often being called Mughal 00:11:25.819 --> 00:11:32.440 Rajput architecture, because the Rajputs also are building in exactly the same ways. 00:11:32.440 --> 00:11:38.259 After all, imperial architecture is the language of power and if Rajput officials are important 00:11:38.259 --> 00:11:44.470 officers in the Mughal Army, they are going to replicate what happens at the imperial 00:11:44.470 --> 00:11:45.470 center. 00:11:45.470 --> 00:11:52.300 Therefore, you have a pendentives and squinch like arrangements in Rajput architecture as 00:11:52.300 --> 00:11:53.300 well. 00:11:53.300 --> 00:11:57.860 Except in this case with figural imagery, you have the same kinds of geometrical gardens 00:11:57.860 --> 00:12:02.189 being laid out bisected by water channels and fountains. 00:12:02.189 --> 00:12:12.269 And you have compositions of Bangla roofs, corner terrace, lounge, facades, with biaxial 00:12:12.269 --> 00:12:19.470 symmetry, like you have with Itimad-ud-Daulah’s tomb also being replicated outside of Jaipur 00:12:19.470 --> 00:12:21.790 in something called the Jal Mahal. 00:12:21.790 --> 00:12:28.670 But coming to the Deccan, much before the Mughals you have the Yadavas who built temples 00:12:28.670 --> 00:12:34.399 in their statement style which is the Bhumija style. 00:12:34.399 --> 00:12:42.809 Once the Marathas come to power, first under Shivaji when the Mughals are in the Deccan 00:12:42.809 --> 00:12:48.259 and Shivaji and Aurangzeb have a number of confrontations face to face. 00:12:48.259 --> 00:12:55.319 But even after the Marathas to assert their own regional identity start reviving Yadava 00:12:55.319 --> 00:13:02.430 temples and they reconstruct the Bhumija style as they imagine it to be. 00:13:02.430 --> 00:13:08.920 This is all part of inventing a new language of their identity of their court. 00:13:08.920 --> 00:13:15.639 But if you consider early Maratha architecture, it is completely unlike Mughal architecture. 00:13:15.639 --> 00:13:21.800 Unlike the Rajputs who are complacent with the Mughal world, the Marathas are more complacent 00:13:21.800 --> 00:13:25.769 with the sultanates of the Deccan, namely that of the Nizam Shah’s of med Nagar, the 00:13:25.769 --> 00:13:31.369 Kutub Shah’s of Golkonda and the Adil Shah’s of Bijapur. 00:13:31.369 --> 00:13:37.660 And therefore all these buildings which are actually examples of early Maratha architecture 00:13:37.660 --> 00:13:42.100 look exactly sultanate buildings from this period. 00:13:42.100 --> 00:13:50.899 But after 1700 things changed both in Delhi and also with the Maratha kingdom and after 00:13:50.899 --> 00:13:59.420 the 1720s the Marathas get a boost with their new able Prime Minister, Bajirao Peshwa, who 00:13:59.420 --> 00:14:04.240 conquers large territories consolidating the kingdom of the Marathas. 00:14:04.240 --> 00:14:08.139 And the Marathas go on a temple building spree. 00:14:08.139 --> 00:14:14.790 A number of temples that they built are sometimes rebuilt, will be in this Bhumija style in 00:14:14.790 --> 00:14:20.110 which they are trying to emulate the Yadavas, but they really do not know the logic of the 00:14:20.110 --> 00:14:22.860 Bhumija temple. 00:14:22.860 --> 00:14:28.240 The other temples they built particularly very traditional Shiva temples such as those 00:14:28.240 --> 00:14:34.100 of the Jyotirlingas, you have Trimbakeshwar on the left and Bhimashankar on the right, 00:14:34.100 --> 00:14:43.009 are all built using a style called the Shekhari style which is borrowed by borrowing artisans 00:14:43.009 --> 00:14:48.870 from central and northern India, which are the areas that the Marathas have just conquered. 00:14:48.870 --> 00:14:55.329 But their all signature style is this where they combine a number of sultanate and Mughal 00:14:55.329 --> 00:15:04.119 elements and put them together with the logic of south Indian temple in multiple tiers with 00:15:04.119 --> 00:15:06.129 a small dome on top. 00:15:06.129 --> 00:15:11.519 And through the 18th and 19th and early 20th century, throughout the western Deccan, you 00:15:11.519 --> 00:15:15.389 have temples that are built like this. 00:15:15.389 --> 00:15:22.959 And these temples very often resemble the Tazias that are taken out in Muharram processions 00:15:22.959 --> 00:15:24.990 in this region. 00:15:24.990 --> 00:15:31.379 This is not an argument about which came first but merely to say that expressions of power 00:15:31.379 --> 00:15:33.929 transgress bounds of religion. 00:15:33.929 --> 00:15:41.040 If this is a shape, that means the presence of divinity, it does not matter which religion 00:15:41.040 --> 00:15:42.730 you belong to. 00:15:42.730 --> 00:15:49.329 In this period, in this region it is widely understood for what it means. 00:15:49.329 --> 00:15:54.490 And so as usual our exercise will be to look up examples of all the topics that we have 00:15:54.490 --> 00:16:00.319 covered in learning sessions and find relevant examples of sites and buildings that have 00:16:00.319 --> 00:16:02.790 not been covered by us directly. 00:16:02.790 --> 00:16:09.459 So please do look up examples of things that we have talked about and try and get more 00:16:09.459 --> 00:16:11.430 information about them. 00:16:11.430 --> 00:16:11.839 Thank you.