A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c18.88

c18.88

The chaste simplicity of the Moti Masjid commands admiration equally ungrudging. ‘Verily,’ says the inscription on its walls, ‘it is an exalted palace of Paradise made of a single resplendent pearl, because, since the beginning of the population of this world, no mosque pure and entirely of marble has appeared as its equal, nor since the creation of the universe, any place of worship, wholly bright and polished has come to view to rival it.’ That testimony is true. After many years there is nothing which I remember more distinctly or with greater pleasure than the pearly colonnades of this unequalled mosque. My illustrations of Shahjahān’s buildings will be restricted to three only, necessarily wholly inadequate as a presentation of their [Figure: Plate XCVII. The Tāj Mahall. (From Photo. supplied by Prof. Macdonell.)]