The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c23.s4.135.3

v4.c23.s4.135.3

lovely things reached the zenith of perfection”.¹ At Āgra and Lahore the palaces within the forts were largely reconstructed, and all the cities of the Mughuls display examples of Shāh Jahān’s building predilections. In the fort at Āgra the greatest changes are recorded, the whole of the structures north of the Jahāngīrī Mahall being dismantled and their places taken by marble edifices such as the Dīwān-i-‘Ām, Dīwān-i-Khāss, the Khāss Mahall, the Shīsh Mahall, the Musamman Burj, the Angūrī Bāgh, the Machhī Bhawan and the Motī Masjid. Details of all these alterations and additions are to be found in contemporary accounts written in the flowery language of the time. But even the most ardent flatterer, trained in poetical analogies, could barely do justice to the surpassing beauty of some of these structures, which in spite of vicissitudes still hold their own as the most elegant of their kind. What could be more graceful than the hall of the Dīwān-i-Khāss with its series of double columns, or the Musamman Burj hanging like a fairy bower over the grim ramparts? Even these, however, are excelled by the peerless refinement of the Motī Masjid or “Pearl Mosque”, one of Shāh Jahān’s latest additions, as it was erected in 1654 when the art had attained its ripest state.