The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c23.s4.92

Language: English

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The plan of isolating one’s burial place from the outer world by means of a sheet of water had already occurred to Ghiyās-ud-dīn Tughluq some two centuries earlier, when he designed his tomb like a barbican thrown out from the fortress at Tughluqābād and surrounded it with a lake. Inspired no doubt by the originality and significance of this, by now, historical monument, Sher Shāh’s mausoleum was designed on somewhat similar lines, except that instead of the irregular lake, it rises from a large rectangular tank, the cemented sides of which measure each approximately fourteen hundred feet in length. The tomb building itself occupies the centre of this body of water, forming a grand pyramidal mass of diminishing tiers, mounting up from a stepped plinth of over three hundred feet wide, and crowned by a semi-spherical dome. The plinth and the high terrace above it, which comprise the foundations of the composition, are square in plan, while the tomb building above is an octagonal structure in three storeys, a slightly elaborated form of the Lodī tombs at Delhi, but made vastly more imposing by its size, situation, and particularly by the massive and spacious character of its stepped and terraced basement. Much skill has been expended on the design and disposition of the architectural details, which break up the mass of the building with admirable effect.

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Flights of steps with entrance archways relieve the middle of each side of the terrace, and domed octagonal pavilions ornament each corner, with projecting oriel-balconies carried on heavy brackets in between. The upper surface of this immense sub-structure forms a courtyard, within which stands the mausoleum proper. This building is enclosed within an aisle of pointed arches, three to each of its octagonal sides, and shaded all round by a wide eave surmounted by a crenellated parapet. This constitutes the lower storey. Above, the two upper storeys are decorated by means of pillared kiosks, one at each angle and alternating with oriel windows, while the dome crowning the whole is crested by a solid lotus finial. The interior of the tomb consists of one large vaulted hall, octagonal in shape and surrounded by an arcade of arches; it is somewhat bare and plain, and may be unfinished. Seen across the rippling waters of the tank, the entire composition now appears grey and sombre, but this was by no means the original intention. It is the greyness of age, as, when first built, its walls displayed patterns of glowing colour, and the dome was set brilliantly white against the blue sky. Traces of this glazed decoration still remain, fine bold borders of blues, reds and yellows, in keeping with the grand scale of the building itself.

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Access to the mausoleum is obtained by means of a causeway built across the water, the entrance to which is through a square domed guardroom on the northern side of the tank. The causeway has become much ruined, but its original character may be judged from a somewhat similar approach to the remains of Salīm Shāh’s tomb, another monument of the group, also located in a large artificial lake. Although resembling a bridge it contains no arches, but consists of a succession of piers with the intervening spaces spanned by lintels and corbels, the piers being ornamented by kiosks and projecting balconies. In the course of building the mausoleum of Sher Shāh a curious error in orientation seems to have occurred, there being a difference of eight degrees between the alignment of the stepped plinth and that of the terrace above. The latter faces the true north, but the mistake in the direction of the foundations was evidently discovered and the required correction made while the building was in progress, a fact which must have added considerably to the difficulties of its construction; although noticeable, it does not materially detract from the general appearance (Fig. 5).

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The other tombs of the Sūrī group, five in number, all in the Shāhābād district, are of the same general type, but each one has some distinguishing feature, such as the specially designed gateway of Aliwāl Khān’s, the architect, or the entrance to the enclosure of Hasan Khān’s, while the others show variations in the composition of their façades. Excellent though they all are, none of them approaches the solemn grandeur of Sher Shāh’s last resting-place, which takes first rank in magnificence of conception. Its pyramidal mass, the silhouette of which seen at sunset is something to be remembered, the sense of finely adjusted bulk, the proportions of its diminishing stages, the harmonious transitions from square to octagon and octagon to circle, the simplicity, breadth and scale of its parts, all combine to produce an effect of great beauty. India boasts of several mausoleums of more than ordinary splendour; the Tāj at Āgra in some of its aspects is unrivalled; over Muhammad ‘Ādil Shāh’s remains at Bījāpur spreads a dome of stupendous proportions, but Sher Shāh’s island tomb at Sasarām, grey and brooding, is perhaps the most impressive of them all.