A History of Agriculture in India v2.c82.s1: Shahjahanabad
A History of Agriculture in India v2.c82.s1
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Shahjahanabad
v2.c82.s1.1
The present city of Old Delhi owes its existence to Shah Jahan and was named Shahjahanabad after him. It was built on a regular plan, far surpassing the earlier one in magnificence. There were three wide streets. One, known as Chandni Chowk, was of great length. It was ornamented by a canal and rows of trees, and was composed of houses rising over a line of shops under arcades. On the Jamuna stood the Red Fort, a fortified palace with spacious courts, marble halls, golden domes and a magnificent garden irrigated by a canal. Water flowed through a channel lined by marble. Over the channel is a carved marble screen of great beauty bearing a representation of scales of justice.
v2.c82.s1.2
The city of Shahjahanabad was more like a camp, as the vast majority of the population consisted of officials, soldiers and their hangers-on, who followed the Emperor when he was travelling to different parts of the Empire. On such occasions, the city appeared empty, and very much like New Delhi during summer under the British rule, when the Secretariat moved to Simla.
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The French traveller, Francois Bernier, a doctor by profession, who lived in Delhi as an employee of a Mughal noble, Danishmand Khan, has left a vivid description of the city. He writes, ‘There are five streets, not so long nor so straight as the two principal ones, but resembling them in every other respect. Of the numberless streets which cross each other, many have arcades; but having been built at different periods by individuals who paid no regard to symmetry, very few are so well built, so wide, or so straight as those I have described.
v2.c82.s1.4
‘Amid these streets are dispersed the habitations of Mansebdars, or petty Omrahs, officers of justice, rich merchants, and others, many of which have a tolerable appearance. Very few are built entirely of brick or stone, and several are made only of clay and straw, yet they are airy and pleasant, most of them having courts and gardens, being commodious inside and containing good furniture. The thatched roof is supported by a layer of long, handsome and strong canes, and the clay walls are covered with a fine white lime.
v2.c82.s1.5
‘Intermixed with these different houses is an immense number of small ones, built of mud and thatched with straw, in which lodge the common troopers, and all that vast multitude of servants and camp-followers who follow the court and the army. It is owing to these thatched cottages that Delhi is subject to such frequent conflagrations. More than sixty thousand roofs were consumed this last year by three fires, during the prevalence of certain impetuous winds which blow generally in summer.
v2.c82.s1.6
‘It is because of these wretched mud and thatch houses that I always represent to myself Delhi as a collection of many villages, or as a military encampment with a few more conveniences than are usually found in such places.’²
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² Bernier, F. Travels in the Mughal Empire, p. 346