Humayun’s Tomb
Humayun’s Tomb, located on the western bank of the river Yamuna in the Nizamuddin area of Delhi, is the first major mausoleum of the Mughal architecture tradition and the building that established the formal vocabulary that would govern imperial funerary architecture for the next two centuries. Commissioned in 1565 by Hamida Banu Begum, the widow of the second Mughal emperor Humayun, and designed by the Persian architect Mirak Mirza Ghiyas, the tomb was completed in 1572 and inaugurated a building type that synthesised the Persian Timurid mausoleum with Indian trabeate construction, the symmetrical charbagh garden of Persian inspiration, and a symbolic programme of imperial legitimacy that was to influence Mughal tombs as varied as the tomb of Akbar at Sikandra, the tomb of Jahangir at Lahore, and the Taj Mahal at Agra. The complex was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1993.
Historical Context and Commission
Humayun died on 24 January 1556, falling from the stairs of his library in Delhi, and his body was initially interred in a temporary tomb at the site where the present mausoleum stands. The political circumstances of the years following Humayun’s death, dominated by the reign of his son Akbar and the regency of Bairam Khan, postponed the construction of an imperial mausoleum for nearly a decade. The decision to build a permanent tomb at Delhi was made by Hamida Banu Begum around 1565, at a moment when the consolidation of Akbar’s authority had stabilised the dynasty’s finances and when the symbolic needs of the new regime were beginning to assert themselves.
The choice of architect was significant. Mirak Mirza Ghiyas was a master builder from Herat, the capital of the Timurid successor state of Khurasan, and he had worked on the monuments of that city before being recruited into the imperial service. The presence of a Herati master in the Mughal workshop in the 1560s is consistent with the policy of recruiting Persian and Central Asian craftsmen that was a feature of Akbar’s early patronage, and it explains the direct descent of the tomb’s design from the Timurid mausoleums of Samarkand, Herat, and Khurasan.
The Charbagh Setting
The tomb is set within a large rectangular charbagh garden, about twelve hectares in extent, that occupies the western flank of the river Yamuna and that was laid out at the same time as the mausoleum itself. The garden is divided into four equal parts by means of axial water channels and raised walkways, with the principal building placed on a raised platform at the centre of the composition. The use of running water in the form of channels and pools was intended to evoke the four rivers of paradise described in the Quran, and the integration of the building with the surrounding landscape was a deliberate application of the conventions of the Persian Timurid garden.
The plant material of the original garden has not survived in its original form, but contemporary references describe a planting that included fruit trees, cypresses, poplars, and a range of flowering and scented shrubs consistent with the conventions of the Persian garden. The use of the charbagh plan at Humayun’s Tomb established the convention that would govern imperial Mughal funerary architecture for the next two centuries, and the Taj Mahal garden represents the most elaborate later development of the type.
The Mausoleum
The mausoleum is constructed on a high platform of red sandstone, the principal material of the building, with white marble used for the dome, the principal decorative elements, and the cenotaph chamber at the centre. The plan of the building follows a square with the four corners chamfered, producing an irregular octagonal outline, and the facades are articulated with pointed iwan portals and the smaller two-storey niches that became a Mughal signature. At the centre of the structure rises a high double dome of white marble, about forty-two metres in height, supported on a high drum and crowned by a finial that combines Persian and Indian motifs.
The double dome is one of the technical innovations of the building. The outer dome, of white marble, is a shell supported on a framework that transfers the loads to the inner dome of brick and lime plaster, and the technique allowed the builders to achieve a much greater apparent height than would have been possible with a single shell. The double dome became a feature of the major Mughal mausoleums, and the Taj Mahal, the tomb of Jahangir at Lahore, and the tomb of Safdarjung in Delhi all employ variations on the system.
The interior of the building follows an octagonal plan organised around the central chamber that houses the cenotaph of Humayun. The interior surfaces are faced with marble inlay and carved ornament that draw on both Persian and Indian prototypes, and the calligraphic bands that run around the iwan arches include passages from the Quran chosen for their resonance with themes of divine mercy and paradise. The cenotaph itself is a simple marble sarcophagus placed on a raised platform at the centre of the chamber, and the actual tomb of the emperor is located in a subterranean chamber below.
Materials and Construction
The principal building materials were red sandstone from the quarries of the Delhi region and white marble from the Makrana quarries in Rajasthan, supplemented by a range of polychrome inlay stones. The construction of the tomb involved the use of load-bearing walls, true domes supported on squinches, and a series of timber tie-beams that were inserted to address the lateral thrust of the central dome. The construction techniques used at Humayun’s Tomb are characteristic of the Mughal tomb construction techniques of the period, and they established a number of the conventions that would be refined in the later mausoleums of the tradition.
The workforce that built the tomb was drawn from across the empire and beyond, with master craftsmen from Persia, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent working alongside one another in the imperial workshop. The scale of the project required a substantial labour force, and the organisation of the work provides an early example of the methods that would be used in the larger imperial projects of the later seventeenth century.
Symbolic Programme
The tomb of Humayun was conceived as a statement of imperial legitimacy and as a representation of the new dynasty’s place in the Islamic and Timurid traditions of kingship. The choice of a Persian architect, the adoption of the charbagh garden plan, the use of the double dome of white marble, and the integration of Quranic inscriptions in the calligraphic programme all locate the building within the Timurid imperial tradition established by the Gur-e-Amir in Samarkand and elaborated in the monuments of Herat and Khurasan.
The location of the tomb in the Nizamuddin area also had symbolic significance. The neighbourhood was associated with the celebrated Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya, who had died in 1325 and whose tomb was located in the vicinity, and the construction of an imperial mausoleum in the vicinity of the saint’s tomb associated the new dynasty with the broader tradition of Indian Sufism. The choice was a deliberate act of religious and political legitimation, and it was a precedent for the association of imperial mausoleums with the principal Sufi shrines that became a feature of the Mughal patronage of saintly tombs.
Influence on Later Mughal Tombs
Humayun’s Tomb is the prototype for the Mughal funerary tradition, and its formal vocabulary, including the charbagh setting, the high double dome of white marble, the iwan facades, and the integration of the building with the surrounding garden, was to govern the design of Mughal mausoleums for the next two centuries. The tomb of Akbar at Sikandra, the tomb of Jahangir at Lahore, the Taj Mahal at Agra, the tomb of Itimad-ud-Daulah, the tomb of Safdarjung in Delhi, and the Bibi Ka Maqbara at Aurangabad can all be understood as variations on or developments of the model established at Humayun’s Tomb.
Restoration and Conservation
The post-Independence period has seen a major restoration of the tomb and its gardens under the supervision of the Archaeological Survey of India. The Aga Khan Trust for Culture led an extensive restoration campaign between 1999 and 2013 that included the repair of the water channels, the restoration of the garden planting, the conservation of the building fabric, and the development of a comprehensive site management plan. The restoration is widely regarded as a landmark in the conservation of Mughal architecture, and it has been the subject of considerable scholarly and public attention.
Sources
- Catherine B. Asher, Architecture of Mughal India (1992), pp. 33–38.