The previous week Nick was strolling among autumn leaves atop moss clinging to granite pummeled by Baltic surf under fortress walls on Suomenlinna Island in Helsinki. His explorations the following week of the Mughal Empire (1526-1857) capital of Shahjahanabad and its Red Fort, Jama Masjid mosque, Jain, Sikh and Hindu temples couldn’t have been more of a contrast.
He first climbed the turrets of the Red Fort (Lal Qila, 1648) to explore their architectural majesty before wandering through British Raj barracks built after the 1857 Sepoy rebellion brought an end to Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar and the Mughal Empire. He then studied the exquisite marble of the royal court that once overlooked the Yamuna River: the Rang Mahal, Khas Mahal, Moti Masjid and Mumtaz Mahal where most of the floral designs of inlaid semi-precious stones had been removed, but many still remained.
Constructed by Shah Jahan when he moved the Mughal capital from Agra in 1638, the Red Fort complex is one of the most impressive bastions in the world. Opposite its Lahore Gate, heading west for several blocks on the south side of the Chandni Chowk bazaar (Moonlight Square, where a reflective canal once flowed), are found several manifestations of the spiritual history of India.
Left of the entrance to the bazaar is Digamber Jain Temple. On the outside, the temple is composed of the red sandstone interspersed with marble reminiscent of the Red Fort, while the temple rooms on its second floor exhibit murals of vast intricacy blending with the fragrance of myriad spices and incense. The tumult of Chandni Chowk, just over a balcony, doesn’t even register, Digamber Temple is truly a refuge.
The original temple was built in 1526, but after a building frenzy in the 1800s most of what is seen dates from that time. Like the Buddha, one of the spiritual successors of Jainism known as Mahavira (the 24th Tirthankara or “teacher of the dharma”) renounced everything to search for the meaning of life in the 6th century BC, realizing Kevala Gyan (omniscience). The Jains don’t actually think of Mahivara as the founder of the religion, like Christians think of Christ or Buddhists of Buddha, but rather as the last of the “ford-finders”, or Tirthankaras worshipped in temple rooms of spice and incense, with devotees making offerings of rice, fruit and candles.
Jains believe that all life is sacred and behind the temple is a tall, skinny building that acts as their bird hospital. They take injured (mostly pigeons) off the crowded streets where they’ve been clipped or crushed by rickshaws or pedestrians and attempt to nurse them back to health in scruffy, stinking cages stacked to the ceiling in long, narrow rooms. Donations for the birds are suggested while beggars roam the streets outside.
Next door on Chandni Chowk, the Gauri Shankar Hindu Temple’s two steep entrances are hidden by a garland market at street level, acting as bookends. As Nick sat to remove shoes before ascending, the smell of flowers mingled with delicious food-vendor odors and the hallucinogenic colors of wreaths newly fashioned, preparing him for the sacred lingam temple.
A broad courtyard opened to the sky at the top of the stairs, with the main temple bordered by smaller shrines along each side dedicated to the pantheon of Hindu gods: Durga, Hanuman, Yamuna, etc. Some of these shrines border on the tacky with their bright colors and plastic beads and necklaces, but the 800 year-old lingam at the center of the courtyard counters through its authenticity. The brown lingam is a phallic stone set in a marble representation of the the female genitalia, the yoni, which is encased in silver decorated with snakes, Shiva’s ornament of choice. The linga is the revered symbol of Shiva and thus represents the cosmic pillar, the center of the universe, life itself. Typically lingams at Angkor and in Thai temples are tall and stylized, but this one was either worn down by centuries of rubbing and worship, or else was naturally in the shape of a phallus.
To observe men and women kneeling, fervently praying over and touching the phallic symbol, pouring libations of cool water and placing wood apple leaves, marigolds, red powder, henna, rice and sandalwood paste in special arrangements atop it, is a sight to behold; fellatio is what it comes to mind: worship of the erotic energy that drives the universe. The herbal mixture falls into a marble bath in which sit carvings of Lord Shiva, his bull Nandi and his wife Parvati, all wearing gold jewelry. Niches along the walls hold single candles illuminating stone images of numerous deities of the 3,000-year-old religion.
The Sisganj Gurdwara Sikh Temple five minutes walk west through the Chandni Chowk maelstrom is recognized by gold domes glinting under a hazy sky. The Sikh religion originated from the founder of the faith, Guru Nanak, who was born into a Punjabi Hindu family in 1469. Raised under Hindu and Islamic influences, he came to realize all the suffering caused by wars between the two beliefs was senseless. He strove to end the fighting and bring the two sides together. He preached there was only one god, that all were the children of god and that divisions between Hindus and Mulsims was meaningless. Unlike Hindu Gurus, Guru Nanak encouraged people to find god while living normal family lives without the need to renounce earthly attachments.
He based the emphasis of his teachings on moral values, not ceremonies and rituals. His teachings were continued by ten Sikh Gurus. The Mughal Emperor Akbar was impressed by their integrity and granted land with a pool that to this day holds the Golden Temple in Amritsar. In 1604 a book by the fifth Guru was compiled and placed in the Golden Temple. The book was a collection of hymns written by the four earlier Gurus, plus those written by five Muslim and ten Hindu saints. Now known as the Holy Book it contains 5894 hymns and verses.
After checking his shoes, Nick passed a turbaned Sikh Guard with spear in full regalia beside the cacophonous street who pulled him aside to affix a covering atop his sacrilegious head. Climbing marble steps alongside pilgrims who’d washed their feet and covered their heads, he entered a large hall with Sikh musicians singing hymns from the Holy Book. Beside them, and the focus of the hall, was a marble table with silk blankets nestling the Sikh Holy Book, the Guru Granth Sahib, resting beneath a golden canopy. Underneath this structure, in a marble grotto, is the cage where the ninth Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur was held captive before being martyred beneath a banyan tree in 1675. He was killed for speaking out against Mughal Emperor Aurgazeb’s use of weapons to enforce conversions to Islam. A piece of the banyan tree is enshrined in a small room just off the main hall. Pilgrims line up to pay homage to the cage, then sit and reflect while meditating on the wailing tunes.
Next door there is an exquisite mosque overlooking the hustle and bustle of Chandni Chowk, with a tiny courtyard under three marble domes. This is the Sunheri Masjid (The Golden Mosque), from whose steps in 1739 the Persian King, Nadir Shah, after defeating Mughal ruler Mohammed Shah, sat and watched his troops massacre the local citizens, leaving the streets of Old Delhi littered with corpses. Estimates are Persian soldiers killed 30,000, perhaps more, in retaliation for a small uprising that resulted in the deaths of several of their troops. After the Sunheri Masjid, Nick wandered deep into the Shajahanabad labyrinth, down narrow, colorful, wildly primitive alleys so tight only a rickshaw can fit.
In Old Delhi there are only rickshaw, bicycle and wagon cart jams going nowhere as they disappear down streets filled with seething humanity. Trying to get his bearings, Nick spied the soaring towers of Jama Masjid Mosque above distant rooftops. Having some idea of his location he rested and imbibed fresh pomegranate juice from a vendor while observing the frenetic buying, selling, chatting, cycling and bartering all around him.
At the Jama Masjid Mosque (1656) a sage in an arched prayer room along the courtyard walls offered him a small glass tube that held a “beard hair” of the Prophet Mohammed. The sage also had a “footprint” in marble for sale he claimed was Mohammed’s as well. All Nick wanted was a view of the ancient city, so he paid a few rupees and ascended the left tower, squeezing past others on its narrow steps for not only an expansive perspective of the historic Mughal capital, but a connection with Samarkand’s Registan and Tamerlane. Following the Jama Masjid visit, Delhi’s legendary poverty was overwhelming as he descended its expansive steps covered with street children holding month-old babies in their thin arms. Some of the newborns were dead, others likely drugged; desperate children begging to keep from ending up the same.
As he returned to the Red Fort to catch a tuk-tuk, towering thunderheads were building in the east while vultures circled above the mayhem of the ancient city: the weight of history part of its stifling air.
After negotiating with a friendly tuk-tuk driver named Pankaj, their first stop was a pilgrimage to Raj Ghat to pay respects to Gandhi. Nick had visited the house (now museum) where Gandhi had spent the final days of his life before being assassinated in its backyard in 1948 on a previous visit, and wanted to immerse himself in the Mahatma’s final resting place. Raj Ghat means the Royal Steps which used to lead from the walls of Shajahanabad to the banks of the Yamuna River through a gate. Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India and two Gandhi Premiers, Indira and Rajiv, are among other notables enshrined at Raj Ghat.
After an inspiring visit with one of the great political and spiritual leaders of the 20th century, Nick hopped in the tuk-tuk with Pankaj to visit Feroz Shah Kotla Fort south along the traffic clogged Ring Road. Predating Shajahanabad by almost 300 years, this fortress was built by Emperor Feroz Shah Tughluq (r. 1351-1388) in 1354, establishing Ferozabad as the new capital of the Delhi Sultanate.
A 3rd century BC “pillar of the Dharma”, as Mauryan Emperor Ashoka called his method of declaring royal edicts across the Buddhist empire (stretching from present day Afghanistan to Bangladesh), was erected atop a terrace inside the fort. Also within the fortress walls is the original Jama Masjid Mosque visited by Tamerlane in 1398 during his India campaign before returning inspired to build the exquisite Bibi Khanym Mosque (1399-1404) in Samarkand.
After thoroughly scrambling over and through the crumbling fortress walls of Feroz Shah, Nick drove with Pankaj further south along the congested Ring and Mathura Roads to the fortress of Purana Qila. Archaeological excavations have dated it to the pre-Mauryan era of the 3rd century BC, when it was known as Indraprastha, home of the Pandavas, one of the families at the center of the Mahabharata, the epic Sanskrit poem and original Game of Thrones.
Inside the walls of Purana Qila the 500-year-old, two-story red sandstone Sher Mandal library & octagonal observatory built by Babur (descended from Tamerlane and Genghis Khan) for his son Humayan and the pre-Mughal Qila-i-Kuhna Mosque (1541) sit atop the 5,000 year-old mound currently being excavated by the Archaeological Survey of India. Humayan slipped and fell down the observatory’s stairs and died in 1556 after star gazing. Inside the mosque is a slab with an inscription that declares: "As long as there are people on the earth, may this edifice be frequented and people be happy and cheerful in it”.
Entering Humayun’s Tomb (1570, south past the zoo on Mathura Road from Purana Qila), Nick followed two-hundred school girls dressed in blue skirts and white blouses, each having identical long, black pig tails with a red bow on top. As he entered the main gate and headed toward the sandstone and marble turrets of an inner gate of the mausoleum commissioned by the Mughal King in 1565 for his spouse, the sea of uniformed girls paraded ahead of him. Humayun’s Tomb is an architectural linchpin, for not only did it take its inspiration from the Gūr-i Amīr, his ancestor Tamerlane’s mausoleum (1404) in Samarkand, but it inspired the tomb of his grandson, Shah Jahan: the Taj Mahal (1632).
Next to Humayan’s tomb is an even older, pre-Mughal octagonal masterpiece, the Isa Khan Niaze mausoleum. Isa Khan Niaze (1453-1548) was a nobleman in the court of Sher Shah Suri of the Delhi Sultanate. He was a Pashtun and one of the Niaze clan’s descendants is currently the Prime Minister of Pakistan: Imran Khan Niaze.
Back in the tuk-tuk, Pankaj drove southwest away from the banks of the Yamuna to the 238’ Qutab Minar tower (1199). Construction commenced under the first ruler of the Delhi Sultanate, Qutab-ud-din Aibak after he defeated the last Hindu kingdom. It rises from the first mosque in India (1197) of the same name and was constructed not only for muezzin calling the faithful to prayer, but also as a military observation point for spotting advancing armies. Feroz Shah Tughlak finished its fifth and final story in 1368. Over the eastern gate an inscription proudly states it was built from the destruction of 27 Hindu temples. The Kalyan minaret (150’) in Bukhara, Uzbekistan was built earlier, in 1127, but isn’t nearly as ornate nor as high.
Returning through the congested backstreets of New Delhi, they miraculously came upon the 3rd century BC Agrasen ki Baoli step well, purportedly built by King Agrasen of the Solar Dynasty, descendant of Lord Rama and proponent of the Vanika Dharma. It’s amazing a utilitarian architectural gem of such an age exists in a residential neighborhood.
Heading to the city center they were caught in a massive traffic jam caused by a sacred Brahman bull nonchalantly strolling down the middle of the road. After settling with Pankaj, Nick began exploring the British colonial shopping district of Connaught Circle when a bomb exploded. He learned later the device had been deployed on the opposite side of the circle by a Free Jammu and Kashmir group, fortunately injuring no one. Timing is everything.
© 2021 James B. Angell All Rights Reserved
Old Delhi
Very cool! Gives a flavor of what it's like to be on the streets. I especially liked coming across the giant well...