Tomb of Akbar the Great

The Akbar 's Mausoleum is the tomb of Muhammad Jalaludin (1542-1605), the 1561 ruling from the third and most important ruler of the Mughal dynasty, ( ' The Great ') was mentioned as far back as Akbar. It is the largest area of ​​Tomb of India.

Location

The tomb is located about ten kilometers north-west of Agra near the former village of Sikandra within an extensive park system; the river Yamuna flows about a kilometer north past the mausoleum. In about a kilometer away is the tomb of Mariam - uz - Zamani (1542-1622), the Hindu wife of Akbar and Jahangir's mother.

History

With the construction of an immense grave Akbar's system was started during his lifetime, who was involved in the planning and execution of the gatehouse probably. The unusual multi-storey design of the actual tomb could be due to Akbar. The final completion of the monument was granted in 1613 under his son and successor Jahangir.

Architecture

Torbau

The exhibition facade of monumental acting from a distance gate construction is almost completely with inscriptions, but also coated geometric and floral decoration elements made ​​of red sandstone and white marble, slate gray blue ( spandrel ). He follows in essentially ( Ivan central arch with lateral galleries, battlements and patch pavilions ( Chhatris ) ) the concept of the gatehouse of the finished still alive Akbar mosque in Fatehpur Sikri ( Buland Darvaz ). The marble minaret towers in the corners were there already prefigured as turrets - but here they form the dominant and most visible elements are divided by Balkonumgänge and take the place of Chhatris offset now at their head. Similar minaret towers ( ' jewelery minarets ') can already be found in Persian Moscheetorbauten of the 14th century (Yazd and others) or as free-standing minaret in the complex of Gur - Emir Mausoleum (Samarkand ) from the 15th century. A few years before construction of Akbar Mausoleum they appear on the Char Minar in Hyderabad ( 1591/92 ) for the first time in a purely secular context.

Tomb

The unusual - built without a dominant central dome and thus clearly of all models solved - five-storey grave monument stands on a square plinth of 105 meters on a side. The middle three levels are open to all sides, each resting only on slender columns or piers and remember the airy architecture of the ' Panch Mahal ' in Fatehpur Sikri, the given around the year 1570 by Akbar commissioned new royal residence. The upper, made ​​entirely of white marble and continuously from richly ornamented grid barriers ( jalis ) enclosed and uncovered essay, in which a cenotaph is located, is more reminiscent of a palace ( or to the parts of similarly styled tomb for the highly revered by Akbar Sufi saint Salim Chisti in Fatehpur Sikri ). On the entire building small Chhatris are distributed along the white marble domes stand out clearly against the otherwise unused red sandstone from Rajasthan. The tomb consists of a main room with low annex buildings that are architecturally and visually tied in a completely different way to the central building, as was the case at the Humayun's Tomb.

The ornamentation of the entrance portal with its dominant Ivan Bow repeated geometric motifs and arabesques already used in the portal of the gatehouse. Otherwise, the entire facade of the ground floor is undecorated and simply plastered red. The interior of the main room with another Marmorkenotaph Akbar and smaller bill graves of two daughters of the ruler (the actual graves lie below ground ) is rich with star mosaics (floor ) as well as bands of inscription and floral paintings on plaster (walls and domed ceiling ) configured. The marble window grille include - as in Islamic art of India usual - potentially infinite geometric motifs.

Park

The mausoleum is located in the center of an extensive ( approximately 690 × 690 meters), quartered and with streams, trees, lawns and flower beds landscaped gardens in the Persian style (Char - Bagh ) in which also gazelles, monkeys ( Hanuman langurs ), peacocks and chipmunks live - an allusion to the total provided by the Quran in view of paradise. A text passage of Torinschrift is also because: "These are the gardens of Eden Come in and live forever. ".

Importance

Akbar's mausoleum is temporally classified between the tomb of his father Humayun in Delhi and the tomb of Itmad -ud- Daula ( Agra ) and the Taj Mahal, where his grandson Shah Jahan is buried.

The comparison of the gatehouses of Akbar Mausoleum and the Humayun mausoleum shows that the encrustations of red sandstone, white marble and gray-blue slate are worked decided finely divided and much occupy larger areas. The four slender and clad with white marble minaret towers of the gatehouse are regarded as important precursors for the minarets of the Taj Mahal.

In contrast to all previous and most of the later tombs of India Akbar's mausoleum also contains elements of contemporary palace architecture; or whether this represents a desire Akbar's an idea of his son Jahangir or even the unknown architect was, is not known. In any case, the huge construction can be understood with its garden not only as a grave monument, but refers also to a vielräumigen - the ruler reasonable - residence in the afterlife.