Purana Qila
Purana Qila is a fort situated on the Delhi-Mathura Road. It was constructed on the historical site of Indraprastha by Humayun and Sher Shah. It is difficult to say as to how much of the citadel is the work of Humayun and how much of it is that of Sher Shah, for there is not much difference in the architecture of the two periods. The general opinion, however, is that the wall and gates were built in the reign of Humayun while the buildings within, namely, the mosque and Sher Mandal, are the work of Sher Shah. Humayun rebuilt Indraprastha and renamed it as Dinpanah. Sher Shah strengthened the citadel of Dinpanah and renamed it as Shergarh. Salim Shah also took steps to improve the citadel. Just as Firuz Tughluq had despoiled the older cities of Siri and Jahanpanah in order to build his new city of Firuzabad, similarly Sher Shah obtained his building materials for his new city from the ruins of Firuzabad.
The citadel has a circuit of about 1.5 km. it is rectangular in shape, the east and west sides being the largest. The wall of Purana Qila are some 0.33 meters in thickness and are terminated at each corner by massive bastions. It should be note that unlike earlier fortified cities of Delhi, the walls of Purana Qila are not provided frequently with bastions; it is only the west wall, which possesses any intermediate bastions at all, the curtain between them averaging 73 meters. This was probably due to the fact that there was water on the remaining sides which rendered them immune from assault. The river at one time used to wash the eastern based of the fort and feed the protecting moat on the other three sides.
Thus, the first remarkable feature of Purana Qila is that “its bastioned ramparts, massively constructed of rubble masonry, are marvels of strength”.
The second remarkable feature is that the three gates of Purana Qila show a happy synthesis of Hindu and Muslim styles of architecture. Thus the pointed arch harmonizes with the Hindu chattris while Hindu brackets support Hindu pavilion.
The northern gate, popularly known as Tallaqi Darwaza, has among its decorations a crude representation of the solar orb. It has to panels depicting a man engaged in the mortal combat with a lion in half relief. The southern gate has also similar panels with elephants instead. Of all the gates, Tallaqi Darwaza is the most famous, for it is considered to be one of the most striking monuments of Delhi, the chattris on its summit towering between the Delhi-Mathura Road and the citadel some 39 meters above the level of the lowing lying ground.
The roof is crowned by three chattris, supported on columns of red sandstone. These chattris, with their tops covered originally with chuna of dazzling whiteness and enriched with coloured tiles, must have given the gate a very striking appearance.
But more remarkable than even the walls and gates of Purana Qila are the notable buildings inside, which have survived the onslaughts of time –Sher Mandal and Qila-i-Kuhna Masjid, Sher Mandal, a two-storied, octagonal tower, is associated with the death of Humayun, for it was on its steep stairs that he missed his step and died. The Masjid, built about 1541 A.D., is an important landmark in the history of Indo-Islamic architecture. The building has been rightly described by Fergusson as being the most perfect of those erected by Sher Shah. It marks a significant improvement on its prototype, the Jamali Masjid erected some fifteen years earlier. Within a short period of fifteen years, every feature, somewhat crudely fashioned in the Jamali Masjid, was refined, improved and amplified so that the Qila-i-Masjid Kohna became a well-balanced composition.
The Qila-i-Masjid is by no means large, for, it occupies only a rectangle of 51 meters x 13.5 meters, and its height is 20.1 meters. At its rear corners are find stair turrets, with oriel windows on brackets at intervals. These are pleasing features of the building. Even more graceful is the arrangement of its façade, divided into arched bays. The central one of these bays is larger than the others but each has an open archway recessed within it. The variety of materials employed in the façade adds to the charm – the entrance arch is of marble, the spandrels of red sandstones studded with marble bosses, the column and plasters of black and white marble. The change in the material of the façade from marble to red sandstones gives the whole bay a singularly pleasing effect. The mosque is indeed the most perfect of Sher Shah’s buildings.