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Diwan-I-Khas Red Fort Delhi
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From the side of The Diwan-i-Khas The Diwan-i-Khas appears to sit lightly on the wall, belying both its massive weight of marble and its historical importance. The beautifully balanced facade is divided into five openings, with a blind arcade carved above two pairs of windows and a central triple one. It was behind this window that Shah Jahan sat in glory on his Peacock Throne. But the Diwan-i-Khas was later to witness some of the Mughal empire's most tragic events. In 1739 Nadir Shah plundered Muhammad Shah's Delhi and carried off the Peacock Throne to Persia. In 1788 the Rohilla Chief, Ghulam Qadir Khan, blinded Shah Alam n and dug up the palace floors in search of buried treasure. And here in 1858 the British tried the last Emperor, Bahadur Shah 11, 'ignominiously for murder', as Wilfred Blunt, a great nationalist, learnt from an old dentist. 'He saw this last of the Mogul kings crouched before the Military Commission, dressed in a piece of sacking and a coarse turban, "like a coolie". Here, too, the English soldiers slew and destroyed some thousands of innocent men in revenge for the death of about one hundred. Such are the resources of civilization.' |
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Takh-te-Taus Emperor Shah Jahan, builder and patron of the arts, is shown here seated in the jewel-encrusted Peacock Throne he commissioned. The jewel merchant Jean Baptist Tavernier declared it to be 'the principal of seven magnificent thrones, one wholly covered with diamonds. the others with rubies, emeralds, or pearls.' Whereas this painting, an eighteenth-century watercolour copy of an earlier version, gives the throne a pair of peacocks, the more trustworthy Tavernier described only one. |
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Complete web site on Red Fort Delhi with large Gallery, Introduction, History and tourist information