DOI Heft:
Nr. 333 (February 1925)
DOI Artikel:Joyce, Perrin: Ambèr-Indian fairyland
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19984#0123
mceRnAcionAL
vassal, Mirza, was building a palace more beau-
tiful than anything at Agra, he became jealous.
His especial jealousy was reserved for the red
sandstone pillars whose sculptured beauties had
been so dazzlingly described to him that he could
not brook the thought of their existence. Ac-
cordingly he sent an emissary to Mirza, bidding
him destroy the palace because he would have
nothing in all India that surpassed the splendors
of his own court. Mirza either loved beauty or
he hated waste; at any rate, he did a wily thing.
He had the sculptured pillars covered with a
thick coating of plaster; and when Jehangir's
emissaries reached Amber, they found nothing
that answered to the description given to the
Great Mogul. Stucco columns indeed! Need the
Great Mogul envy them? They returned to
Jehangir and reported that the accounts of
Mirza's new palace had been greatly exagger-
ated. And the work went on. But neither in
Mirza's lifetime nor at any later time has the
stucco been removed from the beautiful pillars
of the Dewain Khas.
Mirza also built the Jess Munder, a pavilion
of white marble that must have looked, at first
glance, more like a Moorish than an Indian
palace. Within it was divided into three apart-
ments, the walls of which were covered from
floor to ceiling, with mosaics and inlays. The
mosaics were made of polished stones—agates,
turquoises and others—and bits of looking glass.
A ray of sunlight falling upon them sparkled
brilliantly and broke into a shower of colored
light. This and the Dewain Khas were part of
buildings in the inner court where the princes
themselves lived.
After Mirza came Jay Singh II, a most
worthy scholar and a most illustrious prince
whose name is still honored throughout India.
There is much to his credit, as we shall see; but
to his everlasting discredit it must be told
that it was he who commanded the inhabitants
of Amber to abandon the city and move into his
newly-founded city of Jeypore.
Jey Singh II was a man ruined by an excess
of industry; he grew too quickly bored, too
easily surfeited with the manifold and fascinating
activities of his life. In the early part of his
reign, he warred royally upon all and sundry and
even had to reconquer some of his own territories
wrested from him in battle. When his wars were
over, he turned to architecture for amusement,
and added to the beauties of his ancestral palace
in many ways, chiefly by the erection of a gate-
way at the entrance to the inner court. This is
the gateway with the windows whose marble
FEBRUARY 1925
three eigbty-tbree
vassal, Mirza, was building a palace more beau-
tiful than anything at Agra, he became jealous.
His especial jealousy was reserved for the red
sandstone pillars whose sculptured beauties had
been so dazzlingly described to him that he could
not brook the thought of their existence. Ac-
cordingly he sent an emissary to Mirza, bidding
him destroy the palace because he would have
nothing in all India that surpassed the splendors
of his own court. Mirza either loved beauty or
he hated waste; at any rate, he did a wily thing.
He had the sculptured pillars covered with a
thick coating of plaster; and when Jehangir's
emissaries reached Amber, they found nothing
that answered to the description given to the
Great Mogul. Stucco columns indeed! Need the
Great Mogul envy them? They returned to
Jehangir and reported that the accounts of
Mirza's new palace had been greatly exagger-
ated. And the work went on. But neither in
Mirza's lifetime nor at any later time has the
stucco been removed from the beautiful pillars
of the Dewain Khas.
Mirza also built the Jess Munder, a pavilion
of white marble that must have looked, at first
glance, more like a Moorish than an Indian
palace. Within it was divided into three apart-
ments, the walls of which were covered from
floor to ceiling, with mosaics and inlays. The
mosaics were made of polished stones—agates,
turquoises and others—and bits of looking glass.
A ray of sunlight falling upon them sparkled
brilliantly and broke into a shower of colored
light. This and the Dewain Khas were part of
buildings in the inner court where the princes
themselves lived.
After Mirza came Jay Singh II, a most
worthy scholar and a most illustrious prince
whose name is still honored throughout India.
There is much to his credit, as we shall see; but
to his everlasting discredit it must be told
that it was he who commanded the inhabitants
of Amber to abandon the city and move into his
newly-founded city of Jeypore.
Jey Singh II was a man ruined by an excess
of industry; he grew too quickly bored, too
easily surfeited with the manifold and fascinating
activities of his life. In the early part of his
reign, he warred royally upon all and sundry and
even had to reconquer some of his own territories
wrested from him in battle. When his wars were
over, he turned to architecture for amusement,
and added to the beauties of his ancestral palace
in many ways, chiefly by the erection of a gate-
way at the entrance to the inner court. This is
the gateway with the windows whose marble
FEBRUARY 1925
three eigbty-tbree