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This is a two-storied building, known as the Kanch Mahal, and supposed to have been built by Jahangir as a country seat. In its extremely elaborate ornamentation, inlaid stone and enamelled tiles have been most effectively combined with the carving.
Akbar removed to Agra, from the old capital Fatehpur-Sikri, about 1568, but the only monuments that are now attributed to him are the massive walls of the fort and the red palace. Jahangir built the palace which bears his name, but as it is somewhat gloomy in appearance, his chief claims to distinction as a builder are the tombs of Itimid-ud-Daulah and Akbar's tomb at Sikandra.
The Marquis of Hastings, when Governor-General of India, broke up one of the most beautiful of the baths of the palace, and sent it home as a present to the Prince Regent, afterwards George the Fourth. The Samman Burj. The style of the inlaid work shows it to be earlier in date than the Dîwan-i-khas, and supports Fergusson's conjecture that it was built by Jahangir.
Sir Thomas Roe, James the First's ambassador, describes Jahangir at Agra taking his wife for an evening drive in a bullock cart, "the King himself being her carter." He affectionately changed her name from Nur Mahal, "Light of the Palace," to Nur Jahan, "Light of the World." The imperial coinage bore her name and an inscription, "Gold has acquired a new value since it bore the name of Nur Jahan."
It is called Chînî-ka-Rauza, or the China Tomb, and is supposed to be the mausoleum of Afzal Khan, a Persian poet, who entered the service of Jahangir, and afterwards became Prime Minister to Shah Jahan. He died in Lahore in 1639.
Here are the spreading stables and riding school; here is even the tomb of a favourite elephant. And here is the marble tomb of the Saint, the Shaikh Salim, whose holiness brought it about that the Emperor became at last the father of a son none other than Jahangir.
Indeed it may be fairly doubted whether Akbar and his son Jahangir were, to any considerable extent, believers in the system of the Arabian prophet. Far different, however, was the creed of Aurangzeb, and ruthlessly did he seek to force it upon his Hindu subjects.
Khuram, the second son of Jahangir, who succeeded his father under the title of Shah Jahan, had a Hindu mother, and two Hindu grandmothers. All his sons, however, were by a Persian consort the lady of the Taj.
After several fruitless raids with the few troopers who remained faithful to him, he allied himself with his two uncles, Mahmud and Ahmad Khan, in an attack against Tambal, one of the powerful nobles who had revolted against him and set up Jahangir, his brother, on the throne of Farghana.
The entrance gate is fine, and the approach through spacious, well-kept grounds gives one a wide perspective. The façade is of marble with considerable inlaid work. Itimid-ud-Daulah was a Persian High Treasurer, and the grandfather of the Lady of the Taj. The tomb was built by Shah Jahangir, as was that of King Akbar at Sikandra, five miles distant from Agra and a delightful excursion to make.
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