1870.] Notes on Old Delhi. 83 



with stone lattice work, divided by two horizontal bars of solid 

 stone. The west side is filled up with a handsomely carved qiblah- 

 gah, also in stone. This niche wall is also carved on the reverse. 

 Above the range of the doors are four arched windows in stone 

 openwork and over them springs the dome. This is of ample 

 diameter and is painted with belts of colour running diagonally 

 from the bottom up to a circle of colour which fills the centre. Im- 

 mediately under the centre of the dome is a tomb of a man, and to 

 the right two women's graves, while in a row nearer the south 

 door, are the tombs of two females, and two male children. All 

 these graves are of stone ; but owing to the tomb having been 

 formerly utilized as a dwelling-house, I was unable to discover the 

 stone of which the tombs and the qiblahgah were constructed, but 

 I rather think it was marble. At a short distance to the south- 

 west inside the court-yard stands a three-domed mosque evidently 

 of the same period. The wall of this building is pierced with five 

 arches resting on low square pillars of grey stone plainly cut. 

 There is a second row of columns running down the centre of the 

 mosque. 



This tomb is considered to be that of Mubarik Shah, the second 

 of the Sayyid dynasty ; Sayyid Ahmad, however, doubts whether this 

 be the tomb of the king, as the town which he was building when 

 murdered, and where he was buried, was on the banks of the Jam- 

 nah, which Mubarikpur never can have been. Unless indeed, the 

 historical evidence be express that the monarch was buried actually 

 within, and not in the vicinity of his unfinished town, I think the 

 tomb itself affords strong evidence that the tradition is right, and 

 that the name of the site relates to the hapless Sayyid. The shape 

 of the dome, the limited use of encaustic tiles as a decoration, the 

 fashion of the door ornaments, all point to the early part of the 

 fifteenth century as the date of the building, while the costly 

 nature of the tomb, the ample court in which it stands with its 

 accompanying mosque, seem to place it beyond the means of a 

 mere nobleman, especially at a time when Delhi was at its lowest 

 point of depression. Unless therefore there be strong contemporary 

 evidence against it, I am inclined to think that the principal tomb 

 is that of the second Sayyid king. 



