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City Curtain-Raiser – Humayun Museum, Near Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya’s Dargah

City Curtain-Raiser - Humayun Museum, Nera Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's Dargah

India’s new heritage site museum.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

City Curtain-Raiser - Humayun Museum, Nera Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's Dargah

Nestled in a corner of the pristine Sunder Nursery garden, across the road from Humayun’s Tomb, a series of red sandstone ramps gently head to the grassy ground beneath. They descend into corridors and halls with massive sheesham doorways that summon the grandeur of Fatehpur Sikri’s Buland Darwaza. Inside, await five huge galleries of granite flooring, marble columns, and stone benches.

Delhi is crusted with layers and layers of past. These exist laterally, extending outwards, but also vertically, beneath the ground, under a surface that millions of feet pound on every day. It is fitting, then, that the newest landmark of this city of graveyards is entirely underground.

City Curtain-Raiser - Humayun Museum, Nera Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's Dargah

Opening next month, the Humayun Museum lies beneath the soil on which the Mughal identity, which gave a distinctive character to India and left an indelible mark, first began to take shape. Indeed, the earliest city of the Mughals was not Agra, or Lahore, or Fatehpur Sikri. Neither was it the Walled City of Shahjahanabad, the so-called Purani Dilli. It was the immediate earth around the much older 14th century shrine of Delhi’s great Sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. This is the assertion of the nation’s newest museum.

“The Humayun Museum will serve as a gateway to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Humayun’s Tomb,” says Ratish Nanda, the CEO of Aga Khan Trust for Culture, which has built the museum. “Each artefact relays and interprets the story of this historic precinct, where 700 years of monumental architecture is surrounded with craft, music, culture, and pluralism.”

On stepping inside the museum, visitors are transported into the world of Humayun’s Tomb — from the 16th century, when the monument was built, to the later centuries whose narrative the Tomb helped shape, and right up to this modern age. Each galley is arrayed in numerous clusters devoted to chosen themes – their arrangement resembling French gardens where the hedges are arranged like a maze. The clusters feature artefacts, replicas, films playing on loop, architectural models, stone fragments, sculpture and paintings that come together to weave hundreds of years of stories.

City Curtain-Raiser - Humayun Museum, Nera Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's Dargah

The Humayun Museum is the culmination of 15 years’ work by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in partnership with the Archaeological Survey of India — the same team that restored Humayun’s Tomb. Fashioned as a site museum, the subterranean sprawl awakens the visitors to the aesthetics of a slice of land that was — due to its intimate proximity to Hazrat Nizamuddin’s shrine — the preferred burial field for paupers and badshahs alike. The dargah was venerated by the Mughals all through their 331-plus-year rule. Each of the 18 rulers kept their links with this Sufi terrain; if not always through ziyarat (pilgrimage), then through architecture, or by making the zameen (ground) their final resting place.

Until now, India’s only prominent UNESCO World Heritage Site museum was in Sarnath, which bears a collection of 7,000 precious objects, out of which 300 are on display. The new museum in Delhi exhibits 700 objects, out of which 500 are original — some are provided by the National Museum, and many are from the collection of the Archaeological Survey of India and the Aga Khan Trust. The 200 replicas are of the same dimensions and in the same materials as their originals, made by artists trained in the crafts of the time.

For this curtain-raiser, I have shortlisted 10 handpicked exhibits that give you a sense of the museum, and era it commemorates.

City Curtain-Raiser - Humayun Museum, Nera Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's Dargah

Where objects speak

1. The inscribed dagger

City Curtain-Raiser - Humayun Museum, Nera Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's Dargah

This small weapon helps us understand who Humayun was.

Who was he?

Humayun’s father Babar founded the Mughal dynasty. Humayun’s son Akbar became the greatest of all the Mughals. Humayun himself remains somewhat out of focus. The most famous thing about him is the Humayun’s Tomb — and that wasn’t built by him.

The museum reveals the lesser-known Humayun. Far from being a nonentity, he was a warrior who fought battles, founded the Mughal school of miniature art, and lost Hindustan (to Sher Shah Suri) after ruling it for about a decade, but then re-won it 15 years later. During the intervening years, Humayun stayed in Iran for 11 months as a guest of its Shah. And this dagger belonged to the Shah, inscribed with the words: “Sultan Tahmasp Safari.” The iron blade, with its graceful curve, is a tangible link to a long, tumultuous period in Humayun’s life. A life full of contrasting probabilities that could have spun our national history to any of the “what if” alternatives.

2. The grand throne

City Curtain-Raiser - Humayun Museum, Nera Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's Dargah

City Curtain-Raiser - Humayun Museum, Nera Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's Dargah

On this, he must have sat and mulled upon the end of his dynasty. This was the ornate throne of the final Mughal emperor.

At first, Bahadur Shah Zafar’s marble throne looks small, not quite a seat of power. Gradually, it grows on the senses, becoming statelier as one observes it. The armrests are supported by latticework in stone. The tip of each armrest curves into stylised swans. Rows of coloured spots appear to mark the places inlaid with gems, though these are traces of severely faded paint.

A devotee of Sufis, Zafar had allotted himself a grave next to the dargah of a cherished Sufi saint in Mehrauli. His plan didn’t work. Following the failure of the 1857 war of independence, in which Indian fighters rejected British rule and chose Zafar as their nominal ruler, the emperor was sent into exile in Rangoon, Burma (now Myanmar), where he was eventually buried.

Now, finally, Zafar finds some posthumous peace in the museum. His throne commands a part of the gallery that celebrates his beloved Sufi mystics. The saint of Mehrauli belongs to the same Sufi order as Hazrat Nizamuddin, the surrounding grounds of whose shrine eventually became the resting place of hundreds of Mughal royals. Called the “dormitory of the Mughals,” Humayun’s Tomb is home to 160 graves, most in ground-level vaults.

A display case beside Zafar’s throne details all the Mughal monarchs who visited Hazrat Nizamuddin’s dargah. Their veneration began in 1526, following Babar’s victory over Ibrahim Lodi. Among the first things that Babar did on entering Delhi was to pray at this dargah. Years later, his son Humayun built his capital of Dinpanah, known as Purana Qila, close to the dargah. Humayun also built a tomb for his mother, Maham Begum — it was even closer to the dargah (and today functions as a traffic island.)

Then, Humayun’s successor, Akbar, built a mausoleum for his father close to Hazrat Nizamuddin’s dargah — the Humayun’s Tomb. As one of the two most first significant Mughal monuments, it was also the model for the other, the Taj Mahal. The tomb was Zafar’s refuge after he lost the uprising to the British, and it was from here that he was arrested and deported to Rangoon.

3. The book of poems

City Curtain-Raiser - Humayun Museum, Near Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's Dargah

The book is opened in the middle. The left-hand page has Persian text in narrow columns; the right-hand page shows a painting of robed men in a garden, with a deer behind the bushes.

This is the 14th century illustrated and handwritten manuscript of the romantic poem Laila Majnu. The version is by poet Abdullah, who was of Jam town in modern-day Afghanistan. The manuscript has 332 pages, 18 illustrations. Some bear floral details in gold. The copy does not belong to Humayun, but its presence reiterates that books were his spiritual companions.

Literature was in Humayun’s lifeblood. His father authored one of the world’s most vivid early memoirs (Baburnama). Humayun himself was a poet who penned in Persian and Turki. An avid reader, he was a compulsive collector of books. His library was carried along on all his frequent journeys, on the backs of special library camels called shutur-i-kitubkhana. Once, his encampment was attacked in a battlefield close to Kabul, and the camels carrying his library were lost, causing him acute anguish. The books were retrieved when the camels carrying them were spotted wandering on their own.

Upon losing the Bengal sultanate to Sher Shah Suri, Humayun was obliged to add even more distance to his travels. In all, he journeyed 34,000km — from present day Bangladesh to the borders of Europe. His books would always be with him, and they found their final home in his city of Dinpanah, where Humayun built a double-storeyed kitubkhana, or library. The museum exhibits a beautiful model of the library. A painting displays the tile decor of the interiors as they originally looked. The tiles in the actual library have lost their shine, the walls showing the faded gleam of their colour.

For a man who spent much of his life on the road, and much of that time in wars, it was a tragic yet fitting farewell that the book-collector Humayun died in his library after slipping on its steep stairs at the age of 47.

4. The seven sculptures

City Curtain-Raiser - Humayun Museum, Near Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's Dargah

Although born in Kabul, the texture of Humayun’s daily life was steeped in the traditions of the land where he was eventually buried. The museum’s seven bronze Humayuns are sculpted by Scottish artist Jill Watson. Each Humayun is wearing the same ulbaqcha — a jacket that the emperor designed himself — but robes are of different colours. In Hindu astrological traditions, planets associated with a day of the week are worshipped as deities.

To avail the benefits of the powers associated with the planets, Humayun matched the colour of his robes to correspond to the colour of the planet of the day. For instance, white (moon) was for Monday, and black (Saturn) was for Saturday. The day Humayun fatally slipped, he was on his library’s roof, waiting for a word from his mathematician, whom he had sent to observe the rise of Venus in order to set the most auspicious hour to make an administrative decision. Since he died on a Sunday, Humayun must have been wearing a golden robe.

5. The silver coin

City Curtain-Raiser - Humayun Museum, Near Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's Dargah

The silver rupee coin bears the Arabic inscription, “Allahu Akbar jallajalaluhu”. Flip it around, and it bears, in Persian, the word “Ram”. Minted during Akbar’s reign in Berar, which is in present-day Maharashtra, the coin is evidence of the Muslim-born ruler’s fascination for various faiths — a passion that led him to propound the spiritual system “Din-i-Ilahi”, or the “religion of God”. This aspect of Akbar is also reflected in another exhibit — a much-faded 17th century Persian-language farman, or royal decree, issued by him, referring to scores of land allotments for the construction of temples.

6. The wooden canopy

City Curtain-Raiser - Humayun Museum, Near Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's Dargah

City Curtain-Raiser - Humayun Museum, Near Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's Dargah

The age-old tradition does not let women enter Hazrat Nizamuddin’s small grave chamber. The museum has an exact replica — not of the grave but of the grave chamber’s spectacular wooden canopy gifted by a Mughal noble from 17th century Bengal. The mother-of-pearl is inlaid, ostensibly to mimic the starry effect of the night sky. A giant Tree of Life holds up each of the four corners of the canopy. In a sense, the museum’s spiritual core is this recreated canopy, simply because its original hangs over Hazrat Nizamuddin’s grave. Had the saint’s grave not existed here, there would be no Sufi dargah at this place, and no Humayun’s Tomb.

7. The wall tiles

City Curtain-Raiser - Humayun Museum, Near Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's Dargah

City Curtain-Raiser - Humayun Museum, Near Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's Dargah

City Curtain-Raiser - Humayun Museum, Near Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's Dargah

The golden vase looks fragile, as if could shatter upon touch. The vase exists as a drawing on a damaged tile and lies beside tiles of competing exquisiteness.

The 17th century Shahjahani tiles were recovered by Old Delhi’s illustrious Persian scholar, the late Yunus Jaffrey, from Neeli Chatri monument at the foot of Salimgarh Fort, which stands beside the Red Fort. It was Humayun’s favoured riverside pavilion, where he would often look at the Yamuna, or read a book. The edifice still exists, without the tiles. Luckily, a handful of Delhi’s monuments continue to hold on to their glazed tiles (plainer than the Shahjahani tiles), which are indicative of the central Asian origins of the Mughals. Such tiles also adorned parts of Humayun’s Tomb, but most were lost by the 1950s and were replaced during the tomb’s restoration with new tiles.

8. Chinese porcelain

City Curtain-Raiser - Humayun Museum, Near Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's Dargah

No Chinese takeaway existed in Mughal India. But Chinese crockery certainly did. The Mughal royalty had their daily meals in Chinese porcelain vessels, as confirmed in Emperor feasting with envoys (1598), one of the original paintings in the museum. The adjoining glass case displays four plates and two bowls. They were excavated decades ago from the ruins of Feroze Shah Kotla, outside the Walled City of Old Delhi. The plates had come through sea and land from the Yuan region of 14th-century China. The Delhi Tughlaks introduced the porcelains on their dastarkhan (dining cloth/table), and later the Mughals continued with it. One plate has a blue fish painted on it (albeit with a hairline crack running through the fish’s head).

9. The large chhatri

City Curtain-Raiser - Humayun Museum, Near Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's Dargah

This piece is so huge that it is a monument in itself. This is the neck of the dome at Humayun’s Tomb’s. The replica is of the same red sandstone, and built on the same scale as the real thing perched atop the mausoleum. The roof being inaccessible, this is the closest you can get to absorb its hugeness. The adjacent chhatri is also a replica of the chhatris on the tomb’s roof. Since visitors will be allowed to climb this gigantic chhatri, it may be on its way to becoming one of Delhi’s most popular selfie spots.

10. The copper kalash

City Curtain-Raiser - Humayun Museum, Near Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's Dargah

It stood for more than 400 years at the top of Humayun’s Tomb. Here, it stands inches away from your face — 18 feet tall, weighing 300 kilos. This gilded finial, or kalash, shows the influence of Hindu temples on Mughal architecture. Many mandirs tend to be topped with a gold kalash. The tomb’s kalash is of copper, covered with layers of gold leaves. One evening in 2014, during a dust storm, it fell 70 feet, hitting the roof and breaking into pieces. The mended kalash in the museum gains more preciousness, for we know that it has been salvaged from oblivion. Meanwhile, the orphaned dome received an exact replica of the original kalash. At night, perched atop the Tomb, it shines — as it always had.

More images from inside Humayun Museum–weeks before its opening, and on the evening of its inaugural

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City Curtain-Raiser - Humayun Museum, Near Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's Dargah

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