Posted on: 31 January 2011

The interior of the tomb of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq - 1815

Watercolour of the tomb of Ghiyath-ud-din Tughlaq from 'Views by Seeta Ram from Delhi to Tughlikabad Vol. VII' produced for Lord Moira, afterwards the Marquess of Hastings, by Sita Ram between 1814-15. Marquess of Hastings, the Governor-General of Bengal and the Commander-in-Chief (r. 1813-23), was accompanied by artist Sita Ram (flourished c.1810-22) to illustrate his journey from Calcutta to Delhi between 1814-15.

Idealised view of the interior of the tomb of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq (r.1320-1325), with the the three graves of the builder, his wife, and his son and successor Muhammad ibn Tughluq ('reg.'1325-51). The architectural shape of the mausoleum is an irregular pentagon with a battlemented wall. The tomb is located in Tughluqabad east of the Qutub Minar in southern Delhi. Inscribed below: 'Enterior of the Tomb.'

Source : British Library


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The interesting thing about the grave of Sultan Muhammad Tughlaq (pictured above), is that at its head there is a register buried in the ground giving the names of all the people who were mutilated or disfigured by this cruel Sultan for petty crimes. This list was buried at his grave by an order of his successor, Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq, in the hope that, on the Day of Judgement, Muhammad Tughlaq may be forgiven for those horrible crimes (like cutting noses, ears, limbs etc). Muhammad Tughlaq was an intelligent and literate king, but exceedingly cruel and intolerant, ordering severe punishment for ordinary mistakes. Ibn Batuta, the famous traveller, barely escaped severe punishment since he had gone to visit the dargah of some Delhi saint (whom the King did not like) but survived by hiding in a cave in the jungle until the Sultan had cooled off. Those must have been perilous times.

thank you Asadji for sharing this information.I didnt know these things about tughalaq.

Thank you.

The register may have made the work of the Nakeerein easier !!

On the other hand Mohd Bin Tughlaq was a man living before his time. He had grandiose schemes in mind that he tried to put in effect but failed as they were either not planned/detailed properly or were before their time. One such scheme was to introduce the token currency in his realm so that all the gold and silver can be in the imperial treasury as the modern nations do now with paper currency and even plastics. So he ordered coins as tokens to be minted of copper that one should be considered as equal to 10 dinar gold coin and another as 5 dinar gold coin and yet another as 1 dinar silver coin and so on. He forgot to mention in his decree that only the royal mint can mint them. Consequently every black smith in Delhi was minting the token equal to various gold coins, giving rise to fantastic infalation, thereby crippling the economy of the empire. But it is to the credit of Mohd Tughlaq that realising his error, he re-deemed every copper token with gold and silver. It is said that for 200 years after the end of Mohd Tuglaq's reign, the copper coins were lying in mounds in Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq's tomb's compound.

Digvijay: From " Nakeerein ", do you mean Munkir-Nakeer?

But of course Asad Uncle.