IMAGES
FROM
GHALIB’S
AGRA
AND
DELHI

 
 
 

The BERGER Collection  is one of my all-time favorite online resources, and the images used for this site almost all come from it (the exceptions are mostly wallpapers). Thanks to many hours of browsing I’ve gotten to know it pretty well, and I’m glad to have the chance both to share some of its treasures with others, and also to provide some extra help to those seeking to use it.

You might like to check out the Berger Collection’s home page. And here is its main India index page—scroll down in the left frame until a list of specific locations appears.

Jacques-Edouard Berger travelled the world, photographing every great historical site he saw. The glory of the collection is the 100,000 slides he took, many of them superb. The limitation of the collection is that these slides are inadequately labelled, and sometimes confusingly grouped or even (in a few cases) erroneously identified.

Here is a list of the Berger Collection locations that were part of Ghalib’s Agra and Delhi, with hyperlinks to the proper part of the site. Note that many of the locations provide several sets of images (the small numbers under the name at the top of the frame), each of which has many twelve-image pages. I give the spellings and arrangement as they appear in the alphabetical Berger list, together with my comments.

Agra:

    *Itimad-ud-Daulah — The tomb of Itimad ud-Daulah, Jahangir’s chief minister and father of the empress Nur Jahan. Built by Nur Jahan on the banks of the Jumna, it was completed in 1628. (Two sets of images.) Ghazals 117 to 127, ending in o, show Itimad ud-Daulah's tomb.

    *Fatehpur Sikri — Akbar’s own city, built under his personal supervision in the early 1570's. It was soon abandoned for lack of water, and so is very well preserved. (Four sets of images.) Ghazals 1-48, ending in alif, show images from Fatahpur Sikri.

    *Agra Fort Rouge — The Agra Fort was worked on by all the Mughal emperors from Akbar onwards. (Four sets of images.) Ghazals ending in e show images from the Agra Fort.

    *Sikandra — This is where Akbar is buried; he started to build his own tomb, but after his death Jahangir redesigned it, and the work was not completed until 1613. The marble inlay work on the Ghalib index page comes from Sikandara. (One set of images.) Ghazals 57-71, ending in d, r, and z, show images from Sikandra.

    *Taj Mahal — The greatest glory of Mughal architecture, it was built by Shah Jahan for his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died in 1631. The Taj too is on the banks of the Jumna. (Three sets of images.) The Taj is so overpoweringly famous that I haven’t shown images of it here.

Delhi:

    *Fort Rouge — The famous “Red Fort” in Delhi, largely the creation of Shah Jahan, with Aurangzeb adding the Moti Masjid. (Two sets of images.) Ghazals ending in ii show images from the Red Fort.

    *Qutb Minar and *Quwwat-ul-Islam — Begun in 1192 by Qutb ud-Din Aibak, first of the Delhi Sultanate rulers, the mosque complex was continued by his successor Iltutmish. The Qutb Minar and the Quvvat ul-Islam Mosque are located within the same complex. (One set of images apiece.) Ghazals 84-116, ending in n, show images from the Qutb/Quvvat complex.

    *Tughluqabad — This now-ruined fortress complex was built by Sultan Ghiyas ud-Din Tughluq, r.1320-25, and contains his tomb. (One set of images.) Ghazals 49-53, ending in b and t, show images from Tughluqabad.

    *Humayun — Humayun’s tomb, built by his widow, Hajji Begam, in 1564. The background design of these introductory pages is from Humayun’s tomb, looking up at the roof of the dome. (Two sets of images.) Ghazals 72-76, ending in s, sh, ((, and f , show images of Humayun's tomb.

    *Jantar — The Jantar Mantar in Delhi is one of several astronomical observatories built in different cities by Raja Jai Singh of Jaipur in the 1720’s. (One set of images.) Ghazals 54-56, ending in j and ch, show images of the Jantar Mantar.

    *Isa Khan — The tomb of Isa Khan, a nobleman of Sher Shah Sur’s court (1440-45). This tomb is located in the compound of Humayun’s Tomb, but has no connection with it. (One set of images.) Ghazals 128-129, ending in h, show images of the tomb of Isa Khan.

    *Jardins Lodis — The tomb of Sikandar Lodhi (r.1489-1517), along with other monuments from the period, which have now been incorporated into a popular garden and park complex. (One set of images.) Ghazals 77-83, ending in k, g, l, and m, show images of the Lodhi tombs.

 
TO SUPPLEMENT these images, I’ve put on line a few others that I find especially worth contemplating—I call them *EVOCATIONS* of Ghalib’s life and times.

 

 Border image
 

 
 — Ghalib index page — sitemap — FWP’s main page — 

 
Browsing in the Berger Collection is a great pleasure, but if you want to go there and quickly find the images used for this site, the chart below tells you how to do so. The labels given to the images are drawn from the chart above. The first number identifies the image set, the second the page, and the third the particular image on that page.
001 sikri_1_1_08 002 sikri_1_1_06 003 sikri_1_1_05
004 sikri_1_1_11 005 sikri_1_2_06 006 sikri_1_1_02
007 sikri_1_2_09 008 sikri_1_2_12 009 sikri_1_3_01
010 sikri_1_3_07 011 sikri_2_1_01 012 sikri_2_01_07
013 sikri_1_3_11 014 sikri_1_4_03 015 sikri_2_2_06
016 sikri_2_2_09 017 sikri_2_5_12 018 sikri_2_6_11
019 sikri_1_4_06 020 sikri_2_6_01 021 sikri_2_3_07
022 sikri_2_2_11 023 sikri_2_3_04 024 sikri_2_5_07
025 sikri_3_1_08 026 sikri_3_3_04 027 sikri_2_5_06
028 sikri_3_3_02 029 sikri_4_2_10 030 sikri_3_3_01
031 sikri_3_4_08 032 sikri_2_5_11 033 sikri_1_2_04
034 sikri_2_5_08 035 sikri_4_1_10 036 sikri_3_7_06
037 sikri_4_1_04 038 sikri_4_3_02 039 sikri_4_2_01
040 sikri_4_2_11 041 sikri_3_4_06 042 sikri_4_4_12
043 sikri_4_5_12 044 sikri_4_4_04 045 sikri_4_3_06
046 sikri_4_6_08 047 sikri_4_7_06 048 sikri_4_6_06
049 tughluq_1_6_12 050 tughluq_1_5_08 051 tughluq_1_1_01
052 tughluq_1_2_01 053 tughluq_1_3_06 054 jantar_1_1_03
055 jantar_1_1_06 056 jantar_1_2_12 057 sikandra_1_2_07
058 sikandra_1_1_07 059 sikandra_2_2_12 060 sikandra_1_2_05
061 sikandra_1_3_02 062 sikandra_1_2_01 063 sikandra_2_2_01
064 sikandra_2_4_11 065 sikandra_1_3_07 066 sikandra_2_5_09
067 sikandra_1_3_09 068 sikandra_2_2_03 069 sikandra_2_3_01
070 sikandra_2_5_08 071 sikandra_2_3_03 072 humayun_1_1_12
073 humayun_1_3_08 074 humayun_1_3_11 075 humayun_2_1_06
076 humayun_2_3_03 077 lodhi_1_1_06 078 lodhi_1_5_07
079 lodhi_1_8_02 080 lodhi_1_5_03 081 lodhi_1_3_08
082 lodhi_1_7_08 083 lodhi_1_6_07 084 quvvat_1_1_07
085 quvvat_1_3_02 086 qutb_1_1_07 087 quvvat_1_1_01
088 quvvat_1_1_03 089 quvvat_1_3_03 090 quvvat_1_1_06
091 qutb_1_2_01 092 quvvat_1_1_08 093 quvvat_1_4_04
094 quvvat_1_4_08 095 quvvat_1_1_09 096 quvvat_1_7_05
097 quvvat_1_2_09 098 quvvat_1_3_11 099 quvvat_1_4_03
100 quvvat_1_5_09 101 quvvat_1_1_04 102 qutb_1_2_02
103 quvvat_1_3_04 104 quvvat_1_2_08 105 quvvat_1_3_09
106 quvvat_1_6_12 107 quvvat_1_5_06 108 qutb_1_2_04
109 quvvat_1_5_10 110 quvvat_1_4_01 111 quvvat_1_6_02
112 quvvat_1_5_07 113 quvvat_1_5_11 114 quvvat_1_6_09
115 quvvat_1_7_01 116 quvvat_1_6_04 117 itimad_1_2_12
118 itimad_2_6_07 119 itimad_1_3_08 120 itimad_1_7_07
121 itimad_2_1_06 122 itimad_1_4_04 123 itimad_1_3_01
124 itimad_1_4_11 125 itimad_2_6_05 126 itimad_2_5_07
127 itimad_2_4_05 128 isakhan_1_1_04 129 isakhan_1_1_12
130 agrafort_1_1_03 131 agrafort_1_2_02 132 redfort_2_1_01
133 agrafort_1_2_03 134 agrafort_1_4_09 135 agrafort_1_3_06
136 redfort_1_4_10 137 redfort_2_1_10 138 agrafort_2_2_09
139 agrafort_2_2_12 140 agrafort_2_5_11 141 agrafort_3_3_12
142 agrafort_2_2_08 143 agrafort_2_3_06 144 agrafort_2_4_08
145 agrafort_1_6_11 146 agrafort_2_4_10 147 agrafort_2_6_10
148 redfort_1_1_06 149 agrafort_1_1_11 150 agrafort_3_3_05
151 agrafort_2_5_05 152 agrafort_4_1_05 153 agrafort_1_5_03
154 agrafort_1_6_05 155 agrafort_1_3_01 156 agrafort_2_7_09
157 agrafort_1_1_04 158 redfort_1_2_06 159 agrafort_1_3_03
160 agrafort_2_2_10 161 redfort_1_3_03 162 agrafort_3_3_11
163 agrafort_2_2_01 164 agrafort_1_7_01 165 redfort_1_2_12
166 redfort_1_3_11 167 agrafort_1_2_06 168 redfort_1_4_05
169 agrafort_1_5_08 170 agrafort_2_3_05 171 agrafort_1_8_09
172 agrafort_2_1_03 173 agrafort_1_7_12 174 agrafort_2_5_07
175 redfort_2_1_09 176 agrafort_1_6_06 177 agrafort_1_4_07
178 agrafort_1_7_05 179 agrafort_2_1_1 180 agrafort_2_6_08
181 redfort_1_2_09 182 agrafort_3_3_10 183 redfort_1_3_09
184 agrafort_1_3_05 185 agrafort_2_5_10 186 redfort_1_3_07
187 agrafort_2_4_11 188 agrafort_1_2_04 189 agrafort_2_6_05
190 agrafort_4_3_09 191 agrafort_2_5_08 192 agrafort_3_4_05
193 agrafort_3_3_07 194 agrafort_3_4_07 195 agrafort_4_2_08
196 agrafort_3_4_06 197 agrafort_4_1_08 198 agrafort_3_4_09
199 agrafort_3_4_08 200 agrafort_4_4_02 201 agrafort_3_3_09
202 agrafort_1_2_05 203 agrafort_1_3_02 204 agrafort_1_1_10
205 agrafort_1_6_04 206 agrafort_1_4_11 207 agrafort_4_1_06
208 agrafort_1_4_02 209 agrafort_4_2_07 210 agrafort_1_2_11
211 agrafort_1_3_08 212 agrafort_3_4_02 213 agrafort_4_4_05
214 redfort_1_4_01 215 redfort_2_4_03 216 agrafort_1_3_07
217 agrafort_4_2_10 218 redfort_1_4_06 219 agrafort_1_1_12
220 agrafort_1_4_04 221 agrafort_3_4_03 222 agrafort_3_3_06
223 agrafort_4_3_08 224 agrafort_4_1_03 225 redfort_2_1_11
226 agrafort_4_3_02 227 agrafort_3_4_04 228 agrafort_3_2_02
229 agrafort_4_3_04 230 agrafort_4_4_01 231 redfort_2_1_08
232 agrafort_1_4_01 233 agrafort_1_8_03 234 agrafort_4_3_11