Safdarjung's Tomb
The last great garden tomb of the Mughal style, built as the empire ran out of money.
Safdarjung was Nawab of Awadh and the empire's prime minister; when he died in 1754 his son built him a tomb in the old imperial manner, on a charbagh plan with a domed chamber on a high plinth. But the empire was broke. Stone was stripped from an earlier tomb nearby, the proportions were stretched a little too tall, and the ornament is thinner than it looks from the gate. An early historian called it the last flicker in the lamp of Mughal architecture, and the phrase has stuck.
None of that spoils it. The tomb sits at the end of a long axis with pavilions on three sides of the garden, and because it stands on a busy roundabout that almost nobody enters, it is one of the emptiest monuments in central Delhi. On a winter afternoon you can have a Mughal garden to yourself, ten minutes from a metro station.
- 01The gatewayA tall, boldly patterned entrance that gives away the ambition of the whole scheme.
- 02Garden pavilionsJangli Mahal, Moti Mahal and Badshah Pasand — three named pavilions on the garden walls.
- 03Reused stoneMarble and sandstone lifted from an earlier tomb, visible where the patterns fail to line up.
Rarely crowded. Best late in the afternoon, when the sandstone warms and the lawns fill with parakeets.