00:04¶¶
00:53The vast plain of Nordia is the cockpit of the Indian Empire.
00:58Countless battles have been fought for the possession of this barren land, the gateway to the riches of the south.
01:05At Delhi, excessive cities have been built by conquering invaders.
01:09Each has fallen into disuse and decay.
01:12That's an ancient legend in the Hindustan that the ninth city will endure and will rule forever.
01:22These cities of the early conquerors are now a huddle of impressive ruins.
01:27Not until the Emperor of Babaran swept down with the sword of Islam from the north,
01:31did a foreign power become a force in Hindu India.
01:46For Humayun, the son of Babaran, this tomb was built.
01:51The graceful architecture of the last and richest of the Mughal empires exercised a fascination upon India which will never
01:58lose its home.
02:01The great Akbar followed Humayun and around the ruins of his predecessors,
02:06his many victories for Allah are celebrated in dome and arch and graceful column.
02:16Here in this column is at once the loot of one great battle and the monument of yet another,
02:21a sacred pillar of the purest iron, wrought by some strange and undiscoverable method which has preserved it from the
02:28rust of centuries.
02:31The Kut Minar, the famous tower of victory, was begun by one and successively completed by the Mughal conquerors of
02:38Delhi.
02:40238 feet of carved red sandstone.
02:55The great mosque of the Mughals, the greatest in all India, centre of the native city of Delhi of today,
03:02commemorates the vast Mohammedan invasion from Balochistan.
03:19Long, shallow pools are laid out for the ritual washing of the face and hands,
03:24which every true Mohammedan must scrupulously perform before he is allowed to pray.
03:30In this great mosque and its forecourt, 20,000 people can assemble and give praise to Allah.
03:57More beautiful but smaller is the Pearl Mosque, pinnacle of Mughal art in Delhi.
04:03Only a little less renowned than the famous Taj Mahal, built by the beauty loving Shah Jahan as a memorial
04:09to his wife.
04:11Pacified by the victorious wars of Akbar, Delhi and the Hindustan now entered upon the richest period of their ancient
04:19culture under Akbar's son, the royal Shah Jahan.
04:23The Delhi of that time, the era of the greatest Persian poets, became enchanted by the love of beauty for
04:30itself alone.
04:32The palace of old Delhi was a throng with men and women of high caste. Such women as these adorned
04:38the palace gardens, the stamp of aristocracy upon their brows, the colour of their robes ablaze against the dark green
04:46cypresses.
04:49Before it is put on, the Indian sari, the flowing robe of Indian women, is the most shapeless garment of
04:56the world.
04:57Each of them is nothing more than one straight length of silk, ten yards long and some two or three
05:03feet wide.
05:05But into one with its threads of silver and gold, deep hemmed with solid precious metal and fastened only on
05:12the right hip and on the left shoulder, it can be made to drape the figure in a manner to
05:17outmatch a Paris scar.
05:19The high caste Indian women wear upon their brows the blood red mark or puja of the Brahmins.
05:32Under Shah Jahan, who caused the marble of his palace walls to be inlaid with semi-precious stones, with sardonyx,
05:39cornelian, chalcedony and chrysopas, the pursuit of happiness came expressed in languor.
05:46Ennervating Hindustan until the highest form of living was to watch the changing shapeliness of passing clouds.
05:58But the ninth enduring Delhi had then yet to be erected.
06:04In 2001.
06:12Yep.
06:33In 2008.
06:34In 2005.
06:39Under combined British and Indian rule, a new Delhi has arisen, a Delhi which has kept
06:43and added to the beauty of the old, but without its dreamy lassitude.
06:55Conard Place, the business centre of the modern Delhi, brings a new grace to the wilderness
07:00of northern India.
07:01The British, with their national love of lawns and flowers, have taught the Indians to lay
07:06out an entire life with the beauty once confined to tombs and temples and to palace gardens.
07:27British and Indians are cooperating to carve out a nobler future for this Delhi than was
07:32possible under a despotism.
07:34In this, the magnificent house of assembly, British, Muslims and Hindus combine in governing.
07:40The spirit of the new and vital Delhi is externalised in a new style of architecture, deriving its
07:45inspiration not from one tradition but from two, moulding the culture of two continents
07:51into a third.
07:54Where once water was a luxury and the profusion of it the prerogative of princes, there are
08:00giant fountains in the public squares.
08:17Neither Saracen nor British, the new Delhi is near India, retaining the motives of old
08:23Delhi and dignifying them with a new austerity.
08:25Yet the lilting grace that made the beautiful, the almost effeminate pearl mask has softened
08:31the austere geometry of modern architecture.
08:33The new Delhi is dynamic but no less inspiring than the old.
08:57And where there was once only a burnt and acrid plain, there is a green and fertile land laid
09:02up with a prophetic eye to the increasing future of the capital of India.
09:06The ninth, enduring city, which in the old legend of the Hindustan will stand and rule forever.
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