Photo 212/2(26)

Genre: Architectural Photography

General view looking towards Trimul Naik's Palace, with the British courthouse in the foreground. Lyon's 'Notes to accompany a series of photographs prepared to illustrate the ancient architecture of southern India' (Marion and Co., London, 1870), edited by James Fergusson, gives the following description of this photograph: '316 - is a view of the Palace seen as it is approached from the road. The new white building in the foreground has lately been erected by the English Government, for a Court House; the roof of several of the halls in the palace, where these Courts previously held their sittings, having been pronounced unsafe. The two towers belong to the palace, being situated at the north-east and south-east corners of the quadrangle to be described presently. The domes are those covering the various halls and cloisters, and, as will be seen, are surrounded by arched galleries, which were erected to enable the ladies of the court to look down upon the pageantry in the quadrangle on festival occasions, without being themselves observed. Notwithstanding the magnificence of the many buildings for religious purposes erected by Trimul Nayak, which afford in themselves alone, sufficient foundation for enduring fame, the palace, in the estimation of all native writers, is his chef-d'oeuvre. The native story is, that it was built by Vamsa Sekhara, forty-fourth king of the Pandyan dynasty, but there can be little doubt that it was to Trimul Nayak that it owed the wonderful magnificence which, judging from what still remains, it once undoubtedly possessed. It is said, in its prime, to have covered an area of a square mile, being a vast collection of halls and pavilions, covered with terraces and domes, resting upon massive pillars and arches. Most of these have now entirely disappeared, some of them within the memory of men now living. The style of architecture adapted throughout this palace is that curious admixture of Saracenic forms with Hindu details, which the native princes of India very generally adopted in the seventeenth century in their secular buildings. Generally, it may be said to be deficient in that harmonious completeness which characterises the true Mahommedan buildings of Agra and Delhi, and to want the elaborate finish of the Hindu religious buildings, but the combination is always singularly picturesque, and has often given rise to forms of great beauty. The introduction of the arch which this combination involved, enabled the Hindus to span and vault longer spaces than could be accomplished by the trabeate style, to which they always adhered in their religious edifices, and, as in this palace, enabled them to erect larger halls unencumbered by pillars than they could otherwise have done. Unfortunately the style was never carried to its legitimate issue; it was invented only on the eve of the decline of native supremacy and power, and before it had lasted a century and a half, it fell before the debasing influence of the European styles of architecture. A subterranean passage is said to have once extended from the palace to the interior of the temple of Minakshi, through which the kings proceeded into the presence of the god and goddess, but this also has entirely disappeared. The High Court of Madura still continues to hold its sittings in the palace; to facilitate entrance to the Court, a door has lately been broken through the outer wall on the east side, and by this we shall enter the enclosure.' Another copy at Photo 1000/29(2966).