The Text and Subtext of Shah Jahan's Capital City: A Study of the Imperial Iconography of Shahjahanabad

Abstract

Shah Jahan’s interest in architecture is well known. Shahjahanabad, was perhaps the most ambitious of his projects. He orchestrated the urban structures and had his historians and poets create literary images of a city that was a physical manifestation of Shah Jahan’s ideas about the greatness of his empire. The structures of the city were to establish him as the greatest, with their grandeur, of all rulers who sought to rule from here. His city was also to speak to his rivals in distant realms and challenge their authority as leaders of the world. These ideas coalesced together to give Shah Jahan a city that was truly reflective of his ideology of empire.