Its towers are the resting place of the sun... Its avenues are
so full of pleasure that its lanes are like the roads of paradise.
Its climate is beautiful and pleasant.. -1
So wrote Chandar Bhan Brahman of Shahjahanabad, the new capital of
the Mughal Empire. A noble at the court of the Emperor Shahjahan,
Chandar Bhan composed these lines in 1648/9 to commemorate the
inauguration of the imperial palace-fortress. The new city, built between
1639 and 1648, sprawled along the banks of the river Jamuna in the
southeastern sector of the Delhi triangle. While Shahjahanabad remained
the home of the Mughal emperor until 1858, it probably ceased to be an
imperial capital after 1739-the year Nadir Shah and his Persians
captured, burned, and ransacked the city.