The reign of Mughal Emperor Jahangir is often referred to as the `age of transition`. It is generally believed that during Jahangir`s 22-year reign, patronage for buildings had declined because of his over-enthusiasm for painting. In fact, common belief credits Jahangir`s influential wife, Nur Jahan, a leading taste setter of the time, with stimulating the construction of buildings later during the emperor`s reign. Although Nur Jahan`s role as patron cannot be denied, but Jahangir continually refers in his own memoirs to his patronage of tombs, pleasure pavilions, forts and gardens, as well as to the restoration of older structures. In fact, Jahangir in his memoirs refers more often to architecture he found pleasing or to buildings he had ordered than to paintings he had commissioned, even though he is regarded as a great connoisseur of painting. During Jahangir`s reign, the Mughal Empire was quite secure for a stable ruling. Thus, the nobles were encouraged to embellish cities, construct serais, gardens and dwellings and endow shrines - all concrete manifestations of a prosperous state. Thus was established an assured architecture of Ajmer during Jahangir, under architectural escalation during Mughal Dynasty.

Indeed, architectural prowess of Jahangir speaks much through his patronage of architecture in Ajmer, which finds pride place in his memoirs. Jahangir`s memoirs are full of details, recounting his visits to the buildings of pre-Mughal rulers and the Mughal nobility. He even had commented on how to tell if a house would bring prosperity or misfortune, indicating the significance that domestic architecture had for him. Subsequent comments indicate his sense that the structure`s success does not depend upon the building alone. The garden setting, the role of water and the view become crucial elements in his taste - a notion that had commenced with Babur. This is probably why pre-Mughal dwellings rarely had appealed the emperor. While most Mughal-period structures seemed to have gained his favour, some did not. As such, architecture of Ajmer during Jahangir was one, which had demanded meticulous attention from his patronaged noblemen and viziers, which can gradually be comprehended as the article follows.

Indeed, architecture of Ajmer under Emperor Jahangir was one that bears a splendid history behind its establishment. In 1613 Jahangir had left Agra for Ajmer in order to conduct a vigorous campaign against Rana Amar Singh of Mewar, one of his most formidable opponents. Two events especially had pleased Jahangir during his three years stay in Ajmer. One was visiting the shrine of Muin ud-Din Chishti; the second was the defeat and submission of Rana Amar Singh in 1615. His ensuing enthusiasm for the city appears to have coloured constructively much of Jahangir`s attitude toward architecture - be it pre-existing or newly created - in the environs of Ajmer. An auspicious moment was chosen for the emperor`s entrance into the city. Four paintings illustrating the visits are acknowledged in present times, suggesting the importance that the shrine held for Jahangir. As with his Mughal dynastic predecessors, Ajmer`s architecture under Jahangir was begun with Muin ud-Din Chisthi`s dargah - a decisive monument, which bore much importance all through the surviving Mughal realm.

Jahangir has made several donations to the shrine at Ajmer. His major material donation to the shrine was a "gold railing with lattice work" that was installed around the tomb of Muin ud-Din in 1616, but sadly seized in eighteenth-century raids. Jahangir states that the railing was donated in fulfillment of certain vows but leaves their exact nature unclear. Another painting for the Jahangir Nama illustrating the railing`s installation includes Prince Khurram, the future Shah Jahan and the military commander in the campaign against the Rana of Mewar, standing with Jahangir at the tomb`s entrance. Thus one of Jahangir`s vows may have been the successful subjugation of Mewar. While this is the emperor`s last specific reference to the shrine, in 1623 Jahangir had dispatched Habash Khan to repair buildings in Ajmer, possibly including ones at the dargah. Thus, began a vigorous and dynamic effort of architecture of Ajmer during Jahangir, commencing from the auspicious Chishti dargah, and continuing its smooth flow for years to come.

Architecture in Ajmer during Jahangir was solemnly taken up as a major task only after several administrational plotting and intelligent manoeuvres. In 1615-16, Jahangir had constructed a small hunting palace on the banks of the sacred Pushkar tank. The inscription there states that its buildings were erected in celebration of Jahangir`s victory over the Rana of Mewar. Hence imperial Mughal presence was made permanent on the shores of a sacred Hindu spot (tirtha). The impact of Mughal authority on the Hindu devotees coming on pilgrimage to this site - considered one of the holiest of all tirthas, a locale where nothing was to be killed, would have been powerful indeed. Jahangir, who loved hunting on these shores, visited the Pushkar palace fifteen times during his residence at Ajmer.

Situated at the edge of the tank in an area away from the temples, this hunting pavillion is largely in ruins today. This place is in the domain of Ajmer`s splendour architecture. Even in this condition it is possible to witness that esteemed Jahangiri Quadrangle at the Lahore Fort. Only two of the original three small pavilions remain on the elevated rectangular plinth. These nearly identical structures, located at the plinth`s east and west ends, face each other. Chiselled from a brown-coloured stone, each consists of a single flat-roofed chamber surrounded on the front and sides by a deep veranda, supported on squat polygonal columns. This trabeated palace, basically modelled on traditional Mughal prototypes, probably relied on local labour, thus explaining its unrefined appearance. As a variedness of features, architecture of Ajmer during Jahangir had wavered potentially, verily mirroring the emperor`s vacillating tendencies to architectural works and administrational enterprises.

In the vicinity of Ajmer, Jahangir is known to have most loved a small palace he had constructed in 1615. The emperor had named it Chesma-i Nur, or Fountain of Light, after himself, Nur ud-Din Jahangir. Situated in a picturesque valley on the west side of Taragarh hill, Jahangir visited the Chesma-i Nur thirty-eight times during his three years stay in Ajmer. He laments that it was far from the city and could only be visited on the weekends. Thomas Roe, from the palace in 1616, recounts the rigorous journey to reach it. Architecture of Ajmer during Jahangir and the emperor`s later memoir descriptions states that the palace possessed a square tank and a high-shooting fountain with lovely buildings situated at the fountain`s edge. The chambers were painted by master artists, although Jahangir does not mention any subjects illustrated.

In present times, the palace is sadly ruined, but the tank remains, as do some buildings on two levels around it. The upper level of the palace consists of stone pillared pavilions constructed on either side of a stone stream bed. They face each other as do those at the Pushkar pavilion. The stream cascaded down to the lower level, where an arched and vaulted chamber, created in part from the natural rock, was built adjacent to the square tank, into which the cooling waters fell. On its arched facade can be seen an inscription designed by the scribe Abd Allah, acknowledged earlier for his work on the Allahabad pillar and Shah Begum`s tomb. Although these buildings - marking a gradual elevation of architecture of Ajmer during Jahangir, were overall more elegant than those erected concurrently at Pushkar, it is the particular setting that makes them spectacular. Considering Jahangir`s concern with any structure`s total environment, it is hardly surprising that this was amongst his favourite dwellings.

Architecture of Ajmer under Jahangir also makes an admirer or researcher know that two large tanks were very much present in the city of Ajmer. This was a fact which was authentically stated in the Jahangir Nama. The Visal Sar, the smaller of the two tanks, had been in a state of much ruin and in 1616 Jahangir had repaired it. He especially had loved the larger tank - the Ana Sagar, which is almost 13 km in circumference and with its waves appears like a veritable lake. Jahangir describes how he had spent the night with the palace ladies on this tank`s lamp-lit banks. He however makes no mention of construction on its banks, but an official chronicler of Shah Jahan`s reign indicates that Jahangir had erected marble pavilions there. While the white marble pavilions on the banks of the Ana Sagar are generally attributed to Shah Jahan - Jahangir`s son and successor, they may have been started by Jahangir. The ruins of other structures, still visible at the west end of the adjoining park, are the only remaining part of Daulat Bagh, a garden credited to Jahangir and his disputable monumental architecture in Ajmer.

However, gradually as princely patronage began to rise up in Mughal court under the emperor, architecture in Ajmer under Jahangir had begun to witness changes, just like his forerunners. In Ajmer, as elsewhere, Jahangir`s architectural presence very much had stimulated building by others. This is particularly so at the Chishti shrines of Muin ud-Din and Khwaja Sayyid Husain Khing Sawar, as was noticed earlier. Concurrent with Jahangir`s presence in Ajmer inscribed gates, graves and ancillary buildings were constructed at each shrine. The most significant material contribution however was Ftibar Khan`s lattice railing, provided in 1615 around the grave of Husain Khing Sawar. It was lent in celebration of Jahangir`s victory over the rana of Mewar.

Architecture in Ajmer during Jahangir was also not at all constricted to one single domain. For instance, in 1615 Gajhast Khan, Jahangir`s supervisor of elephant stables had constructed a step-well in Gangwana, close to Ajmer. Carved at the bottom of the inscriptional slab is an elephant and prodding implements, emblems appropriate for the emperor`s position. In the same year Nawab Daulat Khan had provided additions to a palace he had commenced during Akbar`s reign in Fatehpur, Shekhawati District. Jahangir`s mother, Maryam al-Zamani (rather popular and legendary in present times as Jodhabai), had built a serai and well near Bayana in 1613-14. Lying on the Fatehpur Sikri-Ajmer route in a crucial indigo growing centre, it accommodated both Jahangir and the traveller Finch. Nobles had erected mosques during this period at Merta, Hindaun and Jalor and an Idgah (a mosque intended especially for the annual Id celebrations) was constructed in 1613 at Bairat, in the ancestral lands of Raja Man Singh. With the exception of Jalor, situated on the Surat-Ajmer trade route, all these architectural works of Ajmer under and during Jahangir were constructed in a region between Agra and Ajmer - then under firm control of the Mughals.