Hidden Secrets of Bibi ka Maqbara Aurangabad- Dado Work

 Hidden Secrets of Bibi ka Maqbara Aurangabad- Dado Work

Akbar the great Mughal builder, made use of carved red sandstone dados at Fatehpur Sikri, which depict forest scenes for the first time in the construction of buildings.[1] The upper space of the panel, which would otherwise have been left blank, is decorated with the Chinese cloud forms. Dados (panels) with Chinese clouds in their finest forms are ornamented on the tomb of Itmad-ud-Dawlah. The panels above the dados have layered painting and stucco work chiefly inside the floral designs.

Ustad Mansur, the most celebrated painter of the time, painted a series of miniature paintings during Jahangir's time. The borders of these paintings were later on ornamented with floral designs and became the main theme in the Taj decoration. These Mughal miniatures were installed into the dados of the Khwabgah (bedroom) at Fatehpur Sikri built around 1575 AD. Absolutely similar is the dado decoration of the palace of Mariam Zamani[2] at Agra. These paintings for dado decoration have borrowed the colours, objects and landscapes from the miniatures.

The dado decoration work at the main entrance gate of Maqbara is done in an artistic manner on the white glazed square tiles affixed in the wall. Rose plants with beautiful tender leaves and flowers in their natural colours are painted in the dados in a single horizontal series.[3] The dado panels have been bound together at their broad borders painted in pleasing colours and highly conventional floral and runner plant patterns exactly like the miniature Hashiyas (margins) of the Mughal paintings.[4] The dados made of white marble placed on the main body of the tomb of Rabiya Daurani have inlaid borders of black marble strips.

Magnificent artistic painting work on Side Chamber of Main Entrance Gate

 Dr Shaikh Ramzan

M.A., M.Ed., PhD (History) Researcher

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[1] Ibid., p. 145

[2] Percy Brown, “Indian Paintings Under the Mughals” (Oxford, 1924), p. 61

[3] Photo plate showing painted dados, p. 52, 53

[4] Ibid.