Agra. Battis Khambha. Octagonal tower on the east bank of the Jumna from the north-east, from the river
Photographer: Smith, Edmund William
Medium: Photographic print
Photograph of the Battis Khambha at Agra, taken by Edmund William Smith in 1893-4, from the Archaeological Survey of India. The Battis Khambha, a pavilion with an octagonal cupola is composed of red sandstone and supported by 36 pillars, is located in the Ram Bagh gardens. This is a view of the octagonal tower, near the Ram Bagh, on the east bank of the Jumna from the north-east.
Smith wrote in Moghul Colour Decoration of Agra, 1901, "The Battis Khambha...is a tower rising from the sands of the Jumna five stories in height surrounded by arched galleries. On the fourth story of this building are twenty-four columns and crowning it and forming the fifth story is a cupola supported on eight slender shafts. Next to the Bhattis Khamba is the Ram Bagh, more properly called Aram Bagh, the "garden of rest;"...a large walled garden with a raised stone terrace on the riverside."