Humayun's Tomb
The first great Mughal garden-tomb, from which the Taj Mahal descends directly.
Duration
1 hr 30 min – 2 hrs
Best time
Late afternoon
Open
Every day
Entry price
To confirm
The tomb was commissioned in 1565 by Hamida Banu Begum, widow of the emperor Humayun, and built by a Persian architect: it is India's first garden-tomb, a mausoleum of red sandstone and marble set at the centre of a garden quartered by water channels — the charbagh, the Quranic garden of paradise.
Everything the Taj Mahal would do eighty years later is already here: the bulbous dome, the raised platform, the total symmetry, the water garden. The site was restored over ten years from 1997, and the channels put back into water after three centuries dry.
Getting there
Metro violet line, JLN Stadium station, then ten minutes by rickshaw. East of the Nizamuddin district.
What the price covers
paid entry, with a foreign rate distinct from the Indian one; rate to be checked
Rules on site
The site is large and shadeless between monuments: allow two hours of walking in the sun. The secondary tombs in the complex, usually empty, are worth the detour and are missed by following the flow.
