No More Learning

Mosques with this form of
ornamental minaret first made their appearance at Ahmadbād in
the opening years of the sixteenth century, the best example and
one of the earliest being that of Rāni Sīpari (1514) which belongs
to the reign of Muzaffar Shāh II, while another was the mosque of


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616
(CH.
THE MONUMENTS OF MUSLIM INDIA
Shāh Khūb Sayyid (1538). The former was judged by Fergusson
to be one of the most exquisite structures in the world, and his
judgement was not exaggerated. East or West, it would be
difficult to single out a building in which the parts are more
harmoniously blended or in which balance, symmetry and decora-
tive rhythm combine to produce a more perfect effect. The mosque
is a small one-only 48 feet by 191 feet-but this very smallness
is an asset in its favour, since the delicate traceries and jewel-like
carvings of Gujarāt, suggestive as they are of an almost feminine
grace, show to less advantage in bigger and more virile structures.
Another relatively small but equally famous monument of Mahmūd
Begarha's reign', in which these traceries are seen to perfection,
is the mosque of Sidi Sayyid. In form this mosque is unusually
plain and chaste : merely an inarched chamber, five bays wide and
three bays deep, its arches supported on squared pillars, or
pilasters ; plain octagonal minarets (now level with the roof) at
the two fore corners; and the interior lighted by demilune windows
of pierced stone work. Anything more simple and unassuming, or
more unlike the richly adorned mosque of Rāni Sīpari could
hardly be imagined. But though such simplicity is rare enough in
Gujarāt, there is no mistaking the Gujarāti genius in the graceful
well proportioned arches and superbly designed window screens
(Pl. XXIX). It is these screens that have made the mosque of Sidi
Sayyid world-famous. Ten of them, namely, three in each of the side
walls and two in the end bays of the rear wall, are divided into
small square panes, filled with ever varying foliate and geometric
patterns. The other two-one to the right and one to the left of
the central mihrāb-are adorned with free plant and floral designs,
the like of which does not exist in any other monument of India.
What makes these windows so supremely beautiful is the unerring
sense for rhythm with which the artist has filled his spaces and the
skill with which he has brought the natural forms of the trees into
harmony with their architectural setting. Such half conven-
tionalised designs, it is true, are familiar enough in India. They
are found commonly on textiles, silver and brass relief work and
the like, but this is the only instance of their elaboration in stone
and the wonder is that so exquisite a method of screening window
openings, having once
,
been hit upon,
never afterwards
repeated.
was
1 Local tradition assigns this mosque to Ahmad Shāh's reign, but its style is that
of the latter part of Mahmūd Shāh Begarha's reign.


## p. 617 (#667) ############################################

XXIII ]
DHĀR AND MANDO
617
Dhar and Māndu.
Considering how effectually local tradition dominated the Indo-
Islamic architecture of Gujarāt, it is surprising how relatively
little it affected the architecture of Māndū, which is not 200 miles
distant. The reason is that though Māndū was an ancient strong-
hold of the Paramāras and, like Dhār, a flourishing centre of Hindu
power, there is no evidence of any vigorous school of architecture
having existed there, not vigorous enough at any rate to force its
character upon the monuments of the new comers. Temples and
other buildings the Muhammadans found in abundance at both
places and appropriated or despoiled for their own purposes.
Craftsmen, too, there were in plenty whom they enrolled into their
service and to whom they gave no little latitude in the working up
of details. But in its main essentials the architecture which the
Muslims evolved at Māndū was modelled on the architecture with
which they had grown familiar at the Imperial capital. Many of
their monuments reverted back a century to the virile style of the
early Tughluqs, with its battering walls and narrow lofty arch-
ways; others favoured the later style of Firüz Shāh's reign; and
others again were influenced by contemporary buildings of the
Sayyid and Lodi kings. But though the Muslims turned to Delhi for
their prototypes, this must not be taken to imply that their creations
were the outcome of slavish copying or were lacking in originality.
On the contrary, their monuments were truly living and full of
purpose, as instinct with creative genius as the models themselves
from which they took their inspiration. Part of their distinctiveness
they owe no doubt to their impressive size and part to the remark-
able beauty of their stone work which under the transforming effects
of time and weather takes on exquisitely beautiful tints of pink
and orange and amethyst ; but in a large measure their distinctive
character is due to peculiarities of construction and ornament, to
the happy proportions of their component parts or to other more
subtle refinements that do not readily admit of analysis.
Taken all in all, Māndül is of all the fortress cities of India the
most magnificent. The plateau on which it stands—an outlying
-
spur of the Vindhyās-rises a thousand feet and more above the
plains of Narbadā, its sides steeply scarped and broken by wild
chasmal ravines. Crowning its edges and extending over a length
of more than 25 miles are battlemented walls of grey basalt,
1 Māndū or Māndugarh appears in Sanskrit inscriptions of the Paramāra period
as Mandapa-durga. To the Muhammadans of the fifieenth and sixteenth centuries
it was known as Shādiābād,


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618
(ch.
THE MONUMENTS OF MUSLIM INDIA
pierced at ten points by arched and vaulted gateways, or rather
series of gateways, which guard the steep approaches. Within the
walls is a broad expanse of rolling jungle, sparse on the hills, deep
and dense in the valleys, interrupted by smiling lakes or dark pools.
Pīpal and banyan and teak mingle their shade with the dark
khirni and the brilliant 'flame of the forest'; and outstanding
among them all are the gaunt misshapen baobabl trees which
centuries ago the Abyssinian guards of the Mālwa kings probably
introduced from Africa. Such is the natural setting amid which
the splendid monuments of the Mālwa kings are placed and to
which they seem as it were to give solemnity by their own intrinsic
beauty. Once the whole plateau within the walls covered with
buildings either of the Muhammadans or of the Paramāras who
had occupied Māndū before them. But the vast majority-shops
and houses and all small civic structures-are now levelled with
the ground ; the only ones that have survived the ravages of time
and the devastating jungle being the royal palaces or mosques or
tombs. Of these the oldest is the mosque of Dilāwar Khān Ghuri
(1401-05), the founder of the Mālwa dynasty. Like the Lāt
Masjid in Dhār, which was erected by the same king, it is chiefly
interesting for the many members-pillars and architraves and
carved ceilings-stripped from Hindu temples and for the manner
in which they are turned to account. Dilāwar Khãn himself first
established his capital at Dhār, the small fort of which had been
built, so it is said, by Muhammad Tughluq, but realising the
imperative need of larger and stronger defences, he lost no time in
transferring it to Māndū. Hüshang, his son, known also as Alp
Khān, to whom the task of fortifying the new city was entrusted,
seems to have had ideas of building at once as sound and as lordly
as his contemporary Ahmad Shāh I of Gujarāt. It was Hüshang
who planned and began the magnificent Jāmi Masjid afterwards
to be finished by Mahmud Khalji ; it was he probably who built
the remarkable Darbār hall now known as the Hindolā Mahall,
and it was he, too, who was doubtless responsible for the vast scale
of the fortifications. Whether these works are the offspring of his
own or of his architect's imagination is not known. Whosoever
they were, they do unbounded credit to their author. The style on
which they were modelled was the robust and massive style of the
early Tughluqs, but among all the monuments at Delhi of that
period there is not one that can equal the impressive grandeur of
the Hindolā Mahall or the Jāmi' Masjid at Māndū. The former
1 Adamsonia digitata


## p. 619 (#669) ############################################

XXII )
MĀNDO
619
of these two buildings is unique of its kind. Its plan is T-shaped,
the stem of the T forming the Darbār hall, and the cross a group
of smaller apartments in two storeys intended for the Zanāna and
furnished wherever necessary with lattice screens. In length the
Mahall measures 160 feet, in width nearly 100 feet, and the reader
may judge from the illustrations of it what a noble effect is pro-
duced from without by its plain battering walls, well proportioned
archways, bracketed dripstone and oriel windows', and what an
equally noble effect is produced within by its wide spanned arches,
slightly ogee in form, which supported the wooden and concrete
roof. Though there is no reason for supposing that this Mahall
was ever meant for defensive purposes, it is not fanciful to see in
its massive strength a reflection of the disturbed and insecure
conditions which then prevailed in Mālwa, with warfare incessantly
in the air and enemies threatening the kingdom on every side.
The Jāmi' Masjid is almost as simple as but less vehement in
style than the Hindolā Mahall. All the ornamental adjuncts that
it possesses are intrinsically good in themselves and worthy of the
places they occupy ; but they are wholly subordinate to the struc-
tural unity of the fabric, and might, indeed, be stripped away
without greatly impairing its majestys. Like many of its prede-
cessors at Delhi, the masjid is raised on a lofty plinth, fronted at
ground level with ranges of arcaded chambers. From east to west
it measures 288 feet, from north to south some 20 feet less, but
projecting from the middle of the eastern side is an imposing
entrance porch with ascending steps which adds another 100 fee
and more in this direction, while outside the northern wall are two
other entrance porches of smaller dimensions. The interior court-
a square of 162 feet-is bounded on all four sides by eleven arched
bays, each identical in form with its neighbour and each sur-
mounted by a similar small dome, but there is this difference
between the four sides that while the eastern dālan has only two
aisles, the northern and southern have three and the prayer
chamber on the west five. The prayer chamber, moreover, is
further distinguished from the other sides by the presence of three
large domes, one in the centre covering the principal mihrāb and
1 The pardau wall above the eaves is a later addition of Mughul date.
2 Both the Hindolā Mahal and the Jāmi' Mosjid were built largely of stones
taken from older buildings, but in every case the stones were recut to suit their new
positions and did not in any way condition or qualify the character of the design.
3 In this respect the architecture of Māndū offers a striking contrast to that of
Ahmadābād in which ornament constitutes an integral and essential part of the
main aesthetic purpose.


## p. 620 (#670) ############################################

620
(CH.
THE MONUMENTS OF MUSLIM INDIA
mimbar, and one over each of the royal galleries which occupy the
rear corners. Compared with Ahmad Shāh's Great Mosque at
Ahmadābād, with which it was contemporary, the Jāmi' Masjid of
Māndū is lacking in poetry and creative inspiration. It is too cold
and formal and calculated to take rank among the really great
architectural creations of India. On the other hand it is far from
being open to the charge of dull monotony in the sense in which
the Adina Masjid at Pāndua is open to that charge. Even within
its courtyard, the heroical simplicity of its arcades, its spaciousness
and perspicuity of detail produce an effect not of barren vacuity
like the Ādina Masjid but of impressive solemnity ; and if we
contemplate the exterior with its arcaded facade, and harmoniously
proportioned porticos aglow with weathering tints of pink and
orange, it is impossible not to feel the eloquence of its forceful,
silent appeal.
Whether Hushang's tomb which stands at the rear of the
Jāmi' Masjid was begun by himself and finished by Mahmud
Khalji or whether, as Firishta states, it was entirely the work of
the latter is doubtful, but considerations of style are in favour of
Hūshang himself having been the author. Whoever it may have
been, the conception marked a new departure ; for it was the first
great tomb in India made wholly of white marble and in other
respects also it differed from its predecessors, one specially pleas-
ing feature of its design being the broad expanse of dome in
relation to the interior of the tomb chamber, and another the
happy transition, effected by means of an intervening terrace,
helped out by corner engaged cupolas, between the extrados of
the dome and the square sub-structure below? The murder of
Muhammad Ghazni Khān in 1436 by his Wazir and the transfer of
the sovereignty from the Ghūri to the Khalji line did not affect
the continuity of the local school of architecture. Mahmud was as
energetic a builder as Hūshang had been. Already in 1432 his
father, Mughīs-ud-Dunyā (Malik Mughis) had erected the elegant
mosque still known by his name, constructing it with skill and
taste largely out of Hindu materials. Mahmud himself, as we have
seen, completed the Jāmi Masjid and the tomb of Hüshang, but
besides these he also commemorated his conquest of Chitor in
i Fergusson was wrong in stating that light was admitted only through the door.
way and two small windows at its side, there being, as a fact, three large screened
windows on the north. He was wrong, too (as so frequently on points of fact), in
stating that the entrance gateway on the north and the elegant Dharmasla to the
west of the tomb were built of stones from older Hindu or Jaina buildings. All the
members of these structures were carved by the Muhammadans themselves,


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XXII )
TOMB FOR THE KHALJİ FAMILY
621
14431 by erecting a vast group of buildings opposite the front of
the Jāmi' Masjid, comprising a College, a Tower of Victory and a
mausoleum for the Khaljī family. The tomba, like that of Hüshang,
was of white marble within and without and probably of much the
same form, but freely adorned with carving and coloured tilework
and with inlays of black and yellow marble, jasper and agate and
cornelian. It stood in the middle of a lofty plinth, some ninety
yards square by nine in height with a smaller projection on its
western side. At each of the four corners of the plinth was a tower,
the one at the north-west corner larger than the other three ; and
ranged along the sides of the plinth were long series of apart-
ments screened in front by arched colonnades.
These apartments
constituted the College of Mahmūd, and the great tower of seven
storeys (haft manzil) at the north-west corner was his 'Tower of
Victory. ' Tower and tomb crumbled to ruin long ago and the
remains that have lately been exhumed (Pl. XXXIV) are too frag-
mentary to be reconstructed in all their original detail. They
suffice, however, to show that Mahmūd's work, though closely akin
in style, tended to be more elaborate than that of his predecessor
and they suggest that it was he rather than Hüshang who was the
author of the Jaház Mahall> (figured in PI. XXXIV) which, with its
fine arched halls, its roof pavilions and boldly designed reservoirs
still forms one of the most conspicuous landmarks in Māndū.
Of the building enterprises of Ghiyās-ud-din Khalji (1475-1500)
nothing certain is known, but as he is reputed to have been the
most pleasure-loving of all the kings of Mālwa, it is not unlikely
that he was responsible for the Turkish baths, arcaded well, and
other structures designed to increase the luxury of the royal
seraglio at Māndū. Of Nāsir-ud-din, his son, our information is
more exact. As it now turns out, he was the builder of the palace
so long associated with the romantic name of Bāz Bahādur. This
fact has been established by the finding of an inscription dated in
the year 1508-09 on the entrance of the palace itself, which thus
provides another fixed and interesting landmark in the history of
the Māndů school. The palace is a well-designed structure, pleasing
and unpretentious in appearance, free from sha ms or meretricious
ornament and adequately adapted to its needs, but it has little of
1 Cf. Firishta. The tower is also referred to in the Ain-i-Akbari and diary of
Jahångir.
2 In the tomb were buried Mahmûd himself, his father, Malik Mughi and his
successors Ghiyās-ud-din, and Nāsir-ud-did besides other members of his family.
3 Or Ship Palace'-so called because it stood between two lakes. The palace was
largely repaired and added to during the reign of Jāhāngir.


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622
(CH.
THE MONUMENTS OF MUSLIM INDIA
the bold epic quality of Hüshang's or Mahmud's work. It illustrates,
indeed, the decline of the Māndū style at the moment when it
had lost most of its original dynamic energy, but still remained
unaffectedly sincere in purpose.
To describe only those monuments of the Muslims that are
situated at the main centres of their political power-at Delhi,
for example, or Gaur or Ahmadābād or Māndū-is to give but
an incomplete picture of their architectural achievements ; for
besides the capital groups whose history we have been sketching
and others to be dealt with anon, there are scores of edifices in less
important places that are well worthy of attention both from the
historian and from the architect. Thus, at Bayāna, in the Bharatpur
State, there is the Ukha Mandir-one of the earliest mosques
-
erected (largely out of the spoils of Hindu shrines) by the Muslim
conquerors, and afterwards converted into a temple ; while hard
by it is the Ukha Masjid built in the reign of Qutb-ud-din
Mubārak Shāh (1316—20) and a worthy example of Khalji
architecture. In Mewār, again, there is the fine arched bridge
over the Gamberi River at Chitor built by 'Alā-ud-din Khaljī,
when he besieged and took that city in A. D. 1303 ; and further
west, in the Jodhpur State, are several buildings of no little merit.
One of these is the Atarkin-ka-Darwāza in the old town of Nāgaur
-a lofty gateway embellished, in the manner of the Arhāi-din-ka-
Jhomprā screen at Ajmer, with a medley of geometric and flowing
arabesques. The original structure appears to date from the first
half of the thirteenth century, but to have been restored during
the reign of Muhammad bin Tughluq (1325—51) and again added
to in the sixteenth century. Another is the Shams Masjid, also
at Nāgaur, which according to local tradition was founded by the
Governor Shams Khān, but which, to judge by its sharply tapering
minarets, lofty narrow archways and clerestory gallery under the
central dome (a feature manifestly borrowed from Gujarāti archi-
tecture), must in its present form be assigned to the fifteenth rather
than the thirteenth century. A third is the Fort Mosque at Jalor
erected by Muzaffar Shāh II in the graceful Gujarāti manner of
the early sixteenth century; and a fourth the Top Khāna Masjid
in the same spot, with its magnificent but unfinished screen-also
a work of the Gujarāti kings. Nor must mention be omitted of the
highly interesting group of buildings at Chanderi in the Gwalior
1 Garrick (C. S. R. vol. XXIII, p. 69) speaks of an inscription of the year A. H. 630
(A. D. 1233) which records the repair of the gateway by Muhammad ibn Tughluq
(sic). The date (which he elsewhere gives as 1. 9. 633) is manifestly a mistake.


## p. 623 (#673) ############################################

**)
KÜSHK MAHALL
623
State. In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries Chanderi was
in possession of the Ghūri and Khalji kings of Māndū, and such
few monuments as have survived the ravages of time bear witness
alike in their construction and their decoration to the close con-
nexion between the two places. Most important among these few
is the Kushk Mahall at Fathābād, about two miles south-west of
Chanderi. In 1445, so Firishta tells us, Mahmud Shāh I of Mālwa
passed through Fathābād on his way back from Jaunpur and gave
orders for a seven-storeyed palace to be erected there. It is with
this building that the Kushk Mahall is popularly identified, and,
though there is no inscription to prove the truth of the identifica-
tion, colour is lent to it by the style of the structure, which is not
unworthy to be ranked with those of Mahmūd in Māndū itself.
Moreover, although only the remains of four storeys now exist, the
vast mass of debris, with which the Kushk Maha! l was until
recently choked, warrants the supposition that there were once
additional storeys above. The plan of the structure is simple : a
square of 115 ft. 8 in. divided internally into four equal quadrants
by two arched passages crossing each other at right angles. Tier
upon tier of triple arches open on to these passages from the four
quadrants, and air and light are also admitted from the outside
through windows and balconies alternating one above the other in
the successive storeys. Like the college and tomb of Mahmud and
the Jāmi' Masjid at Māndū, the Kushk Mahall depends for its
charm upon its virile proportions well co-ordinated parts and
unaffected simplicity. Almost every detail of its design and con-
struction-its clean-cut intersecting vaults, its arcbes with their
delicate reflex curves, its cornices, brackets, balconies and pierced
screen-work-all suggest that the architect, and probably many of
the craftsmen as well, came from Māudū. This influence of Māndū
is observable also in some of the later buildings at Chanderi
though in their case the presence of other elements from the
schools of Gwalior and Ahmadābād has had the effect of sapping
the Māndū style of much of its strength. The Jāmi' Masjid, for
example, which in other respects is characteristic of Mālwa, is
cramped in its proportions and enfeebled by the rows of weak
serpentine brackets supporting the caves. The same meaningless
brackets, which subsequently found their way into Mughul archi-
tecture at Fatehpur Sikri and Bayāna, also contribute to mar the
appearance of the two tombs known as the Madrasa and Shāh-
zādikā. In the Badal Mahall Gateway, which may be presumed to
have served as a commemorative arch, the process of degeneration


## p. 624 (#674) ############################################

624
(ch.
THE MONUMENTS OF MUSLIM INDIA
has gone still further, and, though care has ben lavished upon its
details, its design as a whole is weak and ungainly.
These and many other monuments scattered through the
Central India and Rajputāna States, though they can rarely boast
the grandeur of contemporary buildings in the capital cities, are
nevertheless of very real value in filling in lacunae in the history
of the style to which they belong. As more attention comes to be
paid to them it will be possible to trace much more accurately
than at present the streams of influence that issued from Delhi,
Mālwa and Gujarāt and mingled or conflicted one with the other
in the contested territories between these three kingdoms; and it
will also be possible to gauge more precisely the part played by
the neighbouring Hindu principalities in the shaping of the Muslim
styles.
What has been said above about Rajputāna and Central India
is equally true of other parts of the Peninsula, where the Muslim
power established itself. In the cities of Hindūstān which were
subject to the Imperial Sultanate there are many edifices that help
to supplement and illumine the history of the Delhi style. At
Badaun, for example, in the United Provinces, the name of the
Emperor Shams-ud-din Iltutmish is still kept alive by three
monuments : the Hauz-i-Shamsi, the Shamsi-Idgāh and the
Jāmi' Masjid, the first two of which were probably founded by
him during his governorship of the Province between A. D. 1203 and
1209, and the third in 1223, twelve years after he had ascended
the throne of Delhi. Besides being one of the most ancient, the
Jāmi Masjid at Badaun is also one of the largest and most
massive mosques in India, measuring 280 feet from north to south
and constructed up to a height of twelve feet mainly of sandstone
blocks plundered from Hindu temples. But, restored and renovated
as it has been from time to time, there is little except its general
form that can now be ascribed to the time of Iltutmish'. Thus, the
older parts of the arcaded cloisters round the quadrangle and the
tapering turrets engaged in their outside quoins are evidently
part of a restoration effected in 1326 during the reign of Muhammad
Shāh Tughluq while the domes over the prayer chamber were
rebuilt in their present shape during the reign of Akbar, having
perhaps been destroyed in the great fire which swept Badaun in
1 Sir A. Cunningham's statement that the whole surface of the inner walls of the
masjid was originally covered with raised ornamentation in blue glazed tiles is open to
grave doubt. If glazed tiles were used in the manner stated, they probably belong to
the Tughluq restoration.


## p. 625 (#675) ############################################

**1)
BADAUN
625
1571-72. Even the eastern gateway which is figured in Sir A. Cun.
ningham's report for 1875-761 and which was then the one truly
authentic part of the original structure still surviving, has since
been dismantled, and the rest of the structure has been sadly
modernised. The village of Rāpri, again, not far from Shikohābād,
boasts of an imposing 'Idgāh which was built in A. D. 1311 during
the reign of 'Alā-ud-din Khalji ; and at Fathābād in the Hissar
District of the Punjab stands the well-known mosque and pillar on
which the lineage of Firūz Shāh Tughlaq-the founder of the
city-is set forth in an elaborate inscription of Tughrà lettering.
To the reign of another Tughluq (Mahmūd Shāh II) belongs the
Jāmi' Masjid at Irich”, with its highly ornate mihrab, which was
originally built in A. D. 1412 but renovated in the late seventeenth
century. Then, when we come to the period of the Lodīs, there is
at Kālpis in the United Provinces the fine mausoleum known as
the Chaurāsi Gumbaz-an arcaded structure set in the midst of a
cloistered quadrangle-which is reputed to be the resting-place of
one of the Lodi kings, but of which one there is no record. At
Lalitpur, too, an unpretentious but pleasing example of Lodi
architecture is afforded by the local Jāmi' Masjid, while at Hansi
in the Hissar District of the Punjab there is the tile-enamelled
tomb of 'Alī, a structure manifestly referable to the late fifteenth
century, though hitherto ascribed to the thirteenth4.
To return, however, to the local styles of architecture evolved
under the independent Muslim rulers-we have seen, in the case of
Bengal, Gujarāt and Mālwa, that their architecture did not take
definite shape until their rulers had thrown off their allegiance to
Delhi. And we shall find that the same is true of all the local
styles. Jaunpur, which is the next centre to claim attention, was
founded in 1359-60 by Firüz Shāh Tughluq when he was encamped
with his armies at Zafarābād, and for a generation afterwards-
until Khvāja-i-Jahān assumed independence in 1394-this city
constituted a valuable bulwark of the Delhi Empire.
Unfortunately, many of its finest monuments were ruthlessly
destroyed or mutilated by Sikandar Lodi after his defeat of Husain
in 1395, and of those which have survived there are three only of
note that can claim to have been founded during the fourteenth
century. These are the Masjid and Fort of Ibrāhīm Nāib Bārbak,
which were built respectively in 1376 and 1377, and the Atala
Masjid, founded in the latter year by Khvāja Kāmil Khān. Of
1 Vol. XI, pp. 1-11, pl. iii.
2 About 40 miles north of Jhansi.
3 In the Jalaun District.
4 Cf. C. S. R. , vol. XXIII, 16.
40
C. H. I. III.


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626
(CH.
THE MONUMENTS OF MUSLIM INDIA
these theree, however, neither the Fort nor the Mosque of Nāib
Bārbak is distinguished by any architectural feature worthy of
remark ; and on the other hand the Atala Masjid, though founded
as far back as 1377, seems to have progressed little further than
its foundations until the reign of Ibrāhīm Shāh Sharqi, who brought
it to completion in 1408 and who was indubitably responsible for
the character of its design.
Constituting, as it does, the earliest and finest example of the
Jaunpur style, this Atala Masjid merits particular description.
The site on which it stood had been the site of a temple of Atala-
devi, and it was out of the materials of that temple that the mosque
was largely built; but the structure, as it stands, is entirely of the
Muslim period and the stones taken from its predecessor were
cut and sculptured afresh to suit the new requirements. Its plan
is typical of most Indian mosques and many of its features
are directly copied from the architecture of the Tughluqs.
Seen, indeed, from the west and from without, the domes over
the prayer chamber and its back wall, with its engaged and
sharply tapering minarets, its kangura cornices and string courses,
might have been transplanted almost bodily from the Imperial
capital. On the other hand, the mosques of the Tughluqs are less
ornate than the Atala Masjid or its successors at Jaunpur, nor is
there anything in them to match the imposing propylon screens
which adorn the latter. It is these features in particular,- the
propylon screens and the surface decorations,-that give to the
mosques of Jaunpur their distinctive character, but it is the
former more than the latter that have become specially associated
with the Jaunpur style. The idea of giving increased height and
importance to the prayer Chamber by throwing an arched screen
across its facade had been, as we have already seen, initiated, three
centuries before, in the Quwwat-ul-Islām mosque at Delhi, and since
then had frequently found favour and been repeated in various
forms. It was left, however, for the architect of the Atala Masjid
to make of the screen a feature so massive and imposing as to
overshdow all else in the quadrangle. This he did by devising
.
the screen in the form of a gigantic propylon, uncommonly like the
propylons of ancient Egyptian temples, set in front of the central
liwān of the prayer chamber and sufficiently lofty (75 feet) to hide
from view the great dome behind it. The propylon consisted of
two square and battering minarets with an immense arch between,
the whole relieved by tier upon tier of smaller arched recesses or
trellised windows. To right and left of it was a smaller propylon
1


## p. 627 (#677) ############################################

xxiti )
LÂL DARWĀZA AND JẢMI MASJID
627
-
of similar pattern masking the two subsidiary domes of the prayer
chamber and serving as a support to lessen the glaring disparity
between the central propylon and the adjoining wings. The gate-
ways that pierced the cloisters on three sides of the quadrangle
were also designed to match the propylons, and extra height' and
mass were given to the cloisters themselves by making them five
bays in depth and adding to them a second storey. If the object of
the architect of the Atala Masjid was to accentuate the importance
of the prayer chamber and at the same time produce something
novel, there is no doubt he succeeded remarkably well, for there
are few mosques in Islam so imposing in their proportions or so
arresting in style. But whether his work deserves the lavish praise
that critics have bestowed upon it is another matter, and one to
which we shall revert anon, after considering the other surviving
examples of the Jaunpur school.
Another mosque belonging to the reign of Sultan Ibrāhim
(1401 – 40) was built by two governors of Jaunpur, Maliks Khālis
and Mukhlis, who have given their names to it ; and a third
was the Jhanjhri Masjid erected by Ibrāhīm himself in honour
of Hazrat Sa'id Sadr Jahān Ajmāli. The former is a simple plain
structure, devoid of ornament and invested with little archi-
tectural interest. Of the latter only the main propylon screen is
now standing, the rest having, it is said, been to a large extent
destroyed by Sikandar Lodi. Yet even from this mutilated frag-
ment it is evident that the Jhanjhri Masjid, though smaller in
scale, was very similar in design to the Atala;- so much so, indeed,
that there seems every probability of its having been the creation
of the same architect. Who this architect, - the father of the
Jaunpur style,-was is not known, but he was certainly gifted with
an originality and good taste far beyond that of his successors,
who built the Lal Darwaza and Jāmi Masjids. The first of
these, which dates from the reign of Mahmud Shāh (1440—56), is,
indeed, but a small and pale edition of the Atala. True, there are
differences between them. The style of the Lal Darwāza is more
inarkedly Hindu; its cloisters are only one storey in height by two
bays in depth; the prayer chamber is provided with one instead
of three domes; the ladies' galleries are placed alongside the
central hall; and the single propylon is much lover in proportion
to its width'than that of Atala Masjid. These differences, however,
are not enough to betoken originality on the part of ! he architect.
On the contrary, in endeavouring to improve on his model, he has
signally failed to reproduce its vigour and stylishness and succeeded
40-2


## p. 628 (#678) ############################################

628
įCH.
THE MONUMENTS OF MUSLIM INDIA
common to
only in giving us a dull and unimaginative substitute. It is much
the same with the great Jāmi Masjid, which was erected, a
generation later, in the reign of Husain Shāh (acc. 1458), but in
this case decidedly more inventiveness has been displayed over the
planning and disposition of its parts. The prayer chamber of this
mosque (which is 235 feet in length, over all) is divided into five
compartments, viz. a square liwān in the centre surmounted by a
loſty dome and fronted by the customary propylon ; on either side
of it a low pillared chamber supporting a zanāna gallery, which
thus looked down into the central liwan ; and beyond the zanana
gallery, a vaulted hall 50 feet in length by 40 in depth. Though less
chaste in its details than that of the Atala Masjid, which it closely
resembles, the domed līwān is nevertheless a noble and imposing
hall; and the vaulted wings are well conceived and, in cleverer
hands, might have been developed into really effective features.
As they are, however, no effort has been made to soften their
hard straight silhouettes or to bring them into harmony with the
central propylon which towers starkly abrupt above them. This
weakness of composition and lack of rhythm is one of the most
glaring defects of the Jaunpur school. Another (and this is a defect
most Indo-Islamic architecture) is its failure to
visualise the subject in more than two dimensions at once or to
design a building in the mass and with reference to every angle of
view. The propylon screen of a Jaunpur mosque was meant to be
seen from the quadrangle only and in this direction it certainly
presented an effective appearance. Looked at, however, from the
side or back, it was an incongruous adjunct unconnected, struc,
turally or artistically, with the rest of the building. Few things,
indeed, in Muslim architecture are so anomalous as the juxtaposi-
tion of these flat, abruptly squared, propylons and of the graceful
domes immediately behind them. It is an anomaly of which no
architect imbued with the true spirit of Islamic art could have
been guilty. The architect of the Lal Darwāza Masjid is said to
have been a Hindu, named Kamau, the son of Visadru, and it is
likely enough that the architect of the Atala Masjid was a Hindu
also,-a Hindu to whom the dome and arch meant little more than
structural expedients of unavoidable symbolic accessories, and
who had little understanding of their inherent beauty. However
this may be, the defects of construction and composition are so
fundamental and obtrusive in these mosques that it is impossible
to place them, as Fergusson did, in the foremost rank of Indo.
Islamic monuments. Certainly they are not to be mentioned in the


## p. 629 (#679) ############################################

xx11)
DUALATĀBĀD
629
same breath with the finest of the monuments at Delhi, Ahmadābād,
or Bījāpur.
When we turn from the north of India to the Deccan, Muslim
architecture confronts us with an unexpected phenomenon. So
long as the Deccan was part and parcel of the Delhi Empire, the
Muslims settled there would naturally look to the northern capital
for their ideas of art and culture, and whatever buildings they
erected would be either put together out of dismantled Hindu
shrines and the like, modelled on the Khalji or Tughluq archi-
tecture in fashion at the time? When once, however, the political
connexion with Delhi had been severed, it might have been
thought that the Muslims in that remote and little accessible
country would rapidly have succumbed to the Hindu influences
that surrounded them and that their architecture would have taken
its complexion from the Hemādpanti, Chālukyan and Dravidian
buildings which were daily before their eyes. As a fact, the very
reverse happened. No where else in India did the assimilation of
indigenous art proceed so slowly as in the south. From 1347,
when their independence was established, down to the close of the
fourteenth century, the Bahmanis based their architecture almost
exclusively on that of the Imperial capital, and during the follow-
ing century also they drew much of their inspiration from the
same fountain head. From the beginning of the fiſteenth century,
however, other and more remote influences began to make them-
selves felt. At all times the Bahmani dynasts were generous
patrons of art and science and learning and their court was as
attractive to poets, scholars and artists as their army was to
soldiers of fortune. Thus it came about that much of their military
architecture was introduced directly from Europe, and that Persia
played a more important part in the development of their civil
architecture than in that of any other contemporary Indian style.
Some of the monuments erected by the Bahmanis, such as the
Jāmi' Masjid at Gulbarga, are definitely known to have been
erected by Persian architects ; others, such as the Chānd Minar at
Daulatābād (1435) and the College of Mahmūd Gāwān at Bidar
(1472), are so predominantly Persian in character as to leave no
room for doubt that they were largely the work of architects and
craftsmen from that country? ; others, again, exhibit obvious
Persian inspiration, but in a more partial and indirect form.
1 Regarding the wholesale transportation of craftsmen and artisans from Delhi to
Daulatābād by Muhammad bin Tughluq, see above, p. 144. The loss to Delhi must
have been a great gain to the Deccan. 2 Māhmud Gāwān was himself a Persian,


## p. 630 (#680) ############################################

630
(ch.
THE MONUMENTS OF MUSLIM INDIA
To the period between 1294 when 'Alā-ud-din Khalji invaded
the country, and 1347, when Bahman established the Bhamani
dynasty, only two monuments can with confidence be ascribed,
namely the Jāmi Masjid at Daulatābād (circ. 1315) and the
Deval Mosque at Bodhan of Muhammad Tughluq's reign (1325-51).
Neither of these structures, however, was anything more than an
adaptation of a Hindu shrine, slightly altered to suit the new
exigencies, and neither of them, therefore, has any real bearing on
the history of local Islamic architecture. During this provincial
period, however, much sound work must have been put by the
Muhammadans into the fortification of strongholds such as Devagiri
(Daulatābād) which they had wrested from the Hindus. Unfor-
tunately, the military architecture of the Deccan has attracted
little or no attention from archaeologists, and the data at present
available are insufficient to enable us to discriminate with con.
fidence between successive periods of building or to determine
which parts are attributable to the Hindu founders, which to the
provincial governors from Delhi and which to the Bahmani, Qutb
Shahi or other dynasties that followed them. In the case of Daula-
tābād, however, there can be no doubt that though some of its
defences were devised by the Yādavas and others by the Bahmanis
or their successors, some also
the work of Muhammad
Tughluq at the time (1339) when he transferred the population of
Delhi to Daulatābād, and constituting, as this city does, one of the
most striking example of fortification known to the mediaeval
world, it rightly deserves special notice. Its inner citadel stands
on an isolated conical rock 600 feet in height, with sides scarped
sheer for 150 feet and a moat hewn out of the living rock at their
base. The only entrance is through a devious tunnel which in
times of siege was rendered impassable by an ingenious con-
trivance. At a bend in the tunnel which came near to the outer
edge of the rock was small chamber provided with a flue pierced
through the thickness of the wall and fitted, in addition, with a
staging of iron plates. On these plates a charcoal fire was lit which,
fanned by the wind blowing incessantly through the flue, would
quickly fill the tunnel with its fumes and make any ingress
impossible. Round about this almost impregnable acropolis, which
be it added, possesses its own perennial springs of water, was a
highly complex system of fortifications designed to protect the
city. The outer wall has a perimeter of 23 miles and between it
and the acropolis are three inner walls, each loopholed and battle-
mented and each furnished with fortified gateways, outworks and
were
a


## p. 631 (#681) ############################################

xxni ]
BIDAR AND PARENDA
631
bastions, all so disposed that with the help of salient and re-entrant
angles the maximum of fire could be directed against an assailant ;
in addition to which the outer wall is surrounded by a moat and
glacis in much the same manner as the mediaeval fortresses of
Europe. In the military architecture of Northern India-even
including that of the Mughuls—there is nothing at all comparable
for strength and ingenuity to these elaborate defences of Daulatā.
bād. The Bahmanīs, indeed who were largely responsible for them,
seem to have done more for military engineering than any of their
contemporaries, though it was left, it is true, to their successors
the following century to make the radical changes in military
architecture which the introduction of artillery rendered necessary.
Threatened as they constantly were by powerful enemies on every
side-by the Rājas of Vijayanagar, Telingāna and Orissa, by the
Gonds; and by the Sultans of Khāndesh, Mālwa and Gujarāt, the
Bahmanīs were compelled to safeguard themselves by multiplying
the number and increasing the strength of their fortresses. On the
north, the taraf of Berar was defended by its capital Ellichpur as
well as by the two strongholds of Gāwilgarh and Narnāla, the
former of which was built and the latter extensively repaired by
Ahmad Shāh Wali I between the years 1425—28. Māhūr, in the
modern district of Adilābād, served to keep in check the highland
chiefs of the Sātpuras and the wild tribes beyond the Wardha,
On the west, besides Daulatābād, there were the powerful fortresses
of Parenda, Naldrug and Panhāla and, a little farther south, the
capital Gulbarga itself. Nearer the centre of their dominions
stood Bidar to which the capital was subsequently transferred;
and, towards the east, Warangal and Golconda ; while in the
south-west corner, watching the ever-dangerous Vijayanagar border,
were Mudgal and Rāichūr. Some of these fortresses (and there
are many more of lesser note that might be added to their number)
had been taken over from the conquered Hindu states but so
transformed by the Muhammadans as to ratain little of their
original character. Such were Rāichūr built in 1294 by Gore
Gungāya Ruddivāru ; Mudgal, once the seat of local Yadava
governors ; Warangal, Gulbarga and Bidar captured by Muhammad
bin Tughluq, and Golconda ceded to Muhammad Shāh I in 1364.
Some. again, stood in the open ; others like Māhūr and Naldrug,
were built on precipitous rocks are among the hills, and relied as
much on their natural as on their artificial defences Of those, like
Daulatābād, which possessed an elaborate system of fortification,
the most remarkable perhaps and second only to Daulatābā,


## p. 632 (#682) ############################################

632
[CH.
THE MONUMENTS OF MUSLIM INDIA
itself, are Bidar and Parenda'. The former was mainly constructed
by Ahmad Shāh I in 1426—31, at the time when it supplanted Gul-
barga as the Bahmani capital. Its walls, which are some 50 feet in
height and 3 miles in circumference, are furnished with battle-
ments, bastions and outworks--all very solidly constructed, and
are further protected by a triple ditch (75 feet wide and 45 feet
deep) hewn out of the solid rock. The Parenda Fort is traditionally
attributed to Mahmud Gāwān, but whether the tradition has any
basis in fact is questionable. Though relatively small in area, its
defences are singularly efficient. They comprise an inner and outer
wall separated by a covered passage, a moat from 80 to 110 feet in
width, a second and broader covered passage outside the counter-
scarp and a glacis which rises to the height of the faussebraye.
The outer or scarp wall is stengthened by 22 bastions and, like
the inner, provided with loopholes, battlements and projecting
galleries. The only entrance was by way of a drawbridge and gate-
way at the north-west corner, and thence through a narrow and
devious vaulted passage to a second gateway defended by traverses
and redoubts. Anyone familiar with the military architecture of
mediaeval Europe will perceive at once the close resemblances
between it and the system of fortification described above, which
is followed not only in these but in many other Deccan forts of the
period. So striking, indeed, are these resemblances that there can
be no doubt but that the works in the Deccan were directly
imitated from the European, and, though nothing is known of the
engineers responsible for this imitation, it may be assumed that
men well capable of planning such fortifications would not be
difficult to find among the Turkish and other foreign mercenaries
in the armies of the Bahmani Sultans and their successors, by
whom these fortresses were largely added to and impoved. This
adoption of western principles of military engineering must not,
however, be taken to imply that western influence also accounts for
the architectural style of these forts. With a few notable excep-
tions, that style belongs essentially to the Deccan. It is a style
which combines sincerity of purpose with an innate sense for the
decorative. The Indian builders of these forts grasped what was
required and designed their structures accordingly, not slavishly
following established precedent nor matching one feature meticu-
1 For the particulars of these two fortresses and for inuch else that follows
concerning the monuments of the Deccan the writer is indebted to Mr. Ghulām
Yazdani, M. A. , the distinguished Director of Archaeology in H. E. H. the Nizam's
Dominions,


## p. 633 (#683) ############################################

XXII]
GULBARGA
633
lously against another as the later Mughul builders did, but
setting each where it was needed, making it of such size and
strength as was required, and giving to the whole that ouch of
beauty that comes naturally and instinctively to the artists of
Southern India. It is this quality of simple purposefulness in their
architecture that gave to these fortresses of the Deccan much of
their romantic charm--a charm which was
denied to many a
building in which beauty was more consciously aimed at. What
this particular charm signified can perhaps best be appreciated by
comparing, for example, the dignified but unpretentious gateway
of Golconda (Fig. 90) with the highly ornate and conventionally
laboured Mahākāli gateway of the Narnāla Fort erected in 1486
during the reign of Shihāb-ud-din Mahmūd Shāh and manifestly
inspired by the contemporary L'ydi architecture of Delhi.
As stated above, the capital of the Bahmanīs was established
first at Gulbarga and afterwards at Bidar and it is in these two
cities that the most valuable materials are to be found for the
study of their civil architecture. At Gulbarga, the two groups of
royal tombs are particularly instructive. In the first group, which
is situated near the south gate of the fort, are the tombs of 'Alā-ud.
din Hasan, Bahman Shāh (d. 1358), Muhammad Shāh (d. 1375)
and Muhammad Shāh II (d. 1397), besides two anonymous tombs
of a later date; the second, which is known as the Haft Gumbad
or 'Seven Domes' and is situate to the east of the town, contains
the tombs of Mujāhid Shāh (d. 1378), Dā’ūd Shāh (d. 1378), Prince
Sanjar, Ghiyās-ud-din (d. 1397) and his family, and Fīrūz Shāh
(1422) and his family. In their general form all these tombs
present a striking family likeness; the single ones, that is to say,
are simple square chambers, crowned with battlements and corner
turrets and roofed by a single dome, the whole standing on a low
square plinth; while the double ones are merely a duplication of
the single ones, resulting in a building twice as long as it is broad
and covered by two domes instead of one. In their detail features,
however, they clearly reveal the phases through which the archi-
tecture of the Deccan passed during this period. Thus, the tomb
of the first king, Hasan, with its battering walls and low dome, its
fluted turrets, tall narrow doorways and band of blue enamel tiles
below the springers of the dome, is typical of the Tughluq style of
1 For an analysis of the fundamental differences between the art of the Dra.
vidian South and the art of the Aryanised North of India, cf. the writer's article
'Influence of Race on Early Indian art,' in the Journal of the Society of Arts,
vol. Ixxi, pp. 659—667,


## p. 634 (#684) ############################################

634
[ CH.
THE MONUMENTS OF MUSLIM INDIA
Delhi ; and the tombs of Muhammad Shāh, Mujāhid Shāh, Dā’ūd
l
Shāh and Prince Sanjar are direct products of the same style. In
the tomb of Ghiyās-ud-din, on the other hand, which was built in
the closing years of the fourteenth century, Hindu craftsmanship
begins to show in the carvings of the prayer-niche ; and a genera-
tion later the splendid mausoleum of Firuz Shāh and his family
(153' x 78' externally) bears witness to the steadily growing strength
of this Hindu influence as well as to the new fashion for Persian
ornament, the former obtruding itself on the outside of the build-
ing in the carved and polished black stone pilasters of the entrance
and in the dripstones and elegant brackets that support them; the
latter, in the resplendent plaster and painted decorations of the
interior which are closely akin to those found in the contemporary
tombs of the Sayyid and Lodi kings at Delhi and call to mind the
rich designs of Persian bookbinding and embroidery.
Muhammad Shāh Bahmani, whose tomb has been noticed
above, was the author also of two mosques at Gulbarga, the earlier
and smaller of which is now known as the Shāh Bazār Masjid. Its
gateway is an almost exact replica of the Sultan's tomb and in
other respects also, notably in the tall stilted archways of its
prayer chamber and in the austere simplicity of its style, imitates
the Tughluq architecture of Firūz Shāh's reign at Delhi. The
other mosque is the famous Jāmi' Masjid within the fort, which was
built by one Rafi', 'the son of Shams, the son of Mansur of Qazwin,'
whose Persian sympathies find expression in the stilted domes and
narrow entrances, though in other respects, the style of this
building appertains rather to Delhi than to Persia. Two features
of this mosque call for particular remark. One is the design of the
broad squat arches of the cloisters (Fig. 95) which now make their
appearance for the first time, but are destined henceforth to become
familiar adjuncts of the architecture of the Deccan; the other is
the unique treatment of the courtyard, which instead of being left
open to the sky, as usual, is covered in by 63 small domes carried
on arched bays, the cloisters at the sides being roofed with
corresponding vaults, and light and air being admitted to the
interior through open archways in their outer walls. At the four
corners of the building, which measures 216 by 176 feet over all,
are four shapely domes, while a fifth and larger one dominating
the whole is raised on a square clerestory above the prayer
chamber. To single out for praise any particular feature of this
mosque would be difficult ; yet there is about the whole a dignified
simplicity and grandeur that place it in the first rank of such


## p. 635 (#685) ############################################

XXID ]
BIDAR
635
buildings and sufficiently account for the influence it exérted on
the subsequent development of the Deccan style. The date of its
erection, as stated in an inscription, was 1367-a few years, that is
to say, before Jauna Shāh built the Kālī and Khirki mosques at
Delhi, and it is not unlikely therefore that Jauna Shāh's architect
may have been acquainted with the design of this Gulbarga proto-
type and sought to improve upon it by introducing open aisles
across the closed court and thus obviating the need for the admis-
sion of light and air through the surrounding cloisters. The main
drawback, however, to both the Gulbarga and the Delhi plans must
have been that on important ceremonial occasions, most of the
worshippers were obstructed from seeing the central liwan and
mimbar-a drawback which was quite enough to account for their
plans not being copied in later buildings.
The peculiar form of wide arch with low imposts initiated at
the Jāmi' Masjid was subsequently imitated at Gulbarga in the
stupendous archway over the entrance to the shrine of Banda
Nawāz, which is traditionally ascribed to the reign of Tāj-ud-din
Fīrūz Shāh (1397–1422) but which there are good reasons for
referring to a later date. Whatever its age, this archway is
eloquent of the fearless imagination of the architects of the Deccan,
which led them to essay the construction of domes and arches as
vast as any known to the mediaeval or ancient world.
Bidar, where from the reign of Ahmad Shāh Vāli onwards the
story of Deccan architecture continues to unfold itself, boasts, like
Gulbarga, of two separate groups of royal tombs : one of the later
Bahmani kings, the other of the Barid Shāhīs. The former are
twelve in number and generally similar to their predecessors at
Gulbarga, though their scale is larger, their domes loftier and
more bulbous and their facades adorned with a greater multi-
plicity of arched recesses or screened windows. The finest of them
is the tomb of Ahmad Shāh Valī, the interior of which is adorned
with brilliantly coloured paintings in the Persian style and enriched
with bands Kūfic, Tughrā and Naskh inscriptions worked out
in letters of gold on a ground of deep blue or vermilion. This
Persianising tendency which continued to gather strength during
the fifteenth century found further expression during the reign of
the next king 'Alā-ud-din Shāh, in the Chand Minār at Daulatā-
bād, the whole design of which is characteristically Iranian, as well
as in the tomb of the same emperor, the facade of which is covered
with a veneer of enamel tiles in various shades of blue. But of all
the monuments of this period built in the Persian style the most


## p. 636 (#686) ############################################

636
[CH.
THE MONUMENTS OF MUSLIM INDIA
remarkable is the Madrasa or College erected at Bidar in 1472 by
Mahmud Gāwān, the mininster of Muhammad Shāh III. This
building, which resembled, so it is said, the College of Ulugh Beg
at Samarqand was of imposing appearance. Three storeys in
height with towering minarets at its two front corners, it covered
an area of 205 feet by 180. In it were a mosque, library, lecture
halls, professors' quarters and students' cubicles, ranged about an
open courtyard, a hundred feet this way and that. The mosque
and library were to the front of the building on either side of the
entrance ; the lofty lecture rooms (which rose to the full height of
the three storeys) in the middle of the other sides ; and the pro-
fessors' rooms in the corners-all planned for convenience and
comfort and amply provided with light and air. In form the
corner towers resembled somewhat the Chånd Minār at Daulatā.
bād, but unlike that minar they were emblazoned, as was also the
whole of the front facade between them with a glittering surface
of encaustic tilework, which with its chevron patterning and deep
bold bands of sacred texts would challenge comparison with any.
thing of its kind in Persia. But with all its elegance of outline, its
unimpeachable proportions, and refined details, there is little or no
feeling in Mahmūd Gāwān's college for plastic form and mass, or
for the values of contrasted light and shade. The architect has
visualised his subject, as the architects of Eastern Persia habitually
did, in two rather than in three dimensions, and has sought to
achieve beauty by a glistening display of enamel, helped out by
symmetry of outline and a nicely adjusted balance of parts. For
sheer loveliness of colour the result could hardly be bettered ; but
divest the building of it superficial ornament and little is left save
a mathematically correct, tame, and highly stylised fabric. To the
reign of Muhammad Shāh III there probably belongs also the
Sola Khamb Mosque in the Bidar Fort, and near by it an interest-
ing group of palace buildings including the Gagan, Tarkash, Chini
and Nagina Mahals. Shorn of all ornament, modernised and con-
verted to baser uses as record office, court and jail, these palace
buildings are impressive even in their decay, and with their
spacious halls, their water courses and cascades, still awaken echoes
of their former splendour. The mosque, too despite its fallen
domes and crumbling masonry, is a good example of the Bahmani
style as illustrated in the royal tombs of Gulbarga and Bīdar-a
style which is imposing but never pretentious, solemn in its
simplicity but never austere.
1 It measures 297 by 77 feet,
1


## p. 637 (#687) ############################################

Xxit ]
KASHMIR
631
The Persianising tendency visible in much of the architecture
of the Bahmanis persisted, though in a less degree, under their
successors, the 'Imad Shāhis of Berar, the Barid Shāhīs of Bidar,
the 'Adil Shāhis of Bījāpur, and the Qutb Shāhis of Golconda,
whose founder, Sultān Quli was himself a Turk from Persia and
endowed with that peculiar sympathy for ultra refinement in art
and literature which belongs to the Persian tenperament. By the
end of the fifteenth century, however, the latent art of the Deccan
was reasserting itself in increasing strength and when, in the
following century, the 'Adil Shāhīs set about their mangnificent
monuments at Bījāpur and freely employed Indian artists and
craftsmen on their construction, it was inevitable that Indian genius
should rise superior to foreign influence and stamp itself more and
more deeply on these creations. This later phase of Deccan
architecture, however, when the style was attaining its full
maturity, belongs to a subsequent period and to another volume
of this history. To another volume also must be reserved our
description of the monuments of the Färūqi kings of Khāndesh at
Thalner and Burhānpur, though it may be mentioned in passing
that the few that have survived at the former place, including the
inscribed tomb of Mirān Mubārak I (dec. 1457) are strikingly akin
in style to the monuments of Māndū.
Finally, there remains the remote valley at Kashmir. When, in
the fourteenth century, the Muhammadans e ntered into possession
of this highland valley, they found there a legacy of many fine
buildings left by their predecessors, some of stone, but the vast
majority of wood, which has always been the principal building
material in these well-wooded tracts of the Himalayas. The stone
buildings, however,-imposing structures of peculiarly classic
stamp-belonged to a bygone age, and the art of the stone-mason
had been too long forgotten for the Muhammadans to revive it.
True, they did convert a few of the stone temples of the unbelievers
into mosques and tombs for themselves, but this they did merely
by using such of the old architectural members as they could,
and completing the rest of the structure in rubble or brick. One
such reconstructed temple is the tomb of Mandani, with mosque
adjacent, which bears an inscription recording its erection in the
year 1444—in the reign of Zain-ul'Ābidin ; but the remarkable
tile decoration on its eastern face, for which this tomb is celebrated,
belongs not, as is generally supposed, to the original edifice, but to
a later restoration of the Mughul period. Another monument of
Zain-ul-Abidin's reign (1420—70) is the tomb of his mother, the


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638
[CH.
THE MONUMENTS OF MUSLIM INDIA
wife of Sikandar Butshikan. In this case the builders left the
enclosure wall and gateways of the desecrated temple much as
they had found them, but of the temple itself they kept only the
plinth, and on it erected an entirely new superstructure of brick
and plaster, embellished here and there with glazed bricks. In
style this toinb is typically Saracenic, if not purely Persian; nor is
there anything in its design (nor indeed, in the design of any other
brick or stone building of this period) to indicate that the old
stone architecture of the Hindus exerted any appreciable influence
upon it, beyond contributing some of the materials for their
building. Far different is it with the wooden architecture of this
epoch. Unfortunately, owing to their perishable nature, none of
the old Hindu structures of wood have survived to the present
day : but there can be no question that from time immemorial,
wood had been, and under the Muhammadans still continued to be,
the chief building material of the Kashmiris. Even in the reign of
Akbar stone-masons had to be imported into Kashmir to build the
fort of Hari Parbat ; and two generations later wood was still,
according to Bernier, preferred to stone 'on account of its cheap-
ness and the facility with which it could be brought from the
mountains by means of so many small rivers. Although, however,
in the matter of this wooden architecture the Muhammadans
carried on the established tradition of the valley and adopted the
architectural style of their predecessors, they were by no means
content to perpetuate that style unchanged. They did in Kashmir
what they did everywhere else in India. They made the indigenous
style the basis of their own ; but they gave it a new complexion
by grafting on to it the structural forms and decorative motifs
peculiarly associated with Islam, and-which was more important-
they gave it a breadth and spaciouseness that could hardly have
been dreamt of by the older Hindu builders. Of the style as we
find it in the Muslim period, the most telling characterisitc is the
treatment of the roof. Boldly projecting eaves, carried on several
tiers of carved and overlapping brackets, and enriched with
pendant drops at their corners; sheets of growing irises or tulips
covering the gently inclined roof; and crowning all a tall and
graceful steeple—these are the features that first arrest the eye
and give peculiar distinction to the mosques and tombs of Srinagar.
They are not, however, the only distinctive features; for the well-
finished timber work of the walls with its pleasing diaper of
headers and stretchers ; the magnificent pillars of deodar in the
larger halls, and the delicate openwork traceries of window screens


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XXIII )
HINDU AND MUSLIM ART
639
and balustrades, skilfully put together out of innumerable small
pieces of wood, all help to enhance the charm and accentuate the
stylishness of this architecture. As a protection against the heavy
rain and snows of Kashmir, the use of birch bark nailed in multiple
layers above the roofs and overspread, in turn, with turf and flowers
could hardly have been improved upon ; and the planting of irises
and tulips on the roofs was a singularly happy inspiration, not only
because of their own intrinsic beauty, but because their tenacious
roots gave added strength to the fabric of the roof covering. For
the rest, however, it must be confessed that the construction of
these buildings leaves much to be desired. The Muslim builder
knew no
more than the Hindu about trusses or struts or other
devices familiar to the modern architect, and when there was an
unusually large area to be roofed, the best he could do was to
insert intermediate pillars for the support of the ceiling with
ponderous piers of logs above the pillars to carry the sloping roof
-as extravagant and cumbersome an arrangement as could well
be imagined, and one which inevitably led to the premature
collapse of the overweighted structure.
Of the few monuments in the wooden-or mainly wooden---style
whose origin goes back to the pre-Mughul period, the most im-
posing is the Jami' Masjid at Srinagar. Founded by Sikandar
Butshikan (1390—1414) and extended by his son Zain-ul-Abidin,
it was thrice burnt down and thrice rebuilt-once in 1479, a second
tirne in 1620, and third time in 1674-and after again falling to
ruin was extensively restored in recent years. In spite, however,
of its many vicissitudes, the original design seems to have been
more or less faithfully repeated by successive restorers, and though
little of the first fabric is now left, the monument is still an
instructive exemplar of the pre-Mughul style. Its plan is the
orthodox one: a rectangular court closed by colonnades on its four
sides, wherein the familiar method has been followed of screening
the four colonnades from the court by an arched facade and
setting a spacious hall in the middle of each-the hall on the west,
which is the largest, constituting the prayer chamber, and the
other three serving, as usual, for entrance gateways. But though
there is nothing uncommon in the planning of this mosque, great
and exceptional dignity is given to its elevation by the noble pro-
portions of the four halls with their soaring spires, and this dignity
is more than sustained as one enters the interior and gazes up at
the timbered ceilings and lofty columns, each hewn from a single
log, that support it.


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640
(CH. xxiit
THE MONUMENTS OF MUSLİM INDIA
A less pretentious but, in its own way, no less pleasing specimen
of the wooden style is the mosque of Shāh Hamadān in Srinagar.
Unlike the Jāmi' Masjid, which is partly of timber, partly of brick
and stone, this mosque is built exclusively of timber, and instead
of being planned on the usual or orthodox lines, consists of nothing
more than a single square hall, thus affording an interesting and
instructive parallel with some of the pre-Mughul mosques of
Bengal, which, as we have already seen, were all but indistinguish-
able from contemporary tombs. The qualities that distinguish
these two mosques—the qualities of digniſied simplicity and
spaciousness on the one hand ; of grace of line and natural
artistry on the other-are far from being peculiar to the Kashmir
school. They are qualities that were common at this epoch to the
whole hody of Indo-Islamic monuments, and are as conspicuous
among those of Delhi as among those of Mālwa, Gujarāt and the
Deccan, or wherever else Muslim genius came to resuscitate and
enrich the older work of the Hindus. Vary as they might in
individual expression, the local schools of Islamic architecture one
and all derived their lineage from a common parentage and betray
in their lineaments a family likeness that is unmistakable. In the
case of Kashmir this family likeness is specially significant ; for
differently conditioned as the Kashmir architecture was, fashioned
out of dissimilar materials and cast in a mould unlike that of any
other school, it would hardly have been surprising if its develop-
ment had proceeded on radically different lines. That it did not do
so ; that it exhibits, on the contrary, precisely the same fusion of
Hindu and Muslim ideals, the same happy blend of elegance and
strength, is eloquent testimony to the enduring vitality of Hindu
art under an alien rule and to the wonderful capacity of the
Muslim for absorbing that art into his own and endowing it with
a new and grandeur spirit.


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BIBLIOGRAPHIY TO CHAPTER I
641
CHAPTER I
THE ARAB CONQUEST OF SIND
1.