No More Learning

After the expulsion of Rāja Kāns's House in 1438, the buildings
of the restored Iliyās Shāh dynasty become
Besides other monuments of lesser note, there are the Sath Gum-
bad mosque and tomb of Khān-i-Jahān 'Ali at Bagerhāt, both
dating from about 1459; while at Gaur there is the Dākhil Gate-
way, believed to have been built by Bārbak Shāh (1459–74), the
Tāntīpāra, Daras Bāri and Lotan masjids ascribed to his son,
Yusuf Shāh (1474-81), and the Gunmant mosque erected probably
a few years later. Of these the first mentioned - the Sath Gumbad
mosque-is noteworthy for its cornet turrets, which are strongly
reminiscent of Tughluq architecture, and for the unusual treatment
of its frontal cornice, which instead of being curvilinear, slopes
away in straight lines from a small triangular pediment over the
central bay. The interior is a fine spacious apartment albeit some-
what marred by the exaggerated slenderness of its stone pillars.
The Dākhil Darwāza--the most striking of several gateways at
Gaur-is a superb example of what can be achieved in brick and
terracotta. Sixty feet in height by 113 feet from back to front, it
consists of a central arched passage with guard rooms on either side.
At each of its four corners is a five-storeyed tapering turret, once
crowned by a dome. Walls and turrets alike are relieved by string
courses and mouldings, and adorned further with sunk panels,
niches and rosettes and other motifs of Hindu origin, among which
the chain and bell, battlement and quatrefoil are conspicuous.
But the outstanding merit of this gateway is the surprising bold-
ness of its design and the masterly skill with which its facades have
been broken up and diversified by alternating effects of light and
a


## p. 605 (#655) ############################################

a
XXII ) THE DAKHIL DARWĀZA AT GAUR
605
shade. Between the Dākhil Gateway and the Tāntipāra masjid
erected (if we may accept the traditional dates) only ten years
later, there is a marked divergence of style. The latter-an oblong
brick structure of two aisles divided by stone pillars down the
centre-has suffered sadly from the effects of time. Its roof has
gone entirely and large sections of its walls have collapsed. Yet,
even in its ruin, it is still an object of beauty. Cunningham con-
sidered it the finest edifice of all in Gaur, and if perfection of
detail were the criterion of good architecture, his opinion would
be fully justified. In the matter of superficial ornament, indeed,
the Tāntīpāra masjid marks the zenith of the Bengal school. In
other respects, however, it shows signs of incipient decadence.
Where the Dākhil Gateway is virile, the masjid is effeminate ;
where the former is free and spontaneous, the latter is mannered
and formal; and even its lace-like ornamentation, beautiful as it is
in itself, must be admitted to be verging on the meretricious. The
same remarks apply also to the decoration of the Daras Bāri mosque
which belongs to about the same age but is even more sorely
battered than the Tāntipära, The Lotan masjid which is another
of the monuments ascribed to Yūsuf Shāh is the best surviving
example of type of mosque peculiar to Bengal. It is said to take
its name (otherwise Lattan or Nattan) from Nattu, a favourite
dancing girl of the Emperor. Like the Chamkhan masjid, which
appears from its style to be somewhat older but is neither so large
nor so well preserved, it is constructed of brick and consists of a
square prayer chamber-manifestly built on the model of the
Eklākhi tomb-with an arched verandah added on to its eastern
side, the whole structure measuring 721 feet long by 52 feet wide.
Inside and out, the brickwork was once covered with glazed tiles
of blue, white yellow, and green. Much of this tilework has now
perished, but what remains it does not suggest that it could ever
have been very attractive. Here and there were a few effective
ornaments, such as blue and white lotus medallions in the spandrels,
but most of the decoration took the form of narrow alternating
bands of colour, which are merely restless and bewildering to
the eye. Such decoration has little to commend it. It misses the
picturesque and imaginative colouring of the tile-enamelled build.
ings of Persia and equally it misses the charm of reticence and
restraint which characterise the use of coloured tilework at Multān
and Delhi. That it could have appealed much to taste of artists
who were capable of desiging the Dākhil Gateway or the Tānti-
pāra masjid is prima facie unlikely, and its presence can only be
-


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606
| CH.
THE MONUMENTS OF MUSLIM INDIA
accounted for on the supposition that coloured tiling was considered
the fashionable thing at the moment for mosques, and that no
better tiles than these were obtainable in Bengal. Glazed tilework
was used also in the the Gunmant mosque at Gaur, but here the
coloured decoration was supplemented by reliefs on stone or plaster,
and it is significant that the latter was employed in the most con-
spicuous part of the building, i. e. , in the main hall of the prayer
chamber, whereas the tilework was relegated to a subordinate
position in the wings. The ground plan of this masjid is not unlike
that of Ādina. It consists, that is to say, of a central vaulted
hall (51 x 17 feet) flanked to right and leſt by an arcaded wing,
each wing divided into twelve bays (viz. three aisles with four
openings to the front) and roofed with as many domes. The wings
are in no way remarkable, but the central hall, with its stone masonry
and decorative reliefs embossed on the soffit of the vaulted roof, is
a fresh departure inaugurating, as we shall see, a new phase in the
history of this school. Both stonework and reliefs, to be sure, had
long before been anticipated in the Ādina masjid ; but in those early
days the stone had been stripped from Hindu temples, and when the
supply from this source had failed, its place had been taken by
brick. From now onwards stone again comes into fashion, being
specially quarried in the distant Balasore and Rājmahal Hills and
conveyed to Gaur by water. Although, too, the reliefs in the
Gunmant mosque were doubtless inspired by those in the Adina, the
new work was very different from the old. This will be apparent at
a glance if the reader will compare the illustrations of the Ādina
masjid carvings (Figs. 33 and 34) with those of the Gunmant and
Chhotā Sonā masjid (Figs. 38 and 41). Technically and artistically
the former are far superior. They exhibit all the refinement and
natural spontaneity of the old Hindu school of Eastern India which
for five centuries and more had been producing carving of this
kind in stone. The latter are careful, painstaking efforts and by no
means unattractive, but in a great measure imitative of the terra-
cotta relief work which for some generations had supplanted stone
sculpture and which being moulded out of soft clay was little
adapted for reproduction in the harder material.
The obscurity which envelops the authorship of most of the
buildings described above extends also to the single important
monument, which the authority of the Riyāz-us-Salātin is
commonly accredited to the short-lived Habashi dynasty (1487–
93). This is the Firūza (or Chirāgh) minar at Gaur, which,
like the minars at the Qutb and at Daulatābād, was designed
on


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XXIII 1
THE FİRÓŻA MINAR AT GAUR
604
perhaps to do duty both as a Tower of Victory and the ma’zina of
a mosque that has since disappeared. It was a five-storeyed tower
about 84 feet in height-excluding a high masonry plinth on which
it formerly stood-and ascended by a spiral staircase within. The
three lower storeys were twelve-sided and of equal dimensions,
separated one from the other by bands of simple ornament. Then
came a projecting balcony and above it two circular storeys dimin-
ishing in size, the topmost being pierced with four arched openings
and surmounted by a dome, like the crowning cupolas of Tughluq
buildings. Besides its surface decorations in brick and terracotta,
the body of the tower was also embellished with blue and white
tiles, many of which were found in the debris at its foot. According
to the Riyāz-us Salātin, the author of the minar was Saif-ud-din
Firūz Shāh (A. D. 1487-89) and this date is probably correct. On
grounds of style Cunningham was in favour of placing it nearly a
century earlier, ascribing it to Saif-ud-din Hamza Shāh (1396-
1406). As a fact, however, the style of the minar accords far better
with the close of the fifteenth rather than of the fourteenth century,
and this date is confirmed both by other details of its decoration
and by the presence of the glazed and coloured tiling referred to
above which had not been introduced into Bengal at the time pro-
posed by Cunningham.
With the monuments of the Husain Shāh period (1493–1552)
we are on firmer ground, the dates of the most important among
them being established by the presence of inscriptions. These
monuments include the Chhotā Sonā Masjid (Small Golden mosque)
at Gaur, built by Wali Muhammad during the reign of Husain
Shāh (A. D. 1493–1519); a mosque at Bāghā in the Rājshāhi district
dating from 1523 ; the Barā Sonā Masjid (Great Golden mosque)
at Gaur, completed by Nusrat Shāh in 1526 ; and the Qadam
Rasul mosque, completed by the same Emperor in 1530. Of these
the mosque at Bāghā and the Qadam Rasul are of brick and
terracotta, and mainly interesting as illustrating the progressive
decadence of buildings of that class, which become more and more
flamboyant as time goes on, until eventually they are smothered in
a medley of mechanical and tasteless patterns. The other two
monuments are of brick, faced on the outside entirely, and on the
inside partially with stone. Both derive their name of 'golden'
from the gilding which once enriched their domes, and they re-
semble one another in other features too ; notably, in the half
stone, half brick arcading of the interior, in their multi-domed roofs,
and in the schematic treatment of the mouldings on their exterior


## p. 608 (#658) ############################################

608
( c.
THE MONUMENTS OF MUSLIM IVDIA
facades. There, however, the correspondence between them ends.
The older mosque, though far the smaller, is the more elaborate of
the two.
Its length is less than half that of the other, and it pos.
sesses only five arched openings in front against the other's eleven ;
but the mouldings of its cornice are duplicated and enriched, the
monotony of the domes is broken by the insertion of a Bengali
roof in their middle and the bareness of the stone walls is relieved
by a wealth of foliate patterns carved in low relief. It must be
confessed, however, that the effect produced by the addition of the
Bengali roof is not a happy one, and the rich relief work, albeit in
itself exquisitely executed, is too flat and characterless to redeem
the design from mediocrity. The Barā Sonă Masjid has the merit
of greater simplicity and impressiveness (Fergusson, indeed, calls it
'perhaps the finest memorial now left in Gaur') but the architect has
made the mistake so commonly met with in Dravidian architecture
of supposing that increased grandeur in a fabric can be produced
by the mere reiteration of its parts; and, though the interior is not
lacking in dignity, the building as a whole will not bear comparison
with the great mosques in Hindūstān and Western India. Let it be
added that the quadrangle in front of this mosque was some 200 feet
square and was entered through arched gateways on its north,
south and east sides, the stone facing of which was sparingly
adorned, as was the masjid proper, with glazed tiles of various
colours-green and blue, white and yellow and orange.
Gujarāt.
It will help us better to appreciate the merits and faults of this
Bengal architecture, if we betake ourselves directly from the eastern
to the western side of India, and consider the instructive analogies
and contrasts presented by the provincial architecture of Gujarāt,
where traditions of a pre-existing school were equally strong but
strikingly dissimilar from those prevailing in Bengal. When the
armies of 'Alā-ud-din Khalji overran Gujarāt and annexed it to
the Delhi Sultanate, they found still flourishing there a singularly
beautiful style of architecture. The history of this style-con-
veniently designated 'the style of Western India'-has already
been told in the second volume of this history. Its zenith had been
reached some two centuries before the coming of the Muhamma-
dans, but at the close of the thirteenth century the school of
Western India was still full of vitality and the Indian architects
and craftsmen whom the conquerors pressed into their service
were hardly less gifted than their forefathers who designed the


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XXII )
GUJARAT
609
far-famed temples at Somnāth and Siddhāpur, at Modhera and
Mount Ābū. The particular style which they favoured was distin-
guished by a breadth and spaciousness unusual in pre-Muhammadan
India, and with these qualities it combined a chaste and graceful
elegance that could not fail to appeal strongly to Muslim taste.
Fortunately for the future of this school the annexation of Gujarāt
took place at the very moment when the Imperial architecture of
Delhi had reached its highest expression under 'Alā-ud-din Khalji,
and the builders who came from Delhi to the new province must
have been deeply imbued with the spirit of that architecture ;
indeed it is more than likely that some of them had personally
articipated in the building of the splendid structures erected by
‘Alā-ud-din at the Dargāh of Nizām-ud-din and the Qutb. This point
which has hitherto escaped notice, had an intimate bearing on the
subsequent development of the Gujarāt school. It meant that the
sense for symmetry and proportion and the almost faultless taste
which had characterised Khalji architecture became, from the out-
set, the key-notes of the Gujarāt style also. The effect of this
influence from Delhi is well evidenced in the noble facade of the
Jami' Masjid at Cambay, which was erected as early as 1325, i. e.
within fifteen or twenty years of the Jamā'at Khāna at Nizām-ud-
din ; and it is also evident a little later (1333) in the mosque of
Hilāl (or Buhlūl) Khān Qāzi at Dholka, which in spite of its insig.
nificant minarets and other shortcomings, is imbued nevertheless
with the same breadth of conception and purity of taste. Although'
however, the foundations of this Gujarāti style were thus well and
truly laid in the fourteenth century, the times were altogether too
unsettled, and conditions under the provincial Government of Delhi
in other respects too unpropitious for architecture to make much
headway; and it was not until the establishment of independence
under the Ahmad Shāhi dynasty that the greatness of this school
really began. Like most Indian potentates the Ahmad Shāhi rulers
sought to display their wealth and power in the magnificence of
their buildings, each in turn endeavouring to outdo the efforts
of his predecessors. Ahmad Shāh, from whom the dynasty takes
its name, commemorated his accession by founding the city of
Ahmadābād, and later on in his reign he built the forts of Songarh,
Dohad and Ahmadnagar. Among the monuments with which he
beautified his new capital were the Ahmad Shāh and jāmi Masjids,
and to his reign also belong the fine gateway known as the Tin
Darwāza and the mosques of Haibat Khān and Sayyid Alam. Each
and every one of these buildings, as well as a multitude of others
C. H. I. III.
39
6


## p. 610 (#660) ############################################

610 THE MOVUMENTS OF MUSLIM INDIA | CH.
erected by succeeding kings, is distinguished by some particular
traits of its own. Space, however, would fail to tell of them all, and
we must be content, therefore, to pick out a few of the most typical
examples. Of Ahmad Shāh's buildings, the two most instructive are
the Tin Darwāza (Triple Gateway) and the Jāmi' Masjid. The
ſormer (Pl. XXIV) was the principal entrance to the outer court-
yard of the palace, where feudatories and foreign ambassadors
assembled before making their way to the Royal presence.
37 feet in thickness and pierced by three openings (the central
one 174 feet wide), connected one with the other by three cross
passages. The charm of this gateway springs from its perfectly
proportioned and delicately framed archways set off against highly
ornate buttresses on the faces of the intervening piers, though the
latter, be it said, are not entirely homogeneous in feeling with the
rest of the design. The Jāmi Masjid is a far more magnificent
creation. By the collapse of its two minars in the earthquake of
1819 it has been shorn of a prominent feature, but it is question-
able whether the minars ever added materially to its beauty. As it
now stands, it is one of the most superb, as it is also one of the
most imposing structures of its class, in the world. The defect of
most mosques planned on a large scale is, as we have seen in con-
nexion with the Adina Masjid at Pāndua, the dull monotony of
their composition. In the Jāmi Masjid at Ahmadābād there is
no such weakness. The prayer chamber is 210 feet in width by
95 feet in depth, but its facade is so admirably composed, so broken
up and diversified, and so well proportioned in its parts, that its
vastness only serves to enhance the beauty and impressiveness
of the whole. The low flanking wings on either side with their
pseudo-arched fronts are unusual adjuncts, but the other features
of the facade-its shapely expansive arches, its engaged minars
blended more harmoniously than in the foregoing example with
the rest of the design, its carved mouldings and string courses and
battlements, all these are familiar characteristics of the Gujarāti
style. The same is true also of the interior with its 260 graceful
columns, now energing into an established architectural order, its
narrow aisles, its clerestory galleries, its symmetrically arranged
domes built on the Hindu corbel system its traceried windows and
its rich arabesques. Most of these features are derived from the
old pre-Muslim school, and all are repeated time and again in sub-
sequent buildings, though seldom with better effect than here. The
mode of lighting and ventilating the interior, which was an inven.
tion of the Gujarāt architects, is a specially happy solution of a


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XXIII 1
GUJARAT
611
well-known problem but one, strangely enough, that has never
found favour in other parts of India. It consists in carrying the
upper roof well beyond the one below it, the overlapping portion
being supported on dwarf columns and the outside of the gallery
thus formed being closed with perforated screens, the advantage
of this arrangement being that all the light and air required can be
admitted, while the direct rays of the sun and the rain are effectually
excluded.
The excellent taste and originality displayed by the architects
of Ahmad Shāh are equally evident in the few monuments left by
his successor Muhammad Shāh II (1442—57), notably in the
mausoleum of Sultan Ahmad, where he himself and his son Qutb.
ud-din are interred, in the 'Tombs of the Queens' (Rāni-kā.
Hujra), and in the mosque and tomb of Shaikh Ahmad Khattri
at Sarkhej. Of these the two last mentioned are by far the most
important, not only because of their own intrinsic merit, but
because the style they ushered in was subsequently adopted for
the whole of this admirable group of monuments at Sarkhej. Both
buildings were begun in 1446 by Muhammad Shāh and finished
five years later by Qutb-ud-din. The mausoleum (101 feet square)
is the largest of its kind in Gujarāt. It comprises a square central
a
chamber, surmounted by a single large dome with four aisles of
slender columns on each face, roofed by smaller domes. The aisles
are closed from without by perforated screens of slone, and the
central chamber is separated from the verandahs by panels of
brass, fretted and chased and tooled into an infinite variety of
patterns. The mosque, which has an area of rather less that half
that of the Jāmi' Masjid at Ahmadābād, differs from its predeces.
sors in that it possesses neither arched facade nor minars and that
its roof is of the same uniform height throughout. Its beauty, like
that of the tomb and of the exquisite little pavilion in front of it,
is due to its chaste simplicity and classic restraint ; and indeed,
considered on its merits as a pillared hall, it is difficult to imagine
how it could have been improved upon. But whether a hall such
as this, constructed on purely Hindu principles, fulfils the Muslim
ideal of a masjid, is open to question. Such a design may perhaps
be admissible in a quasi-private mosque, such as this, attached to a
Dargah ; it would certainly not be suitable, for a public place of
worship.
Qutb-ud-din (1451-59) did not add much to the beauties or
amenities of the capital. He built the Hauz-i-Qutb Tank
Kankariyā as well as the Qutb-ud-din mosque in Ahmadābād
at
39-2


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612
THE MONUMENTS OF MUSLIM INDIA
ch.
and he is said also to have been the author of the mosque and
tomb in Rājāpur which was erected to the memory of the wife of
Sayyid Buddhā bin Sayyid Yāqūt. The mosque which bears his
name and which was completed in 1449 before his father's death, is
a dull soulless affair without any claim to distinction; and the
Rājāpur mosque also, though one of the largest in the suburbs (it
is 150 feet in length by 531 feet in depth), is not in the best of
taste, the central bay with its two heavy flanking minarets being
out of all proportion to the long low wings, and the facade in other
respects lacking unity and cohesion. If, however, the buildings
associated with the name of the king are of little merit, there is
one, erected by one of his nobles, that furnishes an important
landmark in the history of the Gujarāti style. This is the tomb of
Daryā Khān (1453) which, like the somewhat later mosque of Ala
Khān at Dholka, is permeated with a strong Persian spirit. It is
an imposing square structure with a lofty central dome and lower
domed verandahs on its four sides, and is constructed throughout
on the arcuate principle, which was destined to play an increase
ingly prominent part in Gujarāt, the arch henceforth being
employed not merely as a characteristic symbol of the Faith, but
as a structural expedient more practicable than the horizontal
beam in districts where stone was not easily procurable.
With the accession of Mahmūd Begarha, the architecture of
Gujarāt entered upon its most magnificent stage. In the course of
his long reign, which lasted for more than half a century (1459—
1511), this powerful Sultan founded the new cities of Mustafābād
at Junāgadh, of Mahmūdābåd near Khedā and of Muhammadābād
at Chāmpānir. Ahmadābād, his capital, he enclosed with additional
lines of fortification and beautified with broad streets and a
multitude of splendid edifices. For Chāmpānir, which he captured
in 1484, the Sultan seems to have conceived an especial fondness
;
ſor on the spot where his camp had stood he afterwards caused a
city and a palace citadel to be built; and up to the time of his
death this remained his favourite place of residence. Of the outer
city, which once reached almost to Halol, 3} miles away, little is
now left; but the strong walls of the citadel with their bastions
and happily proportioned gateways (Pl. XXV), the fine custom
house, the imposing mosques and richly carved tombs—all bear
eloquent witness to the grandeur of Mahmûd Begarha's new
capital, which at one time threatened almost to rival Ahmadābād
itself. Outstanding amid these monuments of Chāmpānir is the
great Jami' Masjid (completed only two years before the death of
a


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XXI )
MAHMOD BEGARHA
613
as
the Sultan). It has been described second to none of the
mosques of Gujarāt, and undoubtedly it is a most striking edifice,
a particularly fine effect being produced in the interior of the
prayer chamber by three tiers of columns rising one above the
other and supporting the dome, with richly carved balconies
between the tiers and an equally rich frieze beneath the ribbed
soffit of the ceiling. But, considered as an organic whole, it will
not bear comparison with its older namesake in Ahmadābād. Its
parts are neither so well proportioned nor so successfully
co-ordinated. The elevation of the prayer chamber is too cramped ;
the minarets flanking the main archway overpoweringly heavy ;
and the transition from the side wings to the central hall altogether
too abrupt. The truth is that by the end of the fifteenth century
the faculty for composition on a grand scale which distinguished
the architecture of Ahmad Shāh and which had come down as a
legacy from Khalji times had all but exhausted itself. For con-
structional purposes, it is true, the arch and dome were now play-
ing an increasingly important part ; but though the architects of
Mahmūd Begarha and his successors made free use of these
features, and could handle them, on occasion, with consummate
skill and taste, still they were never so much at home with them
as they were with their own traditional pillar and lintel system ;
nor could they bring themselves, as their predecessors had done, to
design in the broader and bolder manner that the arch and dome
rendered possible. For perfection of detail and sheer decorative
beauty the Jāmi' Masjid and other mosques at Chāmpānīr can
challenge comparison with almost any Muhammadan building in
the East, but they fail conspicuously in point of synthetic unity.
The same phenomenon is equally observable among the contem-
porary monuments at Ahmadābād as well as at Dholka, Mahmūdā.
bād, and other less known centres ; for though Chāmpānir had
become the favourite residence of Mahmûd Begarha, and though
its population must have been largely recruited from Ahmadābād,
its growing popularity does not seem to have greatly diminished
the importance of the older capital, which at this period was
reckoned among the foremost and wealthiest cities in Asia. If we
consider, for example, the remains of the palace (it is but a skeleton
now) which Mahmūd erected for himself on the banks of his great
reservoir at Sarkhej,
at Sarkhej, with its stepped ghāts and terraces, its
pillared verandahs and balconied windows, we cannot but be struck
by its uniform excellence. It is less pure in style, less elegant in its
proportions than the earlier buildings of Muhammad Shāh II, but


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614
[CH.
THE MONUMENTS OF MUSLIM INDIA
its parts nevertheless are entirely appropriate and in keeping with
their fellows, and the whole is not only pleasing to look upon but
admirably adapted to its purpose as a cool and refreshing dwelling
house. It is the same also with the exquisitely carved sluice heads
that emptied their waters into the lakes at Sarkhej and Kankariyā,
insignificant structures in themselves but finished with that per-
fection of taste which can make the commonest things beautiful ;
and it is the same also with the impressive step-wells or wāvs such
as that built in 1499-1500 by Bāi Harir, the Superintendent of the
royal haram, or the still more magnificent example in the village
of Adālaj. Though larger and more elaborate, these step-wells are
designed on essentially the same lines as the older step-wells of the
Hindus, of which the finest extant specimen is that of Mātā
Bhavāni, dating from about the eleventh century. They consist,
that is to say, of a circular or octagonal well-shaft approached on
one side by a broad stairway which descends flight upon flight
to the water's edge; on the landings between the flights are
pillared galleries, whose tiers are multiplied as the depth increases
and which serve at once as supports to counteract the inward
thrust of the long side walls and as cool resting-places in the heat
of summer. There are no other wells in the world that, structurally
and decoratively, can compare with these step-wells of Western
India, and it was because their builders were content to keep to
the established traditions of the country that they were able to
attain such perfection. So long as the Muslims could do this, the
ground was safe and their success assured. Their difficulties began
when the customs of Islam or other considerations necessitated the
introduction of alien and incongruous elements, a contingency
which inevitably happened over their tombs and mosques. To the
Muslim a tomb was indissolubly associated with the idea of dome
and arch construction, but in Gujarāt the old trabeate system was
much too deeply rooted in the soil to make way for the arcuate,
and hence the builders generally insisted on following their own
principles of design, modified by little more than the use of struc-
tural domes in place of the older corbelled roofs. Were it not for
these domes and the increased spaciousness which they facilitated
the tomb, for example, of Mahmud Begarha at Sarkhej, of Sayyid
'Usmān in Ahmadābād (1460), or of Bībí Acht Kūki (1472) would
show relatively little trace of Islamic influence. On the other
hand, there are a few tombs in which greater size and dignity
,
were achieved by adopting the arch and vault. Such are the
tombs of Shāh 'Ālam and of Mubārak Sayyid at Mahmūdābād ; but


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XXIII ]
MOSQUE OF MUHĀFIZ KHĀN
615
even in these cases it is manifest that the architects were still
working under the spell of their ancient tradition and still thinking
more in terms of trabeate than of arcuate construction, with the
result that their creations never attained the same sublimity and
grandeur as the great tombs of Northern India and the Deccan.
But if the difficulty of compromising with Islamic ideals was
felt over their tombs still more was it felt over the designing of
their mosques, where an added stumbling-block was provided by
the minaret-a feature which the Gujarāti architect never managed
to handle with complete success. Even at the JāmīMasjid of
Ahmad Shāh the minarets, when they existed, were in doubtful
taste, and half a century later these features had become still
heavier and more cumbersome in relation to the rest of the struc.
ture. This is a blemish that we have already noticed at Mahmud
Begarha's great masjid at Chāmpānir, but it is just as conspicuous
in contemporary mosques at Ahmadābād,' such as those of Miyān
Khān Chishti (1465), Bibi Achut Kūki (1472) or Bāi Harir (1500).
In all of these, as well as in most other mosques of this period, the
minarets were placed on either side of the central archway, as they
had been in earlier examples ; but in this position they so impaired
the symmetry of the facade that in some later examples they were
omitted altogether, while in others they were shifted from the
centre to the front corners of the building So long, however, as
their old dimensions were preserved, this last solution was no
better than the first ; for whether the mosque took the form of a
pillared hall like that of Sayyid 'Usmān (1460) or an arched and
vaulted one like that of Shāh 'Alam, the towering minars at the
corners were bound to overpower the rest of the structure. The
fact was that minars of such dimensions could not by any conceiv-
able means be brought into harmony with the design of the prayer
chamber, unless the latter was to be radically altered. This is the
reason why in some of the later mosques, such as that of Muhāfiz
Khān, we find the height of the minarets reduced and that of the
prayer chamber increased-much to the advantage of the composi-
tion as a whole. It was not, however, until the minaret was trans-
formed into a merely ornamental and symbolic appendage that the
problem from an aesthetic standpoint was successfully solved and
then only at the expense of utility. 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


## p. 616 (#666) ############################################

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,


## p. 618 (#668) ############################################

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,


## p. 621 (#671) ############################################

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.


## p. 622 (#672) ############################################

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
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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


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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
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įCH.
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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.