V. CIVIL ARCHITECTURE…

V. CIVIL ARCHITECTURE

CONTENTS.

Cenotaphs--Palaces at Gualior, Ambêr, Deeg--Ghâts--Reservoirs--Dams.

CENOTAPHS.

As remarked above, one of the most unexpected peculiarities of the art, as practised by the inhabitants of southern India, is the absence of any attempt at sepulchral magnificence. As the Dravidians were undoubtedly of Turanian origin, and were essentially builders, we certainly would expect that they should show some respect for the memories of their great men. It is, however, even uncertain how far the cromlechs, dolmens, or sepulchral circles found all over the south of India can be said to belong to the Dravidians in a ruder stage of society, or whether they belong to some aboriginal tribes who may have adopted the language of the superior races without being able to change the instincts of their race. Even after they had seen how much respect the Mahomedans paid to departed greatness, they failed to imitate them in this peculiarity. It was otherwise in the north of India--not among the pure Aryans, of course; but in the Rajput states, where blood is less pure, they eagerly seized the suggestion offered by Mahomedan magnificence in this respect, and erected chuttries on the spots where their bodies had been burnt. Where, too, their widows, with that strange devotion which is the noblest trait in the Hindu female’s character, had sacrificed themselves to what they conceived to be their duty.

In Rajputana every native capital has its Maha Sâti, or place where the sovereigns of the state and their nearest relatives are buried with their wives. Most of these are appropriately situated in a secluded spot at some little distance from the town, and, the locality being generally chosen because it is rocky and well-wooded, it forms as picturesque a necropolis as is to be found anywhere. Of these, however, the most magnificent, and certainly among the most picturesque, is that of Oudeypore, the capital of Mewar and the chief of all the Rajput states still existing. Here the tombs exist literally in hundreds, of all sizes, from the little domical canopy supported by four columns to the splendid chuttry whose octagonal dome is supported by fifty-six, for it has been the burying-place of the race ever since they were expelled from the ancient capital at Chittore by Akbar in 1580. All are crowned by domes, and all make more or less pretensions to architectural beauty; while as they are grouped together as accident dictated, and interspersed with noble trees, it would be difficult to point out a more beautiful cemetery anywhere. Among the finest is that of Singram Sing, one of the most illustrious of his race, who was buried on this spot, with twenty-one of his wives, in A.D. 1733. As will be seen from the annexed Woodcut (No. 265), it is a fifty-six pillared portico, with one octagonal dome in the centre (vide ante, Woodcut No. 119). The dome itself is supported on eight dwarf pillars, which, however, hardly seem sufficient for the purpose. The architect seems to have desired to avoid all appearances of that gloom or solemnity which characterise the contemporary tombs of the Moslems, but, in doing this, to have erred in the other direction. The base here is certainly not sufficiently solid for the mass it has to support; but the whole is so elegant, and the effect so pleasing, that it seems hypercritical to find fault with it, and difficult to find, even among Mahomedan tombs, anything more beautiful.

He it was, apparently, who erected the cenotaph to the memory of his predecessor Amera Sing II., for the Hindus do not appear to have gone so far in their imitation of the Moslems as to erect their own tombs. In style it is very similar to that last described, except that it possesses only thirty-two columns instead of fifty-six. It has, however, the same lofty stylobate, which adds so much to the effect of these tombs, but has also the same defect--that the dome is raised on eight dwarf columns, which do not seem sufficient for the purpose.[473]

Woodcut No. 266 represents a cenotaph in this cemetery with only twelve columns, which, mutatis mutandis, is identical with the celebrated tomb at Halicarnassus.[474] The lofty stylobate, the twelve columns, the octagonal dome, and the general mode of construction are the same; but the twelve or thirteen centuries that have elapsed between the construction of the two, and the difference of locality, have so altered the details that the likeness is not at first sight easily recognisable. From the form of its dome it is evidently considerably more modern than that last described; it may, indeed, have been erected within the limits of the present century.

To the right of the same woodcut is another cenotaph with only eight pillars, but the effect is so weak and unpleasing that it is hardly to be wondered at that the arrangement is so rare. The angle columns seem indispensable to give the design that accentuation and firmness which are indispensable in all good architecture.

These last two illustrations, it will be observed, are practically in the Jaina style of architecture; for, though adopting a Mahomedan form, the Ranas of Oudeypore clung to the style of architecture which their ancestors had practised, and which Khumbo Rana had only recently rendered so famous. This gives them a look of greater antiquity than they are entitled to, for it is quite certain that Oudeypore was not the capital of the kingdom before the sack of Chittore in 1580; and nearly equally so that the Hindus never thought of this mode of commemorating their dead till the tolerant reign of Akbar. He did more than all that had been done before or since to fuse together the antagonistic feelings of the two religions into at least a superficial similarity.

* * * * *

Further north, where the Jaina style never had been used to the same extent at least as in the south-west, the Hindus adopted quite a different style in their palaces and cenotaphs. It was much more of an arched style, and though never, so far as I know, using a true arch, they adopted the form of the foliated arch, which is so common in the palaces of Agra and Delhi, and all the Mogul buildings. In the palace at Deeg, and in the cenotaphs of Goverdhun, this style is seen in great perfection. It is well illustrated, with all its peculiarities, in the next view of the tomb of Baktawar Sing at Ulwar, erected within the limits of the present century (Woodcut No. 267). To a European eye, perhaps the least pleasing part will be the Bengali curved cornices alluded to in the last chapter; but to any one familiar with the style, its employment gets over many difficulties that a straight line could hardly meet, and altogether it makes up with its domes and pavilions as pleasing a group of its class as is to be found in India, of its age at least. The tombs of the Bhurtpore Rajahs at Goverdhun are similar to this one, but on a larger scale, and some of them being older, are in better taste; but the more modern ones avoid most of the faults that are only too characteristic of the art in India at the present day, and some of them are very modern. One was in course of construction when I was there in 1839, and from its architect I learned more of the secrets of art as practised in the Middle Ages than I have learned from all the books I have since read. Another was commenced after the time of my visit, and it is far from being one of the worst buildings of its class. If one could only inspire the natives with a feeling of pride in their own style, there seems little doubt that even now they could rival the works of their forefathers.

PALACES.

Another feature by which the northern style is most pleasingly distinguished from the southern, is the number and beauty of the palaces, which are found in all the capitals of the native states, especially in Rajputana. These are seldom designed with much reference to architectural symmetry or effect, but are nevertheless always picturesque and generally most ornamental objects in the landscape where they are found. As a rule, they are situated on rocky eminences, jutting into or overhanging lakes or artificial pieces of water, which are always pleasing accompaniments to buildings of any sort in that climate; and the way they are fitted into the rocks, or seem to grow out of them, frequently leads to the most picturesque combinations. Sometimes their bases are fortified with round towers or bastions, on whose terraces the palace stands; and even when this is not the case, the basement is generally built up solid to a considerable height, in a manner that gives a most pleasing effect of solidity to the whole, however light the superstructure may be, and often is. If to these natural advantages you add the fact that the high caste Hindu is almost incapable of bad taste, and that all these palaces are exactly what they profess to be, without any affectation of pretending to be what they are not, or of copying any style, ancient or modern, but that best suited for their purposes--it will not be difficult to realise what pleasing objects of study these Rajput palaces really are. At the same time it will be easily understood how difficult it must be in such a work as this to convey any adequate idea of their beauty; without plans explaining their arrangements, and architectural details of their interior, neither their elegance nor appropriateness can be judged of. A palace is not like a temple--a simple edifice of one or two halls or cells, almost identical with hundreds of others; but a vast congeries of public and private apartments grouped as a whole more for convenience than effect.

* * * * *

Few of the palaces of India have escaped the fate of that class of edifice all the world over. Either they must be deserted and left to decay, which in India means rapid obliteration, or they must be altered and modified to suit the requirements of subsequent occupants, till little if anything remains of the original structure. This fate, so far as is known, has overtaken all the royal abodes that may have existed before the dark ages; so much so, indeed, that no trace of them has been found anywhere. Even after that we look in vain for anything important before the 13th century. At Chittore, for instance, where one of the earliest Rajput dynasties was established, there are buildings that bear the name of the Palace of the Mori, but so altered and remodelled as to be unrecognisable as such; nor can the palace of the Khengar at Girnar exhibit any feature that belongs to the date to which it is assigned.

At Chittore the oldest building of this class which can with certainty be said to have existed anterior to the sack of the place by Alla-u-dîn in 1305, is the palace of Bhîm and Pudmandi, which remains unaltered, and is, though small, a very pleasing example of the style.[475] The palace of Khumbo Rana (A.D. 1418-1468) in the same place is far more grandiose, and shows all that beauty of detail which characterises his buildings in general.

The palaces at Chittore belonging to this dynasty were however far surpassed, in extent at least, by those which Udya Sing commenced at Udyapur or Oudeypore, to which place he removed his capital after the third sack of Chittore by Akbar in 1580. It has not unfrequently been compared with the Castle at Windsor, and not inaptly, for both in outline and extent it is not unlike that palace, though differing so wonderfully in detail and in situation. In this latter respect the Eastern has the advantage of the Western palace, as it stands on the verge of an extensive lake, surrounded by hills of great beauty of outline, and in the lake are two island palaces, the Jug Newas and Jug Mundir, which are more beautiful in their class than any similar objects I know of elsewhere.[476] It would be difficult to find any scene where art and nature are so happily blended together and produce so fairy-like an effect. Certainly nothing I know of so modern a date equals it.

The palace at Boondi is of about the same modern age as that at Oudeypore, and almost equals it in architectural effect. It is smaller however, and its lake is less in extent, and has only temples standing on its islets, instead of palaces with their pavilions and gardens. Still, the mode in which it is placed on its hill, and the way in which its buildings gradually fade into the bastions of the hill above, are singularly picturesque even for this country, and the hills being higher, and the valleys narrower, the effect of this palace is in some respects even more imposing than that at Oudeypore.

There are, however, some twenty or thirty similar royal residences in Central India, all of which have points of interest and beauty: some for their extent, others for their locality, and some for their beauty in detail, but every one of which would require a volume to describe in detail. Two examples, though among the least known, must at present suffice to illustrate their general appearance.

That at Duttiah (Woodcut No. 268), in Bundelcund, is a large square block of building, more regular than such buildings generally are, but still sufficiently relieved both in outline, and in the variety of detail applied to the various storeys, to avoid monotony, and with its gardens leading down to the lake, and its tombs opposite, combine to make up an architectural scene of a singularly pleasing character.

The other is even less known, as it belongs to the little Bundelcund state of Ourtcha (Woodcut No. 269), but is of a much more varied outline than that at Duttiah, and with its domes and gateways makes up as picturesque a combination as can well be found anywhere. It is too modern for much purity of detail, but that in a residence is less objectionable than it would be in a temple, or in an edifice devoted to any higher purpose.

GUALIOR.

Perhaps the most historically interesting of these Central Indian palaces is that of Gualior. The rock on which that fortress stands is of so peculiar a formation, and by nature so strong, that it must always have been occupied by the chiefs of the state in which it is situated. Its temples have already been described, but its older palaces have undergone the fate of all similar edifices; it, however, possesses, or possessed, in that built by Mân Sing (A.D. 1486-1516), the most remarkable and interesting example of a Hindu palace of an early age in India. The external dimensions of this palace are 300 ft. by 160 ft., and on the east side it is 100 ft. high, having two underground storeys looking over the country. On all its faces the flat surface is relieved by tall towers of singularly pleasing design, crowned by cupolas that were covered with domes of gilt copper when Baber saw them in 1527.[477] His successor, Vicramaditya, added another palace, of even greater extent, to this one in 1516;[478] and Jehangir and Shah Jehan added palaces to these two, the whole making up a group of edifices unequalled for picturesqueness and interest by anything of their class that exists in Central India.[479] Among the apartments in the palace was one called the Baradurri, supported on twelve columns, and 45 ft. square, with a stone roof, which was one of the most beautiful apartments of its class anywhere to be found. It was, besides, singularly interesting from the expedients to which the Hindu architect was forced to resort to imitate the vaults of the Moslems. They had not then learned to copy them, as they did at the end of that century, at Bindrabun and elsewhere, under the guidance of the tolerant Akbar.

Of these buildings, which so excited the admiration of the Emperor Baber, probably little now remains. The Moslems added to the palaces of the Hindus, and spared their temples and the statues of the Jains. We have ruthlessly set to work to destroy whatever interferes with our convenience, and during the few years we have occupied the fort, have probably done more to disfigure its beauties, and obliterate its memories, than was caused by the Moslems during the centuries they possessed or occupied it. Better things were at one time hoped for, but the fact seems to be, the ruling powers have no real heart in the matter, and subordinates are allowed to do as they please, and if they can save money or themselves trouble, there is nothing in India that can escape the effect of their unsympathising ignorance.

AMBÊR.

The palace at Ambêr, the original capital of the Jeypore states, ranks next after that of Gualior as an architectural object among the Rajput palaces. It is, however, a century more modern, having been commenced by another Mân Singh, who ascended the throne in 1592, and was completed by Siwai Jey Sing, who added the beautiful gateway which bears his name before he removed the seat of government to Jeypore in 1728. In consequence of this more modern date it has not that stamp of Hindu originality that is so characteristic of the Gualior example, and throughout it bears a strong impress of that influence which Akbar’s mind and works stamped on everything that was done in India during his reign. Its situation, too, is inferior to that of Gualior for architectural effect. Instead of standing on a lofty rocky pedestal, and its pinnacles being relieved boldly against the sky, the Ambêr palace is situated in a valley--picturesque, it is true, but where the masonry competes with the rocks in a manner which is certainly unfavourable to the effect of the building. Nothing, however, can be more picturesque than the way in which the palace grows, as it were, out of a rocky base or reflects itself in the mirror of the deep lake at its base, and nothing can be happier than the mode in which the principal apartments are arranged, so as to afford views over the lake and into the country beyond.

The details, too, of this palace are singularly good, and quite free from the feebleness that shortly afterwards characterised the style. In some respects, indeed, they contrast favourably with those of Akbar’s contemporary palace at Futtehpore Sikri. There the second commandment confined the fancy of the decorator to purely inanimate objects; here the laxer creed of the Hindus enabled him to indulge in elephant capitals and figure-sculpture of men and animals to any extent. The Hindus seem also to have indulged in colour and in mirrors to an extent that Akbar did not apparently feel himself justified in employing. The consequence is that the whole has a richer and more picturesque effect than its Mahomedan rival, but the two together make up a curiously perfect illustration of the architecture of that day, as seen from a Hindu, contrasted with that from a Mahomedan, point of view.

It was the same Mân Sing who erected the Observatory at Benares which still bears his name, and though not very architectural in its general appearance, has on the river-face a balconied window, which is a fair and pleasing specimen of the architecture of his age (Woodcut No. 270). He also was the king who erected the temple at Bindrabun, which has been illustrated above (pp. 463, 464).

DEEG.

All the palaces above described are more or less irregular in their disposition, and are all situated on rocky and uneven ground. That at Deeg, however, is on a perfectly level plain, and laid out with a regularity that would satisfy the most fastidious Renaissance architect. It is wholly the work of Sûraj Mull, the virtual founder of the Bhurtpore dynasty, who commenced it, apparently in 1725, and left it as we now see it, when he was slain in battle with Nudjiff Khan in 1763. It wants, it is true, the massive character of the fortified palaces of other Rajput states, but for grandeur of conception and beauty of detail it surpasses them all.

The whole palace was to have consisted of a rectangular enclosure twice the length of its breadth, surrounded with buildings, with a garden in the centre, divided into two parts by a broad terrace, intended to carry the central pavilion. Only one of these rectangles has been completed, measuring about 700 feet square,[480] crossed in the centre by ranges of the most beautiful fountains and parterres, laid out in the formal style of the East, and interspersed with architectural ornaments of the most elaborate finish.

The pavilion on the north side contains the great audience-hall, 76 ft. 8 in. by 54 ft. 7 in., divided in the centre by a noble range of arcades, behind which are the principal dwelling apartments, two, and in some parts three, storeys in height. Opposite this is a pavilion occupied principally by fountains. On one side stands a marble hall, attached to an older palace facing the principal pavilion, which was meant to occupy the centre of the garden. As will be seen by the plan (Woodcut No. 271), it is a parallelogram of 152 ft. by 87 ft., each end occupied by a small but very elegant range of apartments, in two storeys; the central hall (108 ft. by 87 ft.) is supported on four rows of columns, and open at both sides; at each end is a marble reservoir for fountains, and a similar one exists externally on each side. The whole is roofed with stone, except the central part, which, after being contracted by a bold cove, is roofed with a flat ceiling of timber exquisitely carved. This wooden ceiling seems to have been considered a defect, nothing but stone being used in any other part of the palace. The architect, therefore, attempted to roof the corresponding pavilion of the unfinished court with slabs of stone 34 ft. in length, and 18 in. square. Some of these still exist in their places, but their weight was too great for the arcades, which are only 18 in. thick, and not of solid stone, but of two facings 4 in. or 5 in. thick, and the intermediate spaces filled in with rubble. Besides this, though the form of the arch is literally copied from the Mahomedan style, neither here, nor elsewhere throughout the palace, is there a single true arch, the openings being virtually covered by two brackets meeting in the centre.

The general appearance of the arcades of these buildings may be gathered from the annexed view (Woodcut No. 272), and may be characterised as more elegant than rich. The glory of Deeg, however, consists in the cornices, which are generally double, a peculiarity not seen elsewhere, and which for extent of shadow and richness of detail surpass any similar ornaments in India, either in ancient or modern buildings. The lower cornice is the usual sloping entablature, almost universal in such buildings. This was adopted apparently because it took the slope of the curtains, which almost invariably hang beneath its projecting shade, and which, when drawn out, seem almost a continuation of it. The upper cornice, which was horizontal, is peculiar to Deeg, and seems designed to furnish an extension of the flat roof, which in Eastern palaces is usually considered the best apartment of the house; but whether designed for this or any other purpose, it adds singularly to the richness of the effect, and by the double shadow affords a relief and character seldom exceeded even in the East.

Generally speaking, the bracket arcades of Deeg are neither so rich nor so appropriate as the bold bracket capitals of the older styles. That the bracket is almost exclusively an original Indian form of capital can, I think, scarcely be doubted; but the system was carried much further by the Moguls, especially during the reign of Akbar, than it had ever been carried by its original inventors, at least in the North. The Hindus, on receiving it back, luxuriated in its picturesque richness to an extent that astonishes every beholder; and half the effect of most of the modern buildings of India is owing to the bold projecting balconies and fanciful kiosks that diversify the otherwise plain walls.

The greatest defect of the palace is that the style, when it was erected, was losing its true form of lithic propriety. The form of its pillars and their ornaments are better suited for wood or metal than for stone architecture; and though the style of the Moguls, in the last days of their dynasty, was tending in that direction, it never threw off the solidity and constructive propriety to such an extent as is done in these modern palaces of the Hindus. It is not at Deeg carried so far as to be offensive, but it is on the verge of good taste, and in some more modern buildings assumes forms more suited for upholstery than for stone architecture.

Since the time when Sûraj Mull completed this fairy creation, the tendency, not only with the Rajput princes, but the sovereigns of such states as Oude, and even as Delhi, has been to copy the bastard style of Italian architecture we have introduced into India. It was natural, perhaps, that they should admire the arts of a race who had shown themselves in war and policy superior to themselves; but it was fatal to their arts, and whether a revival is now possible remains to be seen. It might be so, if their rulers showed the smallest possible appreciation of the works of their ancestors, but can hardly be hoped for while a department of the state is organised, as they must believe, for the express purpose of destroying and obliterating all traces of what was once noble and beautiful in the land.

GHÂTS OR LANDING-PLACES.

Another object of architectural magnificence peculiar to northern Hindustan, is the construction of the ghâts that everywhere line the river-banks in most of the great cities, more especially those which are situated on the Ganges. Benares possesses perhaps the greatest number of edifices of this class; but from Calcutta to Hurdwar no city is without some specimens of this species of architectural display. The Ghoosla Ghât at Benares (Woodcut No. 273), though one of the most modern, may be taken as a fair specimen of the class, although many are richer and much more elaborately adorned. Their object being to afford easy access to bathers, the flight of steps in front is in reality the ghât, and the main object of the erection. These are generally broken, as in this instance, by small projections, often crowned by kiosks, which take off the monotony inherent in long lines of narrow steps. The flight of stairs is always backed by a building, which in most instances is merely an object of architectural display without any particular destination, except to afford shelter from the rays of the sun to such of the idle as choose to avail themselves of it. When the bank is high, the lower part of these buildings is solid, and when, as in this instance, it is nearly plain, it affords a noble basement to an ornamental upper storey, with which they are generally adorned, or to the temple which frequently crowns them.

Though the Ganges is, par excellence, the river of ghâts, one of the most beautiful in India is that erected by Ahalya Baiee (Holkar’s widow) at Maheswar, on the Nerbudda; and Ujjain and other ancient cities almost rival Benares in this respect. Indeed, there is scarcely a tank or stream in all India that is without its flight of steps, and it is seldom indeed that these are left without some adornment or an attempt at architectural display, water being always grateful in so hot a climate, and an especially favourite resort with a people so fond of washing and so cleanly in their habits as the Hindus.

RESERVOIRS.

The same fondness for water has given rise to another species of architectural display peculiar to India, in the great reservoirs or bowlees, which are found wherever the wells are deep and water far from the surface. In design they are exactly the reverse of the ghâts, since the steps are wholly below the ground, and descend to the water often at a depth of 80 ft. or 100 ft. Externally they make no display, the only objects usually seen above ground being two pavilions to mark the entrance, between which a bold flight of steps, from 20 ft. to 40 ft. in width, leads down to the water. Facing the entrance is a great screen, rising perpendicularly from the water to the surface of the ground, and dividing the stairs from a circular shaft or well, up which the water is drawn by pulleys by those who prefer that mode of obtaining it instead of descending the steps. The walls between which the steps descend are ornamented by niches, or covered with galleries leading to the great screen. Where the depth is great, there is often a screen across the stairs about half-way down.

To persons not familiar with the East such an architectural object as a bowlee may seem a strange perversion of ingenuity, but the grateful coolness of all subterranean apartments, especially when accompanied by water, and the quiet gloom of these recesses, fully compensate, in the eyes of the Hindu, for the more attractive magnificence of the ghâts. Consequently, the descending flights of which we are now speaking, have often been made more elaborate and expensive pieces of architecture than any of the buildings above ground found in their vicinity.

DAMS.

In the same manner the bunds or dams of the artificial lakes, or great tanks, which are so necessary for irrigation, are often made works of great architectural magnificence, first by covering them with flights of steps, like those of the ghâts, and then erecting temples or pavilions, and kiosks, interspersed with fountains and statues in breaks between these flights. Where all these are of marble, as is sometimes the case in Rajputana, the whole make up as perfect a piece of architectural combination as any the Hindus can boast of.

One of the most beautiful of these is that erected by Raj Sing, who ascended the throne of Oudeypore, in 1653, to form the lake of Rajsamundra (Woodcut No. 274), which is one of the most extensive in his dominions. This bund is 376 paces in length, and wholly covered with white marble steps; and with its beautiful kiosks projecting into the water, and the palaces which crown the hills at either end, it makes up a fairy scene of architectural beauty, with its waters and its woods, which is hardly surpassed by any in the East.

It would be tedious, however, to enumerate, without illustrating them, which the limits of this work will not permit, all the modes of architectural magnificence of the Hindus. Like all people untrammelled by rules derived from incongruous objects, and gifted with a feeling for the beautiful, they adorn whatever they require, and convert every object, however utilitarian in its purposes, into an object of beauty. They long ago found out that it is not temples and palaces alone that are capable of such display, but that everything which man makes may become beautiful, provided the hand of taste be guided by sound judgment, and that the architect never forgets what the object is, and never conceals the constructive exigences of the building itself. It is simply this inherent taste and love of beauty, which the Indians seem always to have possessed, directed by unaffected honesty of purpose, which enables those who are destitute of political independence, or knowledge, or power, to erect, even at the present day, buildings that will bear comparison with the best of those erected in Europe during the Middle Ages. It must be confessed that it would require far more comprehensive illustration than the preceding slight sketch of so extensive a subject can pretend to be, to make this apparent to others. But no one who has personally visited the objects of interest with which India abounds can fail to be struck with the extraordinary elegance of detail and propriety of design which pervades all the architectural achievements of the Hindus; and this not only in buildings erected in former days, but in those now in course of construction in those parts of the country to which the bad taste of their European rulers has not yet penetrated.

I. INTRODUCTORY

From a very early period in the world’s history a great group of civilized nations existed in Central Asia between the Mediterranean and the Indus. They lived apart, having few relations with their neighbours, except of war and hatred, and served rather to separate than to bring together the Indian and European communities which flourished beyond them on either hand.

Alexander’s great raid was the first attempt to break through this barrier, and to join the East and West by commercial or social interchanges. The steady organisation of the Roman empire succeeded in consolidating what that brilliant conqueror had sketched out. During the permanence of her supremacy the space intervening between India and Europe was bridged over by the order she maintained among the various communities established in Central Asia, and there seemed no reason why the intercourse so established should be interrupted. Unsuspected, however, by the Roman world, two nomade nations, uninfluenced by its civilization, hung on either flank of this great line of communication, ready to avail themselves of any moment of weakness that might occur.

The Arabs, as the most impetuous, and nearest the centre, were the first to break their bounds; and in the course of the 7th century Syria, Persia, Egypt, and the north of Africa became theirs. Spain was conquered, and India nearly shared the same fate. Under Muawiah, the first Khalif of the Ommiahs, two attempts were made to cross the Indus by the southern route--that which the Scythians had successfully followed a short time before. Both these attempts failed, but under Walid, Muhamed Kasim, A.H. 99, did effect a settlement in Scinde. It proved a barren conquest, however; for though a Mahomedan dynasty was established there, it soon became independent of the Khalifat, and eventually died out.

The supremacy of the Khalifat was as brief as it was brilliant. Its hour of greatest glory was about the year A.D. 800, in the reign of Haroun al Rashid. From that time decay set in; and after two centuries more the effeminacy and corruption inherent in Eastern dynasties had so far progressed as to encourage the Northern hordes to move.

During the course of the 11th century the Tartar hordes, who were hitherto only known as shepherds pasturing their herds on the steppes of Northern Asia, first made their appearance south of the Paropamisan range as conquerors; and for six centuries their progress was steadily onwards, till, in the year A.D. 1683, we find the Turks encamped under the walls of Vienna, and the Mogul Aurungzebe lord paramount of the whole of India Proper, while Egypt and all the intervening countries owned the rule of sovereigns of Turanian race.

The architecture of the nations under the Arab Khalifat has already been described, and is of very minor importance.[481] The ruling people were of Semitic race, and had no great taste for architectural magnificence; and unless where they happened to govern a people of another stock, they have left few traces of their art.

With the Northern hordes the case was widely different; they were, without an exception, of Turanian blood, more or less pure, and wherever they went their mosques, and especially their tombs, remain to mark their presence, and to convey an idea of their splendour. In order to understand what follows, it is necessary to bear in mind that the Semitic conquest, from Mecca as a centre, extended from the mouths of the Guadalquivir to those of the Indus, and left but little worthy of remark in architecture. The Turanian conquest, from Bokhara and Balkh as centres, extended from Constantinople to Cuttack, and covered the whole intervening space with monuments of every class. Those of the west and centre have already been described in speaking of Turkey and Persia; the Eastern branch remains to be discussed, and its monuments are those of which this division of the work purports to be a description.

The Saracenic architects showed in India the same pliancy in adopting the styles of the various people among whom they had settled which characterised their practice in the countries already described. It thus happens that in India we have at least twelve or fifteen different styles of Mahomedan architecture: and if an attempt were made to exhaust all the examples, it would be found necessary to enumerate even a greater number. Meanwhile, however, the following thirteen divisions will probably be found sufficient for present purposes:--

1. The first of these is that of Ghazni, which, though not, strictly speaking, in India, had without doubt the most important influence on the Indian styles, and formed in fact the stepping-stone by means of which the architecture of the West was introduced into India, and it long remained the connecting link between the styles of the Eastern and those of the Western world. It would consequently be of the greatest importance in enabling us to understand the early examples of the style in India Proper, if we could describe this one with anything like precision, but for that we must wait till some qualified person visits the province.

2. Next to this comes the Pathan style of northern India (A.D. 1193-1554), spreading over the whole of Upper India, and lasting for about three centuries and a half. After the death, however, of Ala ud-dîn (A.D. 1316) the central power was at times so weak, that the recently conquered outlying provinces were frequently enabled to render themselves independent, and when this was the case, exhibited their individuality everywhere, by inventing a style of architecture expressive of their local peculiarities.

3. One of the first to exhibit this tendency was the brilliant but short-lived Sharki dynasty of Jaunpore (A.D. 1394-1476). Though existing for less than a century, they adorned their capital with a series of mosques and other buildings which are hardly surpassed by those of any city in India for magnificence, and by none for a well-marked individuality of treatment.

4. The style adopted by the kings of Gujerat during their period of independence (A.D. 1396-1572) was richer and more varied than that of Jaunpore, though hardly so original or marked by such individuality. They borrowed too much, physically as well as intellectually, from the architecture of the Jains, among whom they were located, to be entirely independent; but the richness of their style is in proportion to the Hindu details they introduced.

5. Malwa became independent in A.D. 1401, and between that date and A.D. 1568, when they were absorbed in the Mogul empire, her kings adorned their capital at Mandu with palaces and mosques of great magnificence, but more similar to the parent style at Delhi than the two last-named styles, and wanting, consequently, in the local individuality.

6. Bengal was early erected into a separate kingdom--in A.D. 1203--more or less independent of the central power; and during its continuance--till A.D. 1573--the capitals, Gaur and Maldah, were adorned with many splendid edifices. Generally these were in brick, and are now so overgrown by jungle as to be either ruined or nearly invisible. They are singularly picturesque, however, and display all the features of a strongly-marked individuality of style.

These six divisions are probably sufficient to characterise the Mahomedan styles north of the Nerbudda. To the south of that river there are three well-marked styles.

7. First that of the Bahmani dynasty. First at Kalbergah, A.D. 1347, and afterwards at Bidar, A.D. 1426, they adorned their capitals with edifices of great magnificence and well-marked individuality, before they were absorbed, in A.D. 1525, in the great Mogul empire.

8. Next to these was the still more celebrated Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur (A.D. 1489-1660). Their style differed most essentially from all those above enumerated, and was marked by a grandeur of conception and boldness in construction unequalled by any edifices erected in India.

9. The third southern style is that of the Kutub Shahi dynasty of Golconda, A.D. 1512-1672. Their tombs are splendid, and form one of the most striking groups in India, but show evident signs of a decadence that was too surely invading art at the age when they were erected.

10. One by one all these brilliant individualities were absorbed in the great Mogul empire, founded by Baber, A.D. 1494, and which, though practically perishing on the death of Aurungzebe, A.D. 1706, may be considered as existing till the middle of the last century, A.D. 1750. It is to this dynasty that Agra, Delhi, and most of the towns in northern India owe their most splendid edifices.

11. Before leaving this branch of the subject, it may be expedient to enumerate the style of Moslem art existing in Scinde. Practically, it is Persian both in its form and the style of decoration, and must have existed in this province from a very ancient time. All the examples, however, now known of it are comparatively modern, and bring us back, curiously enough, to the neighbourhood of Ghazni, from which we started in our enumeration.

12. Leaving these, which may be called the true styles of Mahomedan architecture, we have two which may be designated as the bastard styles. The first of these is that of Oude (A.D. 1756-1847). In its capital there are ranges of building equal in extent and richness to those of any of the capitals above enumerated, but degraded in taste to an extent it is hardly possible to credit in a people who so shortly before had shown themselves capable of such noble aspirations.

13. The style adopted by the short-lived dynasty of Mysore (A.D. 1760-1799), being further removed from the influences of European vulgarity, is not so degraded as that of Lucknow, but is poor and inartistic when compared with earlier styles.

In an exhaustive treatise on the subject, the styles of Ahmednugger and Arungabad, A.D. 1490-1707, ought, perhaps, to be enumerated, and some minor styles elsewhere. These have not, however, sufficient individuality to deserve being erected into separate styles, and the amount of illustration that can be introduced into a work like the present is not sufficient to render the differences sensible to those who are not personally acquainted with the examples.

Even as it is, it would require a much more extensive series of illustrations than that here given to make even their most marked merits or peculiarities evident to those who have no other means than what such a work as this affords of forming an opinion regarding them. Each of these thirteen styles deserves a monograph; but, except for Bijapur[482] and Ahmedabad,[483] nothing of the sort has yet been attempted, and even the two works in which this has been attempted for these two capitals by no means exhaust the materials available for the purpose. Let us hope that these deficiencies will be supplied, and the others undertaken before long and before it is too late, for the buildings are fast perishing from the ravages of time and climate and the still more destructive exigences of the present governing power in India.

II. GHAZNI

CONTENTS.

Tomb of Mahmúd--Gates of Somnath--Minars on the Plain.

CHRONOLOGY.

Sabuktagin, founder A.D. 975 Mahmúd 977 Masúd 1030 Abdul-rashid 1048 Ibrahim 1054 Shahab ud-dîn (first of Ghori dynasty) 1139

Towards the latter part of the 9th century the power of the Khalifs of Bagdad was sinking into that state of rapid decline which is the fate of all Eastern dynasties. During the reign of Al Motamed, A.D. 870-891, Egypt became independent, and the northern province of Bokhara threw off the yoke under the governor appointed by the Khalif, Nasr ben Ahmed, a descendant of Saman, a robber chief, who declared and maintained his independence, and so formed the Samanian dynasty. After the dynasty had existed about a century, Sabuktagin, a Tûrkish slave belonging to a general of one of the last of the Samanian kings, rendered himself also independent of his master, and established himself in Ghazni, of which he was governor, founding the well-known dynasty of Ghaznavides. His successor, Mahmúd, A.D. 977-1030, is one of the best-known kings in Indian history owing to his brilliant campaigns in India, and more especially that in which he destroyed the celebrated temple of Somnath.

On his return from an earlier campaign, in which he had sacked the town of Muttra, we learn from Ferishta that the king ordered a magnificent mosque to be built of marble and granite, afterwards known by the name of the Celestial Bride. Near it he founded a university. When the nobility of Ghazni perceived the taste of their king in architecture, they also endeavoured to vie with one another in the magnificence of their palaces, as well as in the public buildings which were raised for the embellishment of the city. “Thus,” continues the historian, “the capital was in a short time ornamented with mosques, porches, fountains, aqueducts, reservoirs, and cisterns, beyond any city in the East.”[484]

The plain of Ghazni still shows the remains of this splendour; and, in the dearth of information regarding Persian art of that age, an account of it would be one of the most interesting and valuable pieces of information we could receive. These ruins, however, have not been as yet either examined or described;[485] and even the tomb of the Great Mahmúd is unknown to us except by name,[486] notwithstanding the celebrity it acquired from the removal of its gates to India at the termination of our disastrous campaigns in that country.

The gates are of Deodar pine,[487] and the carved ornaments on them are so similar to those found at Cairo, on the mosque of Ebn Touloun and other buildings of that age, as not only to prove that they are of the same date, but also to show how similar were the modes of decoration at these two extremities of the Moslem empire at the time of their execution.

At the same time there is nothing in their style of ornamentation that at all resembles anything found in any Hindu temple, either of their age or at any other time. There is, in fact, no reason for doubting that these gates were made for the place where they were found.[488] If any other parts of the tomb are ornamented in the same style, it would be of great interest to have them drawn. It probably is, however, from the Jumma Musjid that we shall obtain the best picture of the arts of that day, when any one will take the trouble of examining it.

Two minars still adorn the plain outside the city, and form, if not the most striking, at least the most prominent of the ruins of that city. Neither of them was ever attached to a mosque; they are, indeed, pillars of victory, or Jaya Stambhas, like those at Chittore and elsewhere in India, and are such as we might expect to find in a country so long Buddhist. One of them was erected by Mahmúd himself; the other was built, or at least finished, by Masúd, one of his immediate successors.[489]

The lower part of these towers is of a star-like form--the plan being apparently formed by placing two squares diagonally the one over the other. The upper part, rising to the height of about 140 ft. from the ground, is circular; both are of brickwork, covered with ornaments of terra-cotta of extreme elaboration and beauty, and retaining their sharpness to the present day.

Several other minars of the same class are found further west, even as far as the roots of the Caucasus,[490] which, like these, were pillars of victory, erected by the conquerors on their battle-fields. None of them have the same architectural merit as those of Ghazni, at least in their present state, though it may be that their ornaments, having been in stucco or some perishable material, have disappeared, leaving us now only the skeleton of what they were.

The weakness of Mahmúd’s successors left the Indians in repose for more than a century and a half; and, like all Eastern dynasties, the Ghaznavides were gradually sinking to inevitable decay, when their fall was precipitated by the crimes of one of them, which were fearfully avenged by the destruction of their empire and capital by Ala ud-dîn, and their race was at length superseded by that of the Ghori, in the person of Shahab ud-dîn, in the year 1183.

Though centuries of misrule have weighed on this country since the time of the Ghaznavides, it is scarcely probable that all traces of their magnificence have passed away; but till their cities are examined by some one competent to discriminate between what is good or bad, or old or new, we must be content merely to indicate the position of the style, leaving this chapter to be written hereafter when the requisite information shall have been obtained. In the meanwhile it is satisfactory to know that between Herat and the Indus there do exist a sufficient number of monuments to enable us to connect the styles of the West with those in the East. They have been casually described by travellers, but not in such a manner as to render them available for our purposes; and in the present unsettled state of the country it may be some time yet before their elucidation can be accomplished.

III. PATHAN STYLE

CONTENTS.

Mosque at Old Delhi--Kutub Minar--Tomb of Ala ud-dîn--Pathan Tombs--Ornamentation of Pathan Tombs.

CHRONOLOGY.

Shahab ud-dîn Ghori A.D. 1192 Kutub ud-dîn Ibek 1206 Shum ud-dîn Altumsh 1210 Ala ud-dîn Khilji 1295 Tugluck Shah 1321 Nasar ud-dîn last of the Khiljis 1393 Khyer Khan under Tamerlane 1414 Behloli Lodi 1450 Shere Shah 1510 Sekunder defeated by Akbar 1554

With all the vigour of a new race, the Ghorians set about the conquest of India. After sustaining a defeat in the year 1191, Shahab ud-dîn again entered India in A.D. 1193, when he attacked and defeated Prithiraj of Delhi. This success was followed by the conquest of Canouge in A.D. 1194; and after the fall of these two, the capitals of the greatest empires in the peninsula, India may be said to have been conquered before his death, which happened in A.D. 1206.

At his death his great empire fell to pieces, and India fell to the share of Kutub ud-dîn Ibek. This prince was originally a Tûrkish slave, who afterwards became one of Shahab ud-dîn’s generals and contributed greatly by his talents and military skill to the success of his master. He and his successor, Altumsh, continued nobly the work so successfully begun, and before the death of the latter, in A.D. 1235, the empire of northern India had permanently passed from the hands of the Hindus to those of their Mahomedan conquerors.

For a century and a half after the conquest the empire continued a united whole, under Tûrkish, or, as they are usually called, Pathan dynasties. These monarchs exhibited a continued vigour and energy very unusual in the East, and not only sustained and consolidated, but increased by successive conquests from the infidels, that newly-acquired accession to the dominions of the faithful, and during that time Delhi continued practically the capital of this great empire. In the latter half, however, of the 14th century, symptoms of disintegration manifested themselves. One after another the governors of distant provinces reared the standard of revolt, and successfully established independent kingdoms, rivalling the parent state in power and in the splendour of their capitals. Still Delhi remained the nominal head at least of this confederation of states--if it may be so called--till the time when Baber (A.D. 1494), the fourth in descent from Tamerlane, invaded Hindustan. He put an end to the Pathan sway, after it had lasted for three centuries and a half, and finally succeeded in establishing the celebrated dynasty of the Moguls, which during six successive reigns, extending over the extraordinary period of more than two centuries (A.D. 1494-1707), reconsolidated the Moslem empire into one great whole, which reached a degree of splendour and of power almost unknown in the East.

Nothing could be more brilliant, and at the same time more characteristic, than the commencement of the architectural career of these Pathans in India. So soon as they felt themselves at all sure of their conquest, they set to work to erect two great mosques in their two principal capitals of Ajmir and Delhi, of such magnificence as should redound to the glory of their religion and mark their triumph over the idolators. A nation of soldiers equipped for conquest, and that only, they had of course brought with them neither artists nor architects, but, like all nations of Turanian origin, they had strong architectural instincts, and having a style of their own, they could hardly go wrong in any architectural project they might attempt. At the same time, they found among their new subjects an infinite number of artists quite capable of carrying out any design that might be propounded to them.

In the first place, they found in the colonnaded courts of the Jaina temples nearly all that was wanted for a ready-made mosque. All that was required was the removal of the temple in its centre, and the erection of a new wall on the west side, adorned with niches--mihrabs--to point out to the faithful the direction in which Mecca lay, towards which, as is well known, they were commanded in the Koran to turn when they prayed. It is not certain, however, that they were ever in India content with this only. In the two instances at least to which we are now referring, they determined in addition to erect a screen of arches in front of the Jaina pillars, and to adorn it with all the richness and elaboration of carving which their Indian subjects were capable of executing. Nothing could be more successful than the results. There is a largeness and grandeur about the plain simple outline of the Mahomedan arches which quite overshadows the smaller parts of the Hindu fanes, and at the same time the ornamentation, though applied to a greater extent than in any other known examples, is kept so flat as never to interfere with or break the simple outlines of the architectural construction. There may be other examples of surface-decoration as elaborate as this, but hardly anywhere on such a scale. Some parts of the interior of Sta. Sophia at Constantinople are as beautiful,[491] but they are only a few square yards. The palace at Meshita, if completed, might have rivalled it, but it is a fragment;[492] and there may be--certainly were--examples in Persia between the times of Chosroes and Harun al-Rashid, which may have equalled these, but they have perished, or at least are not known to us now; and even if they ever existed, must have been unlike these mosques. In them we find a curious exemplification of some of the best qualities of the art, as exhibited previously by the Hindus, and practised afterwards by their conquerors.

DELHI.

Of the two mosques at Delhi and at Ajmir, the first named is the earlier, having been begun some seven or eight years before the other, and is also very much the larger.[493] It is, besides, associated with the Kutub Minar, and some of the most beautiful tombs of the age, which altogether make up a group with which nothing at Ajmir can compare. The situation, too, of the Delhi ruins is singularly beautiful, for they stand on the gentle slope of a hill, overlooking a plain that had once apparently been a lake, but which afterwards became the site of three successive capitals of the East. In front are the ruins of Tugluckabad, the gigantic fort of an old Pathan chief; and further north the plain is still covered with the ruins of Old Delhi, the capital of the later Pathans and earlier Moguls. Beyond that, at the distance of nine or ten miles, are seen the towers of Shahjehanabad, the modern capital, and till recently the seat of the nominal monarchy of the Great Mogul. Still further north are situated the civil stations and cantonments of the British rulers of the country. It is a fortunate circumstance that the British station was not, as at Agra, placed in the midst of the ruins, since it is to this that we owe their preservation. But for the distance, marble columns would doubtless have been taken for all purposes for which they might have been available, with a total disregard to their beauty, and the interest of the ruins thereby annihilated. Even as it is, the buildings belonging to the celebrated Shahlimar gardens, which were the only buildings of importance in the neighbourhood of the English station, have disappeared; but these are of slight importance as compared with the ruins further south.

The general arrangement of the principal ruins will be understood from the plan (Woodcut No. 277), which was taken with great care, though the scale to which it has been necessary to reduce it prevents all its peculiarities from being seen. To understand it, it is necessary to bear in mind that all the pillars are of Hindu, and all the walls of Mahomedan, architecture.

It is a little difficult to determine to what extent the pillars now stand as originally arranged by the Hindus, or how far they have been taken down and re-arranged by the conquerors. Even supposing them to be undisturbed, it is quite evident that the enclosing walls were erected by the Moslems, since all the stringcourses are covered with ornaments in their style, and all the openings possess pointed arches, which the Hindus never used. On the whole the probability seems to be that the entire structure was re-arranged in the form we now see it by the Mahomedans. The celebrated mosque at Canouge is undoubtedly a Jaina temple, re-arranged on a plan precisely similar to that of the mosque of Amrou at Old Cairo (Woodcut No. 921, vol. ii.). The roof and domes are all of Jaina architecture, so that no trace of the Moorish style is to be seen internally; but the exterior is as purely of Mahomedan architecture. There is another mosque at Dhar, near Mandu, of more modern date, and, without doubt, a re-arrangement of a Jaina temple. Another, in the fort at Jaunpore, as well as many other mosques at Ahmedabad and elsewhere, all show the same system of taking down and re-arranging the materials on a different plan. If, therefore, the pillars at the Kutub were in situ, the case would be exceptional;[494] but I cannot, nevertheless, help suspecting that the two-storeyed pavilions in the angles, and those behind the screen may be as originally erected, and some of the others may be so also; but to this we will return when speaking of the Ajmir mosque, where the Jaina pillars are almost certainly as first arranged. It is quite certain, however, that some of the pillars at the Kutub are made up of dissimilar fragments, and were placed where they now stand by the builders of the mosque. The only question--and it is not a very important one--is, how many were so treated? It may, however, be necessary to explain that there could be no difficulty in taking down and rebuilding these erections, because the joints of the pillars are all fitted with the precision that Hindu patience alone could give. Each compartment of the roof is composed of nine stones--four architraves, four angular and one central slab (as explained in diagram No. 114, p. 214), all so exactly fitted, and so independent of cement, as easily to be taken down and put up again. The same is true of the domes, all which being honestly and fairly fitted, would suffer no damage from the process of removal and re-erection.

The section (Woodcut No. 278) of one half of the principal colonnade (the one facing the great series of arches) will explain its form better than words can do. It is so purely Jaina, that it should, perhaps, have been mentioned in speaking of that style; but as forming a part of the earliest mosque in India, it is more appropriately introduced in this place. The pillars are of the same order as those used on Mount Abu (Woodcut No. 130), except that those at Delhi are much richer and more elaborate. Most of them probably belong to the 11th or 12th century, and are among the few specimens to be found in India that seem to be overloaded with ornament. There is not one inch of plain surface from the capital to the base, except the pillars behind the screen and some others which may belong to older buildings. Still the ornament is so sharp and so cleverly executed, and the effect, in their present state of decay and ruin so picturesque, that it is very difficult to find fault with what is so beautiful. In some instances the figures that were on the shafts of the pillars have been cut off, as offensive to Mahomedan strictness with regard to idolatrous images; but on the roof and less seen parts, the cross-legged figures of the Jaina saints, and other emblems of that religion, may still be detected.

The glory of the mosque, however, is not in these Hindu remains, but in the great range of arches on the western side, extending north and south for about 385 ft., and consisting of three greater and eight smaller arches; the central one 22 ft. wide and 53 ft. high; the larger side-arches 24 ft. 4 in., and about the same height as the central arch; the smaller arches, which are unfortunately much ruined, are about half these dimensions (Woodcut No. 279). Behind this, at the distance of 32 ft., are the foundations of another wall; but only intended, apparently, to be carried as high as the roof of the Hindu pillars it encloses. It seems probable that the Hindu pillars between the two screens were the only part proposed to be roofed, since some of them are built into the back part of the great arches, and all above them is quite plain and smooth, without the least trace of any intention to construct a vault or roof of any sort. Indeed, a roof is by no means an essential part of a mosque; a wall facing Mecca is all that is required, and in India is frequently all that is built, though an enclosure is often added in front to protect the worshippers from interruption. Roofed colonnades are, of course, convenient and ornamental accompaniments, yet far from being indispensable.

The history of this mosque, as told in its construction, is as curious as anything about it. It seems that the Afghan conquerors had a tolerably distinct idea that pointed arches were the true form for architectural openings; but, being without science sufficient to construct them, they left the Hindu architects and builders whom they employed to follow their own devices as to the mode of carrying out the form. The Hindus up to this time had never built arches--nor, indeed, did they for centuries afterwards. Accordingly, they proceeded to make the pointed openings on the same principle upon which they built their domes. They carried them up in horizontal courses as far as they could, and then closed them by long slabs meeting at the top, the construction being, in fact, that of the arch of the aqueduct at Tusculum, shown in Woodcut No. 178, vol. i.[495] The same architects were employed by their masters to ornament the faces of these arches; and this they did by copying and repeating the ornaments on the pillars and friezes on the opposite sides of the court, covering the whole with a lace-work of intricate and delicate carving, such as no other mosque except that at Ajmir ever received before or since; and which--though perhaps in a great measure thrown away when used on such a scale--is, without exception, the most exquisite specimen of its class known to exist anywhere. The stone being particularly hard and good, the carving retains its freshness to the present day, and is only destroyed above the arches, where the faulty Hindu construction has superinduced premature decay.

The Kutub Minar, or great minaret, is 48 ft. 4 in. in diameter at the base, and, when measured in 1794, was 242 ft. in height.[496] Even then, however, its capital was ruined, so that some 10 ft., or perhaps 20 ft., must be added to this to complete its original elevation. It is ornamented by four boldly-projecting balconies; one at 97 ft., the second at 148 ft., the third at 188 ft., and the fourth at 214 ft. from the ground; between which are richly-sculptured raised belts containing inscriptions. In the lower storey the projecting ribs which form the flutes are alternately angular and circular; in the second circular and in the third angular only. Above this the minar is plain, and principally of white marble, with belts of the same red sandstone of which the three lower storeys are composed (Woodcut No. 280).

It is not clear whether the angular flutings are copied from some peculiarity found in the minarets at Khorasan and further westward, or whether they are derived from the forms of the temples of the Jains. The forms of the bases of the minarets at Ghazni appear to lend probability to the first hypothesis; but the star-like form of many temples--principally Jaina--in Mysore and elsewhere (ante, p. 394, et seqq.) would seem to countenance the idea of their being of Hindu origin. No star-like forms have yet, however, been found so far north, and their destruction has been too complete for us to hope that they may be found now. Be this as it may, it is probably not too much to assert that the Kutub Minar is the most beautiful example of its class known to exist anywhere. The rival that will occur at once to most people is the campanile at Florence, built by Giotto. That is, it is true, 30 ft. taller, but it is crushed by the mass of the cathedral alongside; and, beautiful though it is, it wants that poetry of design and exquisite finish of detail which marks every moulding of the minar. It might have been better if the slope of the sides had been at a higher angle, but that is only apparent when seen at a distance; when viewed from the court of the mosque its form is perfect, and, under any aspect, is preferable to the prosaic squareness of the outline of the Italian example.

The only Mahomedan building known to be taller than this is the minaret of the mosque of Hassan, at Cairo (p. 389 and Woodcut No. 928, vol. ii.); but as the pillar at Old Delhi is a wholly independent building, it has a far nobler appearance, and both in design and finish far surpasses not only its Egyptian rival, but any building of its class known to me in the whole world. This, however, must not be looked at as if erected for the same purposes as those usually attached to mosques elsewhere. It was not designed as a place from which the müeddin should call the prayers, though its lower gallery may have been used for that purpose also, but as a Tower of Victory--a Jaya Stambha, in fact--an emblem of conquest, which the Hindus could only too easily understand and appreciate.

At the distance of 470 ft. north of this one a second minar was commenced, by Ala ud-dîn, of twice its dimensions, or 297 ft. in circumference. It was only carried up to the height of 40 ft., and abandoned probably in consequence of the removal of the seat of government to the new capital of Tugluckabad.

The date of all these buildings is known with sufficient exactness from the inscriptions which they bear,[497] from which it appears that the inner court was enclosed by Shahab ud-dîn. The central range of arches (Woodcut No. 279) was built by Kutub ud-dîn; the wings by Altumsh, whose tomb is behind the northern range, and the Kutub Minar was either built or finished by the same monarch; they extend, therefore, from A.D. 1196-1235, at which date they were left incomplete in consequence of the death of the last-named king.

One of the most interesting objects connected with this mosque is the iron pillar which stands--and apparently always has stood--in the centre of its courtyard (Woodcut No. 281). It now stands 22 ft. above the ground, and as the depth under the pavement is now ascertained to be only 20 in., the total height is 23 ft. 8 in.[498] Its diameter at the base is 16·4 in., at the capital 12·05 in. The capital is 3½ ft. high, and is sharply and clearly wrought into the Persian form that makes it look as if it belonged to an earlier period than it does; and it has the amalaka moulding, which is indicative of considerable antiquity. It has not, however, been yet correctly ascertained what its age really is. There is an inscription upon it, but without a date. From the form of its alphabet, Prinsep ascribed it to the 3rd or 4th century;[499] Bhau Daji, on the same evidence, to the end of the 5th or beginning of the 6th century.[500] The truth probably lies between the two. My own conviction is that it belongs to one of the Chandra Rajas of the Gupta dynasty, either consequently to A.D. 363 or A.D. 400.

Taking A.D. 400 as a mean date--and it certainly is not far from the truth--it opens our eyes to an unsuspected state of affairs to find the Hindus at that age capable of forging a bar of iron larger than any that have been forged even in Europe up to a very late date, and not frequently even now. As we find them, however, a few centuries afterwards using bars as long as this lât in roofing the porch of the temple at Kanaruc (ante, p. 222), we must now believe that they were much more familiar with the use of this metal than they afterwards became. It is almost equally startling to find that, after an exposure to wind and rain for fourteen centuries, it is unrusted, and the capital and inscription are as clear and as sharp now as when put up fourteen centuries ago.[501]

As the inscription informs us the pillar was dedicated to Vishnu, there is little doubt that it originally supported a figure of Garuda on the summit which the Mahomedans of course removed; but the real object of its erection was as a pillar of victory to record the “defeat of the Balhikas,[502] near the seven mouths of the Sindhu,” or Indus. It is, to say the least of it, a curious coincidence, that eight centuries afterwards men from that same Bactrian country should have erected a Jaya Stambha ten times as tall as this one, in the same courtyard, to celebrate their victory over the descendants of those Hindus who so long before had expelled their ancestors from the country.

Immediately behind the north-west corner of the mosque stands the tomb of Altumsh, the founder. Though small, it is one of the richest examples of Hindu art applied to Mahomedan purposes that Old Delhi affords, and is extremely beautiful, though the builders still display a certain degree of inaptness in fitting the details to their new purposes. The effect at present is injured by the want of a roof, which, judging from appearance, was never completed, if ever commenced. In addition to the beauty of its details it is interesting as being the oldest tomb known to exist in India. He died A.D. 1236.

A more beautiful example than even this is the other, shown on the left hand of the plan (Woodcut No. 277). It was erected by Ala ud-dîn Khilji, and the date 1310 is found among its inscriptions. It is therefore about a century more modern than the other buildings of the place, and displays the Pathan style at its period of greatest perfection, when the Hindu masons had learned to fit their exquisite style of decoration to the forms of their foreign masters. Its walls are decorated internally with a diaper pattern of unrivalled excellence, and the mode in which the square is changed into an octagon is more simply elegant and appropriate than any other example I am acquainted with in India. The pendentives accord perfectly with the pointed openings in the four other faces, and are in every respect appropriately constructive.[503] True, there are defects. For instance, they are rather too plain for the elaborate diapering which covers the whole of the lower part of the building both internally and externally; but ornament might easily have been added; and their plainness accords with the simplicity of the dome, which is indeed by no means worthy of the substructure. Not being pierced with windows, it seems as if the architect assumed that its plainness would not be detected in the gloom that in consequence prevails.

This building, though small--it is only 53 ft. square externally, and with an internal apartment only 34 ft. 6 in. in plan--marks the culminating point of the Pathan style in Delhi. Nothing so complete had been done before, nothing so ornate was attempted by them afterwards. In the provinces wonderful buildings were erected between this period and the Mogul conquest, but in the capital their edifices were more marked by solemn gloom and nakedness than by ornamentation or any of the higher graces of architectural art. Externally it is a good deal damaged, but its effect is still equal to that of any building of its class in India.

AJMIR.

The mosque at Ajmir (Woodcut No. 283) was commenced apparently in the year 1200 and was certainly completed during the reign of Altumsh, A.D. 1211-1236.[504] According to tradition, it was finished in two days and a half; hence the only name by which it is now known--the “Arhai dîn ka Jhompra,” which, if it means anything, can only apply to the clearing away of the Pagan temples and symbols, and the dedication of a heathen shrine to purposes of the Faithful. In this instance it seems almost certain, whatever may be the case at Delhi, that the pillars are in situ. At all events, if they were taken down by the Mahomedans, they certainly have been re-erected exactly as they were originally designed to stand.[505] The pillars, their architraves, the roofing stones, and the domes, are all of a piece, and so exactly what we find at Abu and Girnar as to leave no doubt that we see before us a part of the courtyard of a Jaina Temple, which probably had been used by the followers of that religion for a couple of centuries at least before it was appropriated by the conquerors. It is only the west side, with its nine domes, that is now standing. The cloisters on the other three sides are in ruins, though their plan can easily be traced even now. What remains, however, is sufficient to show that it must originally have been a singularly elegant specimen of its class. The pillars are taller and more slender than those of the mosque at Delhi, but purer and more elegant in design.

The glory, however, of this mosque, as of that of the Kutub, is the screen of seven arches with which Altumsh adorned the courtyard (Woodcut No. 284). Its dimensions are very similar to those of its rival. The central arch is 22 ft. 3 in. wide; the two on either side 13 ft. 6 in., and the outer one at each end 10 ft. 4 in. In the centre the screen rises to a height of 56 ft., and on it are the ruins of two small minarets 10½ ft. in diameter, ornamented with alternate circular and angular flutes, as in the lower storey of the Kutub. It is not clear whether anything of the same sort existed at Delhi--probably not, as the great minar may have served for that purpose, and their introduction here looks like an afterthought, and the production of an unpractised hand working in an unfamiliar style. Wherever and whenever minars were afterwards introduced, preparations for them were always made from the foundations, and their lines are always carried down to the ground, in some shape or other, as in true art they ought to be. This solecism, if it may be so called, evidently arose from the architects being Hindus, unfamiliar with the style; and to this also is due the fact that all the arches are constructed on the horizontal principle. There is not a true arch in the place; but, owing to their having the command of larger stones than were available at Delhi, the arches are not here crippled, as they were there before the late repairs.

It is neither, however, its dimensions nor design that makes this screen one of the most remarkable architectural objects in India, but the mode in which it is decorated. Nothing can exceed the taste with which the Cufic and Togra inscriptions are interwoven with the more purely architectural decorations, or the manner in which they give life and variety to the whole, without ever interfering with the constructive lines of the design. As before remarked, as examples of surface-decoration, these two mosques of Altumsh at Delhi and Ajmir are probably unrivalled. Nothing in Cairo or in Persia is so exquisite in detail, and nothing in Spain or Syria can approach them for beauty of surface-decoration. Besides this, they are unique. Nowhere else would it be possible to find Mahomedan largeness of conception, combined with Hindu delicacy of ornamentation, carried out to the same extent and in the same manner. If to this we add their historical value as the first mosques erected in India, and their ethnographic importance as bringing out the leading characteristics of the two races in so distinct and marked a manner, there are certainly no two buildings in India that better deserve the protecting care of Government; the one has received its fair share of attention; the other has been most shamefully neglected, and latterly most barbarously ill-treated.[506]

LATER PATHAN STYLE.

After the death of Ala ud-dîn (A.D. 1316) a change seems to have come over the spirit of the Pathan architects, and all their subsequent buildings, down to the time of Shere Shah, A.D. 1539, exhibit a stern simplicity of design, in marked contrast to the elaborate ornamentation with which they began. It is not clear whether this arose from any puritanical reaction against the quasi-Hinduism of the earlier examples, or from any political causes, the effect of which it is now difficult to trace: but, certain it is, that when that stern old warrior Tugluck Shah, A.D. 1321, founded the New Delhi, which still bears his name--Tugluckabad--all his buildings are characterised by a severe simplicity, in marked contrast with those which his predecessors erected in the capital that overlooks the plain in which his citadel is situated. His tomb, which was finished at least, if not built, by his successor, instead of being situated in a garden, as is usually the case, stands by itself in a strongly-fortified citadel of its own, surrounded by an artificial lake. The sloping walls and almost Egyptian solidity of this mausoleum, combined with the bold and massive towers of the fortifications that surround it, form a model of a warrior’s tomb hardly to be rivalled anywhere, and in singular contrast with the elegant and luxuriant garden-tombs of the more settled and peaceful dynasties that succeeded.

The change, however, of most interest from a historical point of view is, that by the time of Tugluck Shah’s reign, the Moslems had worked themselves entirely free from Hindu influence. In his buildings all the arches are true arches; all the details invented for the place where they are found. His tomb, in fact, would be as appropriate--more so, indeed--if found in the valley of the Nile than on the banks of the Jumna; and from that time forward Mahomedan architecture in India was a new and complete style in itself, and developed according to the natural and inevitable sequences of true styles in all parts of the world.

It is true, nevertheless, that in their tombs, as well as in their mosques, they frequently, to save themselves trouble, used Hindu materials when they were available, and often with the most picturesque effect. Many of these compound edifices are composed of four pillars only, surmounted by a small dome; but frequently they adopt with the pillars the Jaina arrangement of twelve pillars, so placed as to support an octagonal framework, easily moulded into a circular basement for a dome. This, as before observed, is the arrangement of the tomb at Mylassa, and the formative idea of all that is beautiful in the plans of Jaina buildings in India.

One example must suffice to explain the effect of these buildings (Woodcut No. 285). At first sight the dome looks rather heavy for the substructure; but the effect of the whole is so picturesque that it is difficult to find fault with it. If all the materials were original, the design would be open to criticism; but, when a portion is avowedly borrowed, a slight want of balance between the parts may be excused.

There are several examples of tombs of this sort at the Bakaraya Kund in Benares, evidently made up from Jaina materials;[507] and, indeed, wherever the Mahomedans fairly settled themselves on a site previously occupied by the Jains, such combinations are frequent; but no attempt is ever made to assimilate the parts that are Mahomedan with those belonging to the Hindu style which they are employing; they are of the age in which the tomb or mosque was built, and that age, consequently, easily recognisable by any one familiar with the style.

The usual form of a Pathan tomb will be better understood from the following woodcut (No. 286), representing a nameless sepulchre among the hundreds that still strew the plains of Old Delhi. It consists of an octagonal apartment, about 50 ft. in diameter, surrounded by a verandah following the same form, each face being ornamented by three arches of the stilted pointed form generally adopted by the Pathans, and it is supported by double square columns, which are almost as universal with them as this form of arch.

It is a form evidently borrowed from the square pier of the Jains, but so altered and so simplified, that it requires some ingenuity to recognise its origin in its new combination.

* * * * *

The series of Pathan tombs closes with that of Shere Shah (Woodcut No. 287), the last but one and the most illustrious of his race. It is situated on a square terrace in the middle of a large tank, near Sasseram, in Shahabad, and, from its locality and its design, is now a singularly picturesque object (Woodcut No. 288). Its dimensions too are considerable.[508] Its base is an octagon, 54 ft. on each side externally. In the interior a gallery, 10 ft. wide, surrounds the central apartment, which is surmounted by a dome 65 ft. in diameter, beneath which stands the tomb of the founder and of some of his favourite companions in arms.

On the exterior, the terrace on which it stands is ornamented by bold octagonal pavilions in the angles, which support appropriately the central dome, and the little bracketed kiosks between them break pleasingly the outline. In the same manner the octagonal kiosks that cluster round the drum of the dome, and the dome itself, relieve the monotony of the composition without detracting from its solidity or apparent solemnity. Altogether, as a royal tomb of the second class, there are few that surpass it in India, either for beauty of outline or appropriateness of detail. Originally it was connected with the mainland by a bridge, which fortunately was broken down before the grand trunk road passed near. But for this, it would probably have been utilised before now.

The mosques of the Pathans bore the same aspect as their tombs. The so-called Kala Musjid in the present city of Delhi, and finished, according to an inscription on its walls, in A.D. 1389, is in a style not unlike the tomb (Woodcut No. 286), but more massive, and even less ornamented. This severe simplicity seems to have been the characteristic of the latter part of the 14th century, and may have been a protest of the more puritanical Moslem spirit against the Hindu exuberance which characterised both the 13th and the 15th centuries. A reaction, however, took place, and the late Pathan style of Delhi was hardly less rich, and certainly far more appropriate for the purposes to which it was devoted than the first style, as exhibited in the buildings at the Kutub.

This, however, was principally owing to the exceptional splendour of the reign of Shere Shah, who, however, is so mixed up both in date and in association with the earlier Moguls, that it is difficult to discriminate between them. Though Baber practically conquered India in A.D. 1494, his successor, Humayun, was defeated and driven from the throne by Shere Shah in A.D. 1540, and it was only in A.D. 1554 that the Mogul dynasty was finally and securely established at Delhi. The style consequently of the first half of the 16th century may be considered as the last expiring effort of the Pathans, or the first dawn of that of the great Moguls, and it was well worthy of either.

At this age the façades of these mosques became far more ornamental, and more frequently encrusted with marbles, and always adorned with sculpture of a rich and beautiful character; the angles of the buildings were also relieved by little kiosks, supported by four richly bracketed pillars, but never with minarets, which, so far as I know, were not attached to mosques during the Pathan period. The call to prayer was made from the roof; and, except the first rude attempt at Ajmir, I do not know a single instance of a minaret built for such a purpose, though they were, as we know, universal in Egypt and elsewhere long before this time, and were considered nearly indispensable in the buildings of the Moguls very shortly afterwards. The Pathans seem to have regarded the minar as the Italians viewed the Campanile, more as a symbol of power and of victory than as an adjunct to a house of worship.

The body of the mosque became generally an oblong hall, with a central dome flanked by two others of the same horizontal dimensions, but not so lofty, and separated from it by a broad bold arch, the mouldings and decorations of which formed one of the principal ornaments of the building.

The pendentives were even more remarkable than the arches for elaborateness of detail. Their forms are so various that it is impossible to classify or describe them; perhaps the most usual is that represented in Woodcut No. 289, where the angle is filled up with a number of small imitations of arches, bracketing out one beyond the other. It was this form that was afterwards converted into the honeycomb work of the Arabs in Spain.

If it were not that the buildings of the Pathans are so completely eclipsed by the greater splendour of those of the Mogul dynasty, which succeeded them in their own capitals, their style would have attracted more attention than has hitherto been bestowed upon it; and its monograph would be as interesting as any that the Indian-Saracenic affords. In its first period the style was characterised by all the richness which Hindu elaboration could bestow; in the second by a stern simplicity and grandeur much more appropriate, according to our ideas, to the spirit of the people; and during the latter part of its existence, by a return to the elaborateness of the past; but at this period every detail was fitted to its place and its purpose. We forget the Hindu except in his delicacy, and we recognise in this last development one of the completed architectural styles of the world.

IV. JAUNPORE

CONTENTS.

Mosques of Jumma Musjid and Lall Durwaza.

CHRONOLOGY.

Khoja Jehan assumes independence at Jaunpore A.D. 1397 Mubarick, his son 1400 Shems ud-dîn--Ibrahim Shah 1401 Mahmúd 1441 Husain Shah 1451 ---- deposed and seeks refuge at Gaur 1478

It was just two centuries after the conquest of India by the Moslems that Khoja Jehan, the Soubahdar or governor of the province in which Jaunpore is situated, assumed independence, and established a dynasty which maintained itself for nearly a century, from A.D. 1397 to about 1478, and though then reconquered by the sovereign of Delhi, still retained a sort of semi-independence till finally incorporated in the Mogul empire by the great Akbar. During this period Jaunpore was adorned by several large mosques, three of which still remain tolerably entire, and a considerable number of tombs, palaces, and other buildings, besides a fort and bridge, all of which are as remarkable specimens of their class of architecture as are to be found anywhere in India.

Although so long after the time when under Ala ud-dîn and Tugluck Shah the architecture of the capital had assumed something like completeness, it is curious to observe how imperfect the amalgamation was in the provinces at the time when the principal buildings at Jaunpore were erected. The principal parts of the mosques, such as the gateways, the great halls, and the western parts generally, are in a complete arcuate style. Wherever indeed wide openings and large internal spaces were wanted, arches and domes and radiating vaults were employed, and there is little in those parts to distinguish this architecture from that of the capitals. But in the cloisters that surround the courts, and in the galleries in the interior, short square pillars are as generally employed, with bracket capitals, horizontal architraves, and roofs formed of flat slabs, as was invariably the case in Hindu and Jaina temples. Instead of being fused together, as they afterwards became, the arcuate style of the Moslems stands here, though in juxtaposition, in such marked contrast to the trabeate style of the Hindus, that some authors have been led to suppose that the pillared parts belonged to ancient Jaina or Buddhist monuments, which had been appropriated by the Mahomedans and converted to their purposes.[509] The truth of the matter appears to be, that the greater part of the Mahomedans in the province at the time the mosques were built were Hindus converted to that religion, and who still clung to their native forms when these did not clash with their new faith; and the masons were almost certainly those whose traditions and whose taste inclined them much more to the old trabeate forms than to the newly-introduced arched style.

As we shall presently see at Gaur, on the one hand, the arched style prevailed from the first, because the builders had no other material than brick, and large openings were then impossible without arches. At Ahmedabad, on the other hand, in an essentially Jaina country, and where stone was abundant, the pillared forms were not only as commonly employed, as at Jaunpore, but were used for so long a time, that before the country was absorbed in the Mogul empire, the amalgamation between the trabeate and arcuate forms was complete.

* * * * *

The oldest mosque at Jaunpore is that in the fort, which we learn from an inscription on it, was completed in A.D. 1398. It is not large--barely 100 ft. north and south--and consists of a central block of masonry, with a large archway, of the usual style of the Mahomedan architecture of the period, and five openings between pillars on either hand. The front rows of these pillars are richly sculptured, and were evidently taken from some temple that existed there, or in the neighbourhood, before the Moslem occupation, but they seem to have exhausted the stock, as no other such are found in any of the mosques built subsequently.[510]

There are three great mosques still standing in the city; of these the grandest is the Jumma Musjid (Woodcuts Nos. 290, 291), or Friday

Mosque, which was commenced by Shah Ibrahim, A.D. 1419, but not completed till the reign of Husain, A.D. 1451-1478. It consists of a courtyard 220 ft. by 214 ft., on the western side of which is situated a range of buildings, the central one covered by a dome 40 ft. in diameter, in front of which stands a gate pyramid or propylon,[511] of almost Egyptian mass and outline, rising to the height of 86 ft. This gate pyramid by its elevation supplied the place of a minaret, which is a feature as little known at Jaunpore, as it was, at the same age, in the capital city of Delhi. On each side of the dome is a compartment divided into two storeys by a stone floor supported on pillars; and beyond this, on each side, is an apartment 40 ft. by 50 ft., covered by a bold pointed vault with ribs, so constructed that its upper surface forms the external roof of the building, which in Gothic vaults is scarcely ever the case. The three sides of the courtyard were surrounded by double colonnades, two storeys in height internally, but with three on the exterior, the floor of the courtyard being raised to the height of the lower storey. On each face was a handsome gateway; one of which is represented in Woodcut No. 291, which gives a fair idea of the style: the greater part of the eastern side of the court has been taken down and removed by the English to repair station-roads and bridges, for which in their estimation these pillars are admirably adapted.

The smallest of the mosques in the city is the Lall Durwaza or Red Gate. It is in the same style as the others; and its propylon--represented in Woodcut No. 292--displays not only the bold massiveness with which these mosques were erected, but shows also that strange admixture of Hindu and Mahomedan architecture which pervaded the style during the whole period of its continuance.

Of all the mosques remaining at Jaunpore, the Atala Musjid is the most ornate and the most beautiful. The colonnades surrounding its court are four aisles in depth, the outer columns, as well as those next the court, being double square pillars. The three intermediate rows are single square columns, supporting a flat roof of slabs, arranged as in Jaina temples. Externally, too, it is two storeys in height, the lower storey being occupied by a series of cells opening outwardly. All this is so like a Hindu arrangement that one might almost at first sight be tempted, like Baron Hügel, to fancy it was originally a Buddhist monastery. He failed to remark, however, that both here and in the Jumma Musjid the cells open outwardly, and are below the level of the courtyard of the mosque--an arrangement common enough in Mahomedan, but never found in Buddhist buildings. Its gateways, however, which are the principal ornaments of the outer court, are purely Saracenic, and the western face is adorned by three propylons similar to that represented in the last woodcut, but richer and more beautiful, while its interior domes and roofs are superior to any other specimen of Mahomedan art I am acquainted with of so early an age. They are, too, perhaps, more striking here, because, though in juxtaposition with the quasi-Hinduism of the court, they exhibit the arched style of the Saracenic architects in as great a degree of completeness as it exhibited at any subsequent period.

The other buildings hardly require particular mention, though, as transition specimens between the two styles, these Jaunpore examples are well worthy of illustration, and in themselves possess a simplicity and grandeur not often met with in this style. An appearance of strength, moreover, is imparted to them by their sloping walls, which is foreign to our general conception of Saracenic art, though at Tugluckabad and elsewhere it is carried even further than at Jaunpore. Among the Pathans of India the expression of strength is as characteristic of the style as massiveness is of that of the Normans in England. In India it is found conjoined with a degree of refinement seldom met with elsewhere, and totally free from the coarseness which in other countries usually besets vigour and boldness of design.

The peculiarities of this style are by no means confined to the capital; they prevail at Gazeepore, and as far north as Canouge, while at Benares the examples are frequent. In the suburbs of that city, at a place called the Bakaraya Kund,[512] there is a group of tombs, as mentioned above, and other buildings belonging to the Moslems, which are singularly pleasing specimens of the Jaunpore style, and certainly belong to the same age as those just described.

The kingdom of Jaunpore is also rich in little tombs and shrines in which the Moslems have used up Hindu and Jaina pillars, merely rearranging them after their own fashion. These, of course, will not bear criticism as architectural designs, but there is always something so indescribably picturesque about them as fairly to extort admiration. The principal example of this compound style is a mosque at Canouge, known popularly as “Sita ka Rasui,” “Sita’s kitchen.” It is a Jaina temple, rearranged as a mosque, in the manner described at pp. 263-4. It measures externally 133 ft. by 120 ft. The mosque itself has four rows of fifteen columns each, and three domes. The cloisters surrounding the court are only two rows in depth, and had originally sixty-eight pillars, smaller than those of the mosque. Externally it has no great beauty, but its pillared court is very picturesque and pleasing. According to an inscription over its principal gateway, its conversion was effected by Ibrahim Shah, of Jaunpore, A.D. 1406.[513]

At a later age, and even after it had lost its independence, several important buildings were erected in the capital and in other towns of the kingdom in the style of the day; but none of these, so far as is now known, are of sufficient importance to require notice in such a work as the present.

V. GUJERAT

CONTENTS.

Jumma Musjid and other Mosques at Ahmedabad--Tombs and Mosques at Sirkej and Butwa--Buildings in the Provinces.

CHRONOLOGY.

Muzaffar Shah, a Rajput, appointed Viceroy A.D. 1391 Ahmed Shah, his grandson, founds Ahmedabad 1411 Mohammed Shah the Merciful 1443 Kutub Shah; war with Rana Khumbo 1454 Mahmúd Shah Begurra 1459 Muzaffar Shah II. 1511 Bahadur Shah murdered by Portuguese 1526 Muzaffar Shah III. 1561 Gujerat becomes a province of Akbar’s kingdom 1583

Of the various forms which the Saracenic architecture assumed in India, that of Ahmedabad may probably be considered as the most elegant, as it certainly is the most characteristic of all. No other form is so essentially Indian, and no one tells its tale with the same unmistakable distinctness.

As mentioned above, the Mahomedans, in the first century of the Hejira, made a brilliant attempt to conquer Scinde and Gujerat, and apparently succeeded; but the country was so populous, and its civilization so great, that the invaders were absorbed, and soon disappeared from the scene.

Mahmúd of Ghazni next overran the province, but left no permanent mark; and even after the fall of Delhi (A.D. 1196) Gujerat maintained the struggle for independence for nearly two centuries longer, till Feroze Tugluck, in A.D. 1391, appointed Muzaffar, a converted Rajput, of the Tak clan, to be his viceroy. This, however, was only on the eve of the troubles caused by the invasion of Tamerlane, and, mutato domino, Gujerat remained as independent as before.

The next two centuries--during which the Ahmed Shahi dynasty occupied the throne--were spent in continual wars and struggles with their refractory vassals and the neighbouring chiefs. On the whole, however, their power may be said to have been gradually on the increase till the death of Bahadur, A.D. 1536, but they never wholly subdued the rebellious spirit of their subjects, and certainly never converted the bulk of them to their faith. As a consequence of this, the principal buildings with which this chapter is concerned are to be found in the capital and its immediate proximity. Beyond that the Hindus followed their old faith and built temples as before; though in such large cities as Cambay or Baroach the Mahomedans, of course, possessed places of worship, some of them of considerable importance, and generally made up from pillars borrowed from Hindu buildings.

In Ahmedabad itself, however, the Hindu influence continued to be felt throughout. Even the mosques are Hindu, or rather Jaina, in every detail; only here and there an arch is inserted, not because it was wanted constructively, but because it was a symbol of the faith, while in their tombs and palaces even this is generally wanting. The truth of the matter is, the Mahomedans had forced themselves upon the most civilized and most essentially building race at that time in India, and the Chalukyas conquered their conquerors, and forced them to adopt forms and ornaments which were superior to any the invaders knew or could have introduced. The result is a style which combines all the elegance and finish of Jaina or Chalukyan art, with a certain largeness of conception which the Hindu never quite attained, but which is characteristic of the people who at this time were subjecting all India to their sway.

The first seat of the Mahomedan power was Anhilwarra, the old capital of the Rajputs, and which, at the time it fell into their power, must have been one of the most splendid cities of the East. Little now remains of all its magnificence, if we may trust what is said by recent travellers who have visited its deserted palaces. Ahmed, the second king, removed the seat of power to a town called Kurnawutti, afterwards known as Ahmedabad, from the name of its second founder, and which, with characteristic activity, he set about adorning with splendid edifices. Of these the principal was the Jumma Musjid, which, though not remarkable for its size, is one of the most beautiful mosques in the East. Its arrangement will be understood from the next plan (Woodcut No. 293). Its dimensions are 382 ft. by 258 ft. over all externally; the mosque itself being 210 ft. by 95 ft., covering consequently about 20,000 sq. ft. Within the mosque itself are 260 pillars, supporting fifteen domes arranged symmetrically, the centre three alone being somewhat larger and considerably higher than the others. If the plan is compared with that of the temple at Sadri (Woodcut No. 133), which was being erected at the same time by Khumbo Rana within 160 miles of Ahmedabad, it will afford a fair means of comparison between the Jaina and Mahomedan arrangements of that day. The form of the pillars and the details generally are practically the same in both buildings, the Hindu being somewhat richer and more elaborate. In plan, the mosque looks monotonous as compared with the temple; but this is redeemed, to some extent, by the different heights of the domes, as shown in the elevation (Woodcut No. 294), and by the elevation of each division being studiously varied. My own feeling is in favour of the poetry of the temple, but there is a sobriety about the plan of the mosque which, after all, may be in better taste. Both plans, it need hardly be remarked, are infinitely superior to the monotony of the southern halls of 1000 pillars. The latter are remarkable for their size and the amount of labour bestowed upon them, but it requires more than this to constitute good architecture.

The general character of the elevation will be understood from the woodcut No. 294, but unfortunately its minarets are gone. When Forbes[514] drew it, they were still standing, and were celebrated in Eastern story as the shaking minarets of Ahmedabad; an earthquake in A.D. 1818 shook them too much, but there are several others still standing in the city from which their form can easily be restored.

The plan and lateral extension of the Jumma Musjid are exceptional. The usual form taken by the mosques at Ahmedabad was that of the Queen’s Mosque at Mirzapore, and consists of three domes standing on twelve pillars each, with the central part so raised as to admit light to the interior. The mode in which this was effected will be understood from the annexed diagram (Woodcut No. 297). The pillars which support the central domes are twice as high as those of the side domes, and two rows of dwarf columns stand on the roof to make up the height. In front of these internally is a solid balustrade, which is generally most richly ornamented by carving. Thus arranged, it will be perceived that the necessary amount of light is introduced, as in the drum of a Byzantine dome, but in a more artistic manner. The sun’s rays can never fall on the floor, or even so low as the head of any one standing there. The light is reflected from the external roof into the dome, and perfect ventilation is obtained, with the most pleasing effect of illumination without glare. In order further to guard against the last dreaded contingency, in most of these mosques a screen of perforated stonework was introduced between the outer dwarf columns. These screens were frequently of the most exquisite beauty, and in consequence have very generally been removed.

There are three or four mosques at Ahmedabad, built on the same pattern as that last described, but as the style progressed it became more and more Indian. The arches in front were frequently omitted, and only a screen of columns appeared, supported by two minarets, one at each angle. This system was carried to its greatest extent at Sirkej, about five miles from the city. Mohammed Shah, in A.D. 1445, commenced erecting a tomb (A on Woodcut No. 298) here, in honour of Ahmed Gunj Buksh, the friend and adviser of his father. The style of these buildings may be judged of from the woodcut (No. 299, page 532), representing the pavilion of sixteen pillars in front of this tomb (I in Woodcut No. 298). They are of the usual simple outline of the style--a tall, square base; the shafts square, and with no ornament except a countersinking on the angles, and crowned with a moderately projecting bracket-capital. The building is roofed with nine small domes, insignificant in themselves, but both internally and externally forming as pleasing a mode of roofing as ever was applied to such a small detached building of this class. The mosque (D) was completed in A.D. 1451, and Mahmúd Begurra added afterwards a tomb for himself (B) and one for his wife Rajbaie (C). With their accompanying palaces and tombs these make up one of the most important groups in the neighbourhood. The whole are constructed without a single arch; all the pillars have the usual bracket capitals of the Hindus, and all the domes are on the horizontal principle. In the large tomb an attempt has been made to get a larger dome than the usual octagonal arrangement would admit of, but not quite successfully. The octagon does not accord with the substructure, and either wider spaces ought to have been introduced or a polygon of a greater number of sides employed. The mosque is the perfection of elegant simplicity, and is an improvement on the plan of the Jumma Musjid. There are five domes in a line, as there, but they are placed nearer to one another, and though of greater diameter the width of the whole is less, and they are only two ranges in depth. Except the

Mootee Musjid at Agra, to be described hereafter, there is no mosque in India more remarkable for simple elegance than this.

Besides these larger mosques there are several smaller ones of great beauty, of which two--those of Mooháfiz Khan and the Rani Sîpri--are pre-eminent. The elevation of the first is by no means happy, but its details are exquisite, and it retains its minarets, which is too seldom the case. As will be seen from the woodcut, as well as from those of the Jumma and Queen’s Mosques (Nos. 294, 296), the lower part of the minarets is of pure Hindu architecture; all the bases at Ahmedabad are neither more nor less than the perpendicular parts of the basement of Hindu or Jaina temples elongated. Every form and every detail may be found at Chandravati or Abu, except in one particular--on the angles of all Hindu temples are niches containing images. This the Moslem could not tolerate, so he filled them with tracery. We can follow the progress of the development of this form, from the first rude attempt in the Jumma Musjid, through all its stages to the exquisite patterns of the Queen’s Mosque at Mirzapore. After a century’s experience they produced forms which as architectural ornaments will, in their own class, stand comparison with any employed in any age or in any part of the world; and in doing this they invented a class of window-tracery in which they were also unrivalled. The specimen below (Woodcut No. 301), from a window in a desecrated mosque in the palace (the Bhudder) will convey an idea of its elaborateness and grace. It would be difficult to excel the skill with which the vegetable forms are conventionalised just to the extent required for the purpose. The equal spacing also of the subject by the three ordinary trees and four palms, takes it out of the category of direct imitation of nature, and renders it sufficiently structural for its situation; but perhaps the greatest skill is shown in the even manner in which the pattern is spread over the whole surface. There are some exquisite specimens of tracery in precious marbles at Agra and Delhi, but none quite equal to this.

Above the roof of the mosques the minarets are always round towers slightly tapering, as in the mosque of Mooháfiz Khan (Woodcut No. 300), relieved by galleries displaying great richness in the brackets which support them as well as in the balustrades which protect them. The tower always terminates in a conical top relieved by various disks. They are, so far as I know, the only minarets belonging to mosques which surpass those of Cairo in beauty of outline or richness of detail, excepting those of the Rani Sîpri mosque, which are still more beautiful. Indeed, that mosque is the most exquisite gem at Ahmedabad, both in plan and detail. It is without arches, and every part is such as only a Hindu queen could order, and only Hindu artists could carve.[515]

TOMBS.

Knowing the style, it would not be difficult to predicate the form of the tombs. The simplest would be that of Abu Touráb; an octagonal dome supported on twelve pillars, and this extended on every side, but always remaining a square, and the entrances being in the centre of the faces. The difference between this and the Jaina arrangement is that the latter is diagonal (Woodcut No. 119), while these are square. The superiority of the Hindu mode is apparent at a glance. Not, it is true, in so small an arrangement as that last quoted, but in the tombs at Sirkej (Woodcut No. 298), the effect is so monotonous as almost to become unpleasing. With the Jains this never is the case, however numerous the pillars may be.

Besides the monotony of the square plan, it was felt at Sirkej--as already pointed out--that the octagonal dome fitted awkwardly on to its supports. This was remedied, to a great extent, in the tomb of Syad Osmán, built in A.D. 460 by Mahmúd Begurra. In this instance the base of the dome is a dodecagon, and a very considerable amount of variety is obtained by grouping the pillars in twos and fours, and by the different spacing. In elevation the dome looks heavy for the substructure, but not so in perspective; and when the screens were added to inclose the central square, it was altogether the most successful sepulchral design carried out in the pillared style at Ahmedabad.

Towards the end of their career, the architects of Ahmedabad evinced a strong tendency to revert to the arched forms generally used by their brethren in other countries. Mahmúd Begurra built himself a tomb near Kaira, which is wholly in the arched style, and remains one of the most splendid sepulchres in India.[516] He also erected at Butwa, near Ahmedabad, a tomb over the grave of a saint, which is in every respect in the same style. So little, however, were the builders accustomed to arched forms, that, though the plan is judiciously disposed by placing smaller arches outside the larger, so as to abut them, still all those of the outer range have fallen down, and the whole is very much crippled, while the tomb without arches, that stands within a few yards of it, remains entire. The scale of the two, however (Plan No. 305), reveals the secret of the preference accorded to the arch as a constructive expedient. The larger piers, the wider spacing, the whole dimensions, were on a grander scale than could be attained with beams only, as the Hindus used them. As the Greeks and Romans employed these features, any dimensions that were feasible with arches could be attained by pillars; but the Hindus worked to a smaller modulus, and do not seem to have known how to increase it. It must, however, be remarked that they generally used pillars only in courts, where there was nothing to compare them with but the spectator’s own height; and there the forms employed by them were large enough. It was only when the Moslems came to use them externally, and in conjunction with arches and other larger features, that their diminutive scale became apparent.

It is perhaps the evidence of a declining age to find size becoming the principal aim. But it is certainly one great and important ingredient in architectural design, and so thought the later architects of Ahmedabad. In their later mosques and buildings they attained greater dimensions, but it was at the expense of all that renders their earlier style so beautiful and so interesting.[517]

Besides the buildings of the classes above enumerated, there are several smaller objects of art at Ahmedabad which are of extraordinary beauty. Among these are several bowlees, or deep wells, with broad flights of steps leading down to them, and ornamented with pillars and galleries to as great an extent as some of the largest buildings above ground. It requires a personal experience of the grateful coolness of a subterranean apartment in a hot climate to appreciate such a class of buildings, and in the rainy West we hardly know how valuable water may become.

Another object of architectural beauty is found in the inflow and outflow sluices of the great tanks which abound everywhere around the city. Nowhere did the inhabitants of Ahmedabad show how essentially they were an architectural people, as in these utilitarian works. It was a necessity of their nature that every object should be made ornamental, and their success was as great in these as in their mosques or palaces.

BUILDINGS IN THE PROVINCES.

In addition to the numerous edifices that adorn the capital, there are, as hinted above, several in the provincial capitals that are well worthy of notice. Among these the Jumma Musjid at Cambay is perhaps the most splendid. It was erected in A.D. 1325, in the time of Mohammed Shah Gori, and is only inferior to that of the capital in size. It measures over all 200 ft. by 210 ft., and its internal court 120 ft. by 135 ft. Except being somewhat smaller in scale, its plan and arrangements are almost identical with those of the Altumsh Mosque (Woodcut No. 283) at Ajmir: but, when it is looked into, it would be difficult to conceive two buildings more essentially different than these two are. The screen of arches at Cambay, only three in number, are plain even to baldness, and low, in order to fit the dimensions of the Jaina pillars of the interior. These latter are all borrowed from desecrated temples, and in this instance certainly rearranged without much attention to congruity or architectural effect. Still the effect is picturesque, and the parts being employed for the purposes for which they were designed, there is no offensive incongruity anywhere.

One of the most remarkable features in this mosque is the tomb, which its founder, Imrar ben Ahmed Kajerani erected for himself. It is wholly composed of Hindu remains, and is two storeys in height, and was crowned with a dome 28 ft. in diameter. The parts, however--borrowed, apparently, from different buildings--were so badly fitted together that, after standing some three centuries, it fell in, and has since remained a ruin, singularly picturesque in form and exquisite in detail, but a monument of the folly of employing building materials for any purpose but that for which they were designed.[518]

There is another mosque at Baroach, not unlike this one in design but smaller, being only 135 ft. over all north and south, and it has--now, at least--no courtyard; but some of its details, borrowed from Hindu temples, are very beautiful.

There are also two very beautiful mosques at Dolka, a city twenty-two miles south-west from Ahmedabad, almost identical in size and plan, being each of them squares of about 150 ft., and the mosque-front covered with five domes and the screen-wall with three arches each.[519]

The most beautiful, however, of these provincial examples is the tomb at Mahmúdabad, of its class one of the most beautiful in India (Woodcut No. 306). It was erected by the same Mahmúd Begurra, A.D. 1484, who erected the tomb of Kutub-ul-Alum at Butwa, described above (Woodcut No. 304), and is said to have been designed by the same architect. This is, however, a far more successful example, and though small--it is only 94 ft. square, exclusive of the porch--there is a simplicity about its plan, a solidity and balance of parts in the design, which is not always found in these tombs, and has rarely, if ever, been surpassed in any tomb in India. The details, too, are all elegant and appropriate, so that it only wants somewhat increased dimensions to rank among the very first of its class. Its constructive arrangements, too, are so perfect that no alterations in them would be required, if the scale had been very much increased.

The tomb itself is surrounded by a screen of perforated stonework, of the very finest tracery, and with its double verandah aids in giving the sepulchral chamber that seclusion and repose so indispensable in a mausoleum.[520]

VI. MALWA

CONTENTS.

The Great Mosque at Mandu.

CHRONOLOGY.

Sultan Dilawar Ghori A.D. 1401 Sultan Hoshang Ghori 1405 Ghazni Khan 1432 Mahmúd Khan, cotemp. Rana Khumbo of Chittore 1435 Sultan Ghias ud-dîn 1469 Sultan Mahmúd II 1512 Malwa incorporated with Gujerat 1534 ---- annexed by Akbar 1568

The Ghori dynasty of Mandu attained independence about the same time as the Sharkis of Jaunpore--Sultan Dilawar, who governed the province from A.D. 1387, having assumed the title of Shah in A.D. 1401. It is, however, to his successor Hoshang, that Mandu owes its greatness and all the finest of its buildings. The state continued to prosper as one of the independent Moslem principalities till A.D. 1534, when it was incorporated with Gujerat, and was finally annexed to Akbar’s dominion in A.D. 1568.

The original capital of the state was Dhar, an old Hindu city, twenty miles northward of Mandu, to which the seat of government was transferred after it became independent. Though an old and venerated city of the Hindus, Dhar contains no evidence of its former greatness, except two mosques erected wholly of Jaina remains. The principal of these, the Jumma Musjid, has a courtyard measuring 102 ft. north and south, by 131 ft. in the other direction. The mosque itself is 119 ft. by 40 ft. 6 in., and its roof is supported by sixty-four pillars of Jaina architecture, 12 ft. 6 in. in height, and all of them more or less richly carved, and the three domes that adorn it are also of purely Hindu form. The court is surrounded by an arcade containing forty-four columns, 10 ft. in height, but equally rich in carving. There is here no screen of arches, as at the Kutub or at Ajmir. Internally nothing is visible but Hindu pillars, and, except for their disposition and the prayer-niches that adorn the western wall, it might be taken for a Hindu building. In this instance, however, there seems no doubt that there is nothing in situ. The pillars have been brought from desecrated temples in the town, and arranged here by the Mahomedans as we now find them, probably before the transference of the capital to Mandu.

The other mosque is similar to this one, and only slightly smaller. It has long, however, ceased to be used as a place of prayer, and is sadly out of repair. It is called the Lât Musjid, from an iron pillar now lying half-buried in front of its gateway. This is generally supposed to have been a pillar of victory, like that at the Kutub; but this can hardly be the case. If it were intended for an ornamental purpose, it would have been either round or octagonal, and had some ornamental form. As it is, it is only a square bar of iron, some 20 ft. or 25 ft. in height, and 9 in. section, without any ornamental form whatever. My impression is, that it was used for some useful constructive purpose, like those which supported the false roof in the Pagoda at Kanaruc (ante, page 428). There are some holes through it, which tend further to make this view of its origin probable. But, be this as it may, it is another curious proof of the employment of large masses of wrought-iron by the Hindus at a time when they were supposed to be incapable of any such mechanical exertion. Its date is probably that of the pillars of the mosques where it is found, and from their style they probably belong to the 10th or 11th centuries.

* * * * *

The site on which the city of Mandu is placed is one of the noblest occupied by any capital in India. It is an extensive plateau, detached from the mainland of Malwa by a deep ravine about 300 to 400 yards across, where narrowest, and nowhere less than 200 ft. in depth. This is crossed by a noble causeway, defended by three gateways, and flanked by tombs on either hand. The plateau is surrounded by walls erected on the brink of the cliff--it is said 28 miles in extent. This, however, conveys a very erroneous idea of the size of the place, unless qualified by the information that the walls follow the sinuosities of the ravines wherever they occur, and many of these cut into the hill a mile or two, and are only half a mile across. The plateau may be four or five miles east and west, and three miles north and south, most pleasingly diversified in surface, abounding in water, and fertile in the highest degree, as is too plainly evidenced by the rank vegetation, which is tearing the buildings of the city to pieces or obscuring them so that they can hardly be seen.

The finest building in the city is the Jumma Musjid, commenced and nearly completed by Hoshang, the second king, who reigned from A.D. 1405 to A.D. 1432, which, though not very large, is so simple and grand in outline and details, that it ranks high among the monuments of its class. Its dimensions are externally 290 ft. by 275 ft., exclusive of the porch.

Internally, the courtyard is almost an exact square of 162 ft., and would be quite so, were it not that two of the piers on the east and west faces are doubled. In other respects the four sides of the court are exactly similar, each being ornamented by eleven great arches of precisely the same dimensions and height, supported by piers or pillars, each of one single block of red sandstone. The only variety attempted is, that the east side has two arcades in depth, the north and south three: while the west side, or that facing Mecca, has five, besides being ornamented by three great domes, each 42 ft. in diameter.

As will be seen on the plan (Woodcut No. 308), these large domes are supported each by twelve pillars. The pillars are all equally spaced, the architect having omitted, for the sake of uniformity, to widen the central avenues on the intersection of which the domes stand. It follows from this that the four sides of the octagon supporting the dome, which are parallel to the sides of the court, are shorter than the four diagonal sides. Internally, this produces a very awkward appearance; but it could not have been avoided except by running into another difficulty--that of having oblong spaces at the intersections of the wider aisles with the narrower, to which the smaller domes must have been fitted. Perhaps, on the whole, the architect took the less inconvenient course of the two.

The interior of the court is represented in Woodcut No. 309, and for simple grandeur and expression of power it may, perhaps, be taken as one of the very best specimens now to be found in India. It is, however, fast falling to decay, and a few years more may deprive it of most of that beauty which so impressed me when I visited it in 1839.

The tomb of the founder, which stands behind the mosque, though not remarkable for size, is a very grand specimen of the last resting-place of a stern old Pathan king. Both internally and externally it is reveted with white marble, artistically, but not constructively, applied, and consequently in many places peeling off. The light is only admitted by the doorway and two small windows, so that the interior is gloomy, but not more so than seems suitable to its destination.

On one side of the mosque is a splendid Dharmsala, or hall, 230 ft. long, supported by three ranges of pillars, twenty-eight in each row. These are either borrowed from a Hindu edifice, or formed by some native architect from stones originally Hindu, and on the north side is a porch, which is avowedly only a re-erection of the pillars of a Jaina dome.

The palaces of Mandu are, however, perhaps even more remarkable than its mosques. Of these the principal is called Jehaj Mehal, from its being situated between two great tanks--almost literally in the water, like a “ship.” It is so covered with vegetation that it is almost impossible to sketch or photograph it,[521] but its mass and picturesque outline make it one of the most remarkable edifices of its date; very unlike the refined elegance afterwards introduced by the Moguls, but well worthy of being the residence of an independent Pathan chief of a warrior state.

The principal apartment is a vaulted hall, some 24 ft. wide by twice that length, and 24 ft. in height, flanked by buttresses massive enough to support a vault four times its section. Across the end of the hall is a range of apartments three storeys in height, and the upper ones adorned with rude, bold, balconied windows. Beyond this is a long range of vaulted halls, standing in the water, which were apparently the living apartments of the palace. Like the rest of the palace they are bold, and massive to a degree seldom found in Indian edifices, and produce a corresponding effect.

On the brink of the precipice overlooking the valley of the Nerbudda is another palace, called that of Baz Bahadur, of a lighter and more elegant character, but even more ruined than the northern palace, and scattered over the whole plateau are ruins of tombs and buildings of every class and so varied as almost to defy description. In their solitude, in a vast uninhabited jungle, they convey as vivid an impression of the ephemeral splendour of these Mahomedan dynasties as anything in India, and, if illustrated, would alone suffice to prove how wonderfully their builders had grasped the true elements of architectural design.

VII. BENGAL

CONTENTS.

Kudam ul Roussoul Mosque, Gaur--Adinah Mosque, Maldah.

CAPITAL--GAUR.

It is not very easy to understand why the architects of Malwa should have adopted a style so essentially arcuate as that which we find in the capital, while their brethren, on either hand, at Jaunpore and Ahmedabad, clung so fondly to a trabeate form wherever they had an opportunity of employing it. The Mandu architects had the same initiation to the Hindu forms in the mosques at Dhar; and there must have been innumerable Jaina temples to furnish materials to a far greater extent than we find them utilised, but we neither find them borrowing nor imitating, but adhering steadily to the pointed-arch style, which is the essential characteristic of their art in foreign countries. It is easy to understand, on the other hand, why in Bengal the trabeate style never was in vogue. The country is practically without stone, or any suitable material for forming either pillars or beams. Having nothing but brick, it was almost of necessity that they employed arches everywhere, and in every building that had any pretensions to permanency. The Bengal style being, however, the only one wholly of brick in India Proper, has a local individuality of its own, which is curious and interesting, though, from the nature of the material, deficient in many of the higher qualities of art which characterise the buildings constructed with larger and better materials. Besides elaborating a pointed-arched brick style of their own, the Bengalis introduced a new form of roof, which has had a most important influence on both the Mahomedan and Hindu styles in more modern times. As already mentioned in describing the chuttrie at Alwar (ante, p. 474), the Bengalis, taking advantage of the elasticity of the bambu, universally employ in their dwellings a curvilinear form of roof, which has become so familiar to their eyes, that they consider it beautiful (Woodcut No. 310). It is so in fact when bambu and thatch are the materials employed, but when translated into stone or brick architecture, its taste is more questionable. There is, however, so much that is conventional in architecture, and beauty depends to such an extent on association, that strangers are hardly fair judges in a case of this sort. Be this as it may, certain it is, at all events, that after being elaborated into a feature of permanent architecture in Bengal, this curvilinear form found its way in the 17th century to Delhi, and in the 18th to Lahore, and all the intermediate buildings from, say A.D. 1650, betray its presence to a greater or less extent.

It is a curious illustration, however, of how much there is in architecture that is conventional and how far familiarity may render that beautiful which is not so abstractedly, that while to the European eye this form always remains unpleasing, to the native eye--Hindu or Mahomedan--it is the most elegant of modern inventions.[522]

* * * * *

Even irrespective, however, of its local peculiarities, the architecture of Gaur, the Mahomedan capital of Bengal, deserves attention for its extent and the immense variety of detail which it displays. Bengal, apparently because it was so distant from the capital, was erected into a separate kingdom almost simultaneously with Delhi itself. Mahommad Bakhtiar Khilji, governor of Berar under Kutub ud-dîn, became first king of the dynasty in A.D. 1203, and was succeeded by a long line of forty-eight kings, till the state was absorbed into Akbar’s vast kingdom in A.D. 1573, under Daud Khan ben Suleiman. Though none of these kings did anything that entitles them to a place in general history, they possessed one of the richest portions of India, and employed their wealth in adorning their capital with buildings, which, when in a state of repair, must have been gorgeous, even if not always in the best taste. The climate of Bengal is, however, singularly inimical to the preservation of architectural remains. If the roots of a tree of the fig kind once find a resting-place in any crevice of a building, its destruction is inevitable; and even without this, the luxuriant growth of the jungle hides the building so completely, that it is sometimes difficult to discover it--always to explore it. Add to this that Gaur is singularly well suited to facilitate the removal of materials by water-carriage. During the summer inundation, boats can float up to any of the ruins, and after embarking stones or bricks, drop down the stream to any new capital that may be rising. It thus happens that Moorshedabad, Hoogly, and even Calcutta, are rich in spoils of the old Pathan capital of Bengal, while it has itself become only a mass of picturesque but almost indistinguishable ruins.

The city of Gaur was a famous capital of the Hindus long before it was taken possession of by the Mahomedans. The Sên and Bellala dynasties of Bengal seem to have resided here, and no doubt adorned it with temples and edifices worthy of their fame and wealth. These, however, were probably principally in brick, though adorned with pillars and details in what used to be called black marble, but seems to be an indurated potstone of very fine grain, and which takes a beautiful polish. Many fragments of Hindu art in this material are found among the ruins; and if carefully examined might enable us to restore the style. Its interest, however, principally lies in the influence it had on the Mahomedan style that succeeded it. It is neither like that of Delhi, nor Jaunpore, nor any other style, but one purely local, and not without considerable merit in itself; its principal characteristic being heavy short pillars of stone supporting pointed arches and vaults, in brick--whereas at Jaunpore, for instance, light pillars carried horizontal architraves and flat ceilings.

The general character of the style will be seen in the example from a mosque called the Kudam ul Roussoul at Gaur, and is by no means devoid of architectural merit (Woodcut No. 311). The solidity of the supports go far to redeem the inherent weakness of brick architecture, and by giving the arches a firm base to start from, prevents the smallness of their parts from injuring the general effect. It also presents, though in a very subdued form, the curvilinear form of the roof, which is so characteristic of the style.

In Gaur itself there are two very handsome mosques--the Golden and the Barah Durwaza, or twelve-doored. Both their façades are in stone, and covered with foliaged patterns in low-relief, borrowed evidently from the terra-cotta ornaments which were more frequently employed, and continued a favourite mode of adorning façades down to the time of the erection of the Kantonuggur temple illustrated above (Woodcut No. 263). In the interior their pillars have generally been removed, and the vaults consequently fallen in, so that it is not easy to judge of their effect, even if the jungle would admit of the whole area being grasped at once. Their general disposition may be judged of, however, by the plan on page 549 (Woodcut No. 312) of the Adinah mosque at Maldah, which formed at the time it was erected the northern suburb of the capital. From inscriptions upon it, it appears that this mosque was erected by Sikander Shah, one of the most illustrious of his race (A.D. 1358-1367), with the intention of being himself buried within its precincts, or in its immediate neighbourhood. Its dimensions are considerable, being nearly 500 ft. north and south, and nearly 300 ft. east and west. In the centre it contains a courtyard, surrounded on all sides by a thick wall of brick, divided by eighty-eight similar arched openings, only one of which, that in the centre of the west side facing Mecca, is wider and more dignified than the rest. The roof in like manner is supported by 266 pillars of black hornblende, similar in design to those represented in Woodcut No. 311. They are bold and pleasing in design, but it must be confessed wanting in variety. These with the walls support no less than 385 domes, all similar in design and construction. The only variation that is made is where a platform, called the Padshah ka Takht, or King’s Throne, divides a part of the building into two storeys.[523]

A design, such as that of the Adinah mosque, would be appropriate for a caravanserai; but in an edifice where expression and beauty were absolutely required it is far too monotonous. The same defect runs through the whole group; and though their size and elegance of details, joined with the picturesque state of richly foliaged ruin in which they are now found, make them charming subjects for the pencil, they possess all the defects of design we remarked in the great halls of a thousand columns in the south of this country.[524] It seems, indeed, almost as if here we had again got among the Tamil race, and that their peculiarities were reappearing on the surface, though dressed in the garb of a foreign race.

One of the most interesting of the antiquities of the place is a minar, standing in the fort (Woodcut No. 313). For two-thirds of the height it is a polygon of twelve sides; above that circular, till it attains the height of 84 ft. The door is at some distance from the ground, and altogether it looks more like an Irish round-tower than any other example known, though it is most improbable that there should be any connexion between the two forms. It is evidently a pillar of victory--a Jaya Stambha--such as the Kutub Minar at Delhi, and those at Coel, Dowlutabad, and elsewhere. There is, or was, an inscription on this monument which ascribed its erection to Feroze Shah. If this is so, it must be the king of that province who reigned in Gaur A.H. 702-715, or A.D. 1302-1315,[525] and the character of the architecture fully bears out this adscription.[526] The native tradition is, that a saint, Peer Asa, lived, like Simon Stylites, on its summit!

Besides these, there are several of the gateways of Gaur which are of considerable magnificence. The finest is that called Dhakhal, which, though of brick, and adorned only with terra-cotta ornaments, is as grand an object of its class as is to be found anywhere. The gate of the citadel, and the southern gate of the city, are very noble examples of what can be done with bricks, and bricks only. It is not, however, in the dimensions of its buildings or the beauty of their details that the glory of Gaur resides; it is in the wonderful mass of ruins stretching along what was once the high bank of the Ganges, for nearly twenty miles, from Maldah to Maddapore--mosques still in use, mixed with mounds covering ruins--tombs, temples, tanks and towers, scattered without order over an immense distance, and half buried in a luxuriance of vegetation which only this part of India can exhibit. What looks poor, and may be in indifferent taste, drawn on paper and reduced to scale, may give an idea of splendour in decay when seen as it is, and in this respect there are none of the ancient capitals of India which produce a more striking, and at the same time a more profoundly melancholy, impression than these ruins of the old Pathan capital of Bengal.

VIII. KALBURGAH

CONTENTS.

The Mosque at Kalburgah.

CHRONOLOGY.

Ala ud-dîn Bahmani, a servant in Mahamud Tugluck’s court A.D. 1347 Muhammad Shah. Ghazi 1358 Mujahid Shah 1375 Mahmúd Shah 1378 Feroze Shah married daughter of Vijayanagar raja 1397 Ahmad Shah, capital Bidar 1422 Nizam Shah 1461 Kullam Ullah, last of Bahmani dynasty 1525 Kasin Berid, founder of Berid Shahi dynasty 1492 Ala Rena Shah assumes royalty 1549 Amir Berid Shah, last of his race 1609

The campaigns of Ala ud-dîn and of Tugluck Shah in the beginning of the 14th century extended the fame and fear of the Moslem power over the whole peninsula of India, as far as Cape Comorin and the Straits of Manaar. It was almost impossible, however, that a state in the semi-barbarous condition of the Pathans of that day could so organise a government as to rule so extensive and varied an empire from one central point, and that as remote as Delhi. Tugluck Shah felt this, and proposed to establish the capital at Dowlutabad. If he had been able to accomplish this, the whole of the south might have been permanently conquered. As it was, the Bellala dynasty of Hullabîd was destroyed in A.D. 1311,[527] and that of Worangul crippled but not finally conquered till some time afterwards,[528] while the rising power of Vijayanagar formed a barrier which shielded the southern states--the Chera, Chola, Pandya--against Mahomedan encroachment for some centuries after that time; and but for the establishment of Mahomedan kingdoms independent of the central power at Delhi, the Dekhan might have been lost to the Moslems, and the Hindus held their own for a long time, perhaps for ever, to the south of the Vindhya range.

The first of those dynasties that successfully established its independence was that called the Bahmani, from its founder, Hasan Ganju, being the servant of a Brahman in Mahamud Tugluck’s court, and owing his rise to his master, he adopted his name as a title in gratitude. He established himself at Kalburgah, an ancient Hindu city of the Dekhan, and with his immediate successors not only held in check the Hindu sovereigns of Worangul and Vijayanagar, but actually forced them to pay him tribute. This prosperous state of affairs lasted for nearly a century, when Ahmad Shah I. (A.D. 1422-1425), for some reason not explained, transferred the seat of power to Bidar. They lingered on for another century or more, latterly known as the Berid Shahis, till they were absorbed in the great Mogul empire in A.D. 1609. Long before that, however, their place in the Dekhan had been taken by the Bijapur Adil Shahis, who established themselves there A.D. 1489.

During the short supremacy of Kalburgah as capital of the Dekhan (A.D. 1347-1435), it was adorned with several important buildings, among which was a mosque, one of the most remarkable of its class in India (Woodcuts Nos. 314, 315). Its dimensions are considerable, though not excessive: it measures 216 ft. east and west, and 176 ft. north and south, and consequently covers 38,016 sq. ft. Its great peculiarity, however, is that, alone of all the great mosques in India, the whole of the area is covered over. Comparing it, for instance, with the mosque at Mandu, which is the one in other respects most like it, it will be observed that the greater part of its area is occupied by a courtyard surrounded by arcades. At Kalburgah there is no court, the whole is roofed over, and the light is admitted through the side walls, which are pierced with great arches for this purpose on all sides except the west (Woodcut No. 316).

Having only one example of the class, it is not easy to form an opinion which of the two systems of building is the better. There is a repose and a solemnity which is singularly suited to a place of prayer, in a courtyard enclosed by cloisters on all sides, and only pierced by two or three doors; but, on the other hand, the heat and glare arising from reflection of the sun’s rays in these open courts is sometimes most painful in such a climate as India, and nowhere, so far as I know, was it ever even attempted to modify this by awnings. On the Kalburgah plan, on the contrary, the solid roof covering the whole space afforded protection from the sun’s rays to all worshippers, and every aisle being open at one or both ends, prevented anything like gloom, and admitted of far freer ventilation than was attainable in the enclosed courts, while the requisite privacy could easily have been obtained by a low enclosing wall at some distance from the mosque itself. On the whole, my impression is that the Kalburgah plan is the preferable one of the two, both for convenience and for architectural effect, so much so indeed, that it is very difficult to understand why, when once tried, it was never afterwards repeated. Probably the cause of its being abandoned was the difficulty of draining so extensive a flat roof during the rains. Any settlement or any crack must have been fatal; yet this mosque stands in seemingly good repair, after four centuries of comparative neglect. Whichever way the question is decided, it must be admitted that this is one of the finest of the old Pathan mosques of India, at least among those which are built wholly of original materials--and in the arcuate style--of Mahomedan art. Those at Delhi and Ajmir are more interesting of course, but it is from adventitious circumstances. This owes its greatness only to its own original merits of design.[529]

Besides the mosque, there is in Kalburgah a bazaar, 570 ft. long by 60 ft. wide, over all, adorned by a range of sixty-one arches on either hand, supported by pillars of a quasi-Hindu character, and with a block of buildings of a very ornamental character at either end. I am not aware of anything of its class more striking in any part of India. The arcades that most resemble this are those that line the street called the Street of the Pilgrims, at Vijayanagar, which may be contemporary with this bazaar.[530]

There are other buildings, especially one gigantic archway, in the city of Kalburgah, the use of which is not apparent, and some very grand old tombs, with sloping walls; but we must wait for further information before they can be utilised in a history of Indian architecture.

* * * * *

After the seat of government was removed to Bidar by Ahmad Shah, A.D. 1422-1435, the new capital was adorned by edifices worthy of the greatness of the dynasty, but now all apparently ruined. Among these the most magnificent appears to be the madrissa erected by Mahomet Gaun, the faithful but unfortunate minister of the tyrant Mahmúd II. It appears to have been finished two years before his death, in A.D. 1481, and in Ferishta’s time was one of the most complete and flourishing establishments of its class in India.[531] Unfortunately, when the place was besieged by Aurungzebe, a quantity of gunpowder was stored in its vaults, and exploded, either accidentally or by design, so as to ruin one wing. Since then the building has been disused, but so far as can be judged from such imperfect information as is available, it must have been one of the most splendid buildings of its day.[532] The tombs too of the Berid Shahi dynasty, which reigned in Bidar from A.D. 1492-1609, are of considerable splendour, and rival those of Golcondah in extent. Bidar, however, has not yet been visited by anyone who has had the power or opportunity of drawing or describing its monuments in such a manner as to enable another to utilise them for historical purposes, and till this is done, a knowledge of them must remain among the many desiderata in Indian art.

IX. BIJAPUR

CONTENTS.

The Jumma Musjid--Tombs of Ibrahim and Mahmúd--The Audience Hall--Tomb of Nawab Amir Khan, near Tatta.

CHRONOLOGY.

Yusaf Khan Adil Shah A.D. 1501 Ismail Adil Shah 1511 Mullu Adil Shah 1534 Ibrahim Adil Shah I. 1535 Ali Adil Shah 1557 Ibrahim Adil Shah II. 1579 Muhammad 1626 Ali Adil Shah II. 1660

If the materials existed for the purpose, it would be extremely interesting, from a historical point of view, to trace the various styles that grew out of each other as the later dynasties of the Dekhan succeeded one another and strove to surpass their predecessors in architectural magnificence in their successive capitals. With the exception, however, of Bijapur, none of the Dekhani cities produced any edifices that, taken by themselves irrespective of their surroundings and historical importance, seem to be of any very great value in an artistic sense.

Burhampur, which was the capital of the Faruki dynasty of Kandeish, from A.D. 1370-1596, does possess some buildings remarkable for their extent and picturesque in their decay, but of very little artistic value, and many of them--especially the later ones--in very questionable taste. Ahmednugger, the capital of the Nizam Shahi dynasty, A.D. 1490-1607, is singularly deficient in architectural grandeur, considering how long it was the capital of an important dynasty; while if Golcondah, the chosen seat of the Kutub Shahi dynasty, A.D. 1512-1672, has any buildings that are remarkable, all that can be said is that they have not yet been drawn or described. The tombs of the kings of this dynasty, and of their nobles and families, do form as extensive and as picturesque a group as is to be found anywhere; but individually they are in singularly bad taste. Their bases are poor and weak, their domes tall and exaggerated, showing all the faults of the age in which they were executed, but still not unworthy of a place in history if the materials existed for illustrating them properly.

* * * * *

As mentioned above, the Bahmani dynasty of Kalburgah maintained the struggle against the Hindu principalities of the south for nearly a century and a half, with very little assistance from either the central power at Delhi or their cognate states in the Dekhan. Before the end of the 15th century, however, they began to feel that decay inherent in all Eastern dynasties; and the Hindus might have recovered their original possessions, up to the Vindhya at least, but for the appearance of a new and more vigorous competitor in the field in the person of Yusaf Khan, a son of Amurath II. of Anatolia. He was thus a Turk of pure blood, and, as it happens, born in Constantinople, though his mother was forced to fly thence while he was still an infant. After a varied career he was purchased for the body-guard at Bidar, and soon raised himself to such pre-eminence that on the defeat of Dustur Dinar, in 1501, he was enabled to proclaim his independence and establish himself as the founder of the Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur.

For the first sixty or seventy years after their accession, the struggle for existence was too severe to admit of the Adil Shahis devoting much attention to architecture. The real building epoch of the city commences with Ali, A.D. 1557, and all the important buildings are crowded into the 100 years which elapsed between his accession and the wars with Aurungzebe, which ended in the final destruction of the dynasty.

During that period, however, their capital was adorned with a series of buildings as remarkable as those of any of the Mahomedan capitals of India, hardly excepting even Agra and Delhi, and showing a wonderful originality of design not surpassed by those of such capitals as Jaunpore or Ahmedabad, though differing from them in a most marked degree.

It is not easy now to determine how far this originality arose from the European descent of the Adil Shahis and their avowed hatred of everything that belonged to the Hindus, or whether it arose from any local circumstances, the value of which we can now hardly appreciate. My impression is, that the former is the true cause, and that the largeness and grandeur of the Bijapur style is owing to its quasi-Western origin, and to reminiscences of the great works of the Roman and Byzantine architects.

Like most Mahomedan dynasties, the Adil Shahis commenced their architectural career by building a mosque and madrissa in the fort at Bijapur out of Hindu remains. How far the pillars used there by them are in situ, or torn from other buildings, we are not informed. From photographs, it would appear that considerable portions of them are used at least for the purposes for which they were intended; but this is not incompatible with the idea that they were removed from their original positions and readapted to their present purposes. Be this as it may, as soon as the dynasty had leisure to think really about the matter, they abandoned entirely all tendency to copy Hindu forms or Hindu details, but set to work to carry out a pointed-arched, or domical style of their own, and did it with singular success.[533]

The Jumma Musjid, which is one of the earlier regular buildings of the city, was commenced by Ali Adil Shah (A.D. 1557-1579), and, though continued by his successors on the same plan, was never completely finished, the fourth side of the courtyard with its great gateway not having been even commenced when the dynasty was overthrown. Even as it is, it is one of the finest mosques in India.

As will be seen from the plan (Woodcut No. 317), it would have been, if completed, a rectangle of 331 ft. by 257 ft. The mosque itself is perfect, and measures 257 ft. by 145 ft., and consequently covers about 37,000 sq. ft. It consequently is in itself only a very little less than the mosque at Kalburgah; but this is irrespective of the wings, which extend 186 ft. beyond, so that if complete it would have covered about 50,000 sq. ft. to 55,000 sq. ft., or about the usual size of a mediæval cathedral. It is more remarkable, however, for the beauty of its details than either the arrangement or extent of its plan. Each of the squares into which it is divided is roofed by a dome of very beautiful form, but so flat (Woodcut No. 318) as to be concealed externally in the thickness of the roof. Twelve of these squares are occupied in the centre by the great dome, 57 ft. in diameter in the circular part, but standing on a square measuring 70 ft. each way. The dimensions of this dome were immensely exceeded afterwards by that which covers the tomb of Mahmúd, constructed on the same plan and 124 ft. in diameter; but the smaller dimensions here employed enabled the architect to use taller and more graceful outlines, and if he had had the courage to pierce the niches at the base of his dome, and make them into windows, he would probably have had the credit of designing the most graceful building of its class in existence.

If the plan of this mosque is compared with that of Kalburgah (Woodcut No. 314), it will be seen what immense strides the Indian architects had made in constructive skill and elegance of detail during the century and a half that elapsed between the erection of these two buildings. If they were drawn to the same scale this would be more apparent than it is at first sight; but on half the present scale the details of the Kalburgah mosque could hardly be expressed, while the largeness of the parts, and regularity of arrangement can, in the scale adopted, be made perfectly clear in the Bijapur example. The latter is, undoubtedly, the more perfect of the two, but there is a picturesqueness about the earlier building, and a poetry about its arrangements, that go far to make up for the want of the skill and the elegance exhibited in its more modern rival.

The tomb which Ali Adil Shah commenced for himself was a square, measuring about 200 ft. each way, and had it been completed as designed would have rivalled any tomb in India. It is one of the disadvantages, however, of the Turanian system of each king building his own tomb, that if he dies early his work remains unfinished. This defect is more than compensated in practice by the fact that unless a man builds his own sepulchre, the chances are very much against anything worthy of admiration being dedicated to his memory by his surviving relatives.

His successor Ibrahim, warned by the fate of his predecessor’s tomb, commenced his own on so small a plan--116 ft. square--that as he was blessed by a long and prosperous reign, it was only by ornament that he could render it worthy of himself. This, however, he accomplished by covering every part with the most exquisite and elaborate carvings. The ornamental inscriptions are so numerous that it is said the whole Koran is engraved on its walls. The cornices are supported by the most elaborate bracketing, the windows filled with tracery, and every part so richly ornamented that had his artists not been Indians it might have become vulgar. The principal apartment in the tomb is a square of 40 ft. each way, covered by a stone roof, perfectly flat in the centre, and supported only by a cove projecting 10 ft. from the walls on every side. How the roof is supported is a mystery which can only be understood by those who are familiar with the use the Indians make of masses of concrete, which, with good mortar, seems capable of infinite applications unknown in Europe. Above this apartment is another in the dome as ornamental as the one below it, though its only object is to obtain externally the height required for architectural effect, and access to its interior can only be obtained by a dark narrow stair in the thickness of the wall.

Besides the tomb there is a mosque to correspond; and the royal garden, in which these are situated, is adorned, as usual, internally with fountains and kiosks, and externally with colonnades and caravansaries for strangers and pilgrims, the whole making up a group as rich and as picturesque as any in India, and far excelling anything of the sort on this side of the Hellespont.

The tomb of his successor, Mahmúd, was in design as complete a contrast to that just described as can well be conceived, and is as remarkable for simple grandeur and constructive boldness as that of Ibrahim was for excessive richness and contempt of constructive proprieties. It is constructed on the same principle as that employed in the design of the dome of the great mosque (Woodcut No. 319), but on so much larger a scale as to convert into a wonder of constructive skill what, in that instance, was only an elegant architectural design.

As will be seen from the plan, it is internally a square apartment, 135 ft. each way; its area consequently is 18,225 sq. ft., while that of the Pantheon at Rome is, within the walls, only 15,833 sq. ft.; and even taking into account all the recesses in the walls of both buildings, this is still the larger of the two.

At the height of 57 ft. from the floor-line the hall begins to contract, by a series of pendentives as ingenious as they are beautiful, to a circular opening 97 ft. in diameter. On the platform of these pendentives the dome is erected, 124 ft. in diameter, thus leaving a gallery more than 12 ft. wide all round the interior. Internally, the dome is 175 ft. high, externally 198 ft., its general thickness being about 10 ft.

The most ingenious and novel part of the construction of this dome is the mode in which its lateral or outward thrust is counteracted. This was accomplished by forming the pendentives so that they not only cut off the angles, but that, as shown in the plan, their arches intersect one another, and form a very considerable mass of masonry perfectly stable in itself; and, by its weight acting inwards, counteracting any thrust that can possibly be brought to bear upon it by the pressure of the dome. If the whole edifice thus balanced has any tendency to move, it is to fall inwards, which from its circular form is impossible; while the action of the weight of the pendentives being in the opposite direction to that of the dome, it acts like a tie, and keeps the whole in equilibrium, without interfering at all with the outline of the dome.

In the Pantheon and most European domes a great mass of masonry is thrown on the haunches, which entirely hides the external form, and is a singularly clumsy expedient in every respect compared with the elegant mode of hanging the weight inside.

Notwithstanding that this expedient gives the dome a perfectly stable basis to stand upon, which no thrust can move, still, looking at the section (Woodcut No. 323), its form is such that it appears almost paradoxical that such a building should stand. If the section represented an arch or a vault, it is such as would not stand one hour; but the dome is itself so perfect as a constructive expedient, that it is almost as difficult to build a dome that will fall as it is to build a vault that will stand. As the dome is also, artistically, the most beautiful form of roof yet invented, it may be well, before passing from the most extraordinary and complex example yet attempted anywhere, to pause and examine a little more closely the theory of its construction.

Let us suppose the diagram to represent the plan of a perfectly flat dome 100 ft. in diameter, and each rim consequently 10 ft. wide.

Further assuming for convenience that the whole dome weighs 7850 tons, the outer rim will weigh 2826 tons, or almost exactly as much as the three inner rims put together; the next will weigh 2204, the next 1568, the next 942, and the inner only 314; so that a considerable extra thickness might be heaped on it, or on the two inner ones, without their preponderance at all affecting the stability of the dome; but this is the most unfavourable view to take of the case. To understand the problem more clearly, let us suppose the semicircle A A A (Woodcut No. 324) to represent the section of a hemispherical dome. The first segment of this, though only 10 ft. in width, will be 30 ft. in height, and will weigh 9420 tons; the next, 10 ft. high and 10 ft. wide, will weigh 3140; the third, 10 ft. by 6 ft., will weigh only 1884; the fourth will weigh 942; and the central portion, as before, 316.

Now it is evident that the first portion, A B, being the most perpendicular, is the one least liable to disturbance or thrust, and, being also two-thirds of the whole weight of the dome, if steady and firmly constructed, it is a more than sufficient abutment for the remaining third, which is the whole of the rest of the dome.

It is evident from an inspection of the figure, or from any section of the dome, how easy it must be to construct the first segment from the springing; and if this is very solidly built and placed on an immoveable basis, the architect may play with the rest; and he must be clumsy indeed if he cannot make it perfectly stable. In the East they did play with their domes, and made them of all sorts of fantastic forms, seeking to please the eye more than to consult the engineering necessities of the case, and yet it is the rarest possible contingency to find a dome that has fallen through faults in the construction.

In Europe architects have been timid and unskilled in dome-building; but with our present engineering knowledge it would be easy to construct far larger and more daring domes than even this of Mahmúd’s tomb, without the smallest fear of accident.

* * * * *

The external ordonnance of this building is as beautiful as that of the interior. At each angle stands an octagonal tower eight storeys high, simple and bold in its proportions, and crowned by a dome of great elegance. The lower part of the building is plain and solid, pierced only with such openings as are requisite to admit light and air; at the height of 83 ft. a cornice projects to the extent of 12 ft. from the wall, or nearly twice as much as the boldest European architect ever attempted. Above this an open gallery gives lightness and finish to the whole, each face being further relieved by two small minarets.

The same daring system of construction was carried out by the architects of Bijapur in their civil buildings. The great Audience Hall, for instance (Woodcut No. 325), opens in front with an arch 82 ft. wide, which, had it been sufficiently abutted, might have been a grand architectural feature; as it is, it is too like an engineering work to be satisfactory. Its cornice was in wood, and some of its supports are still in their places. Indeed, it is one of the peculiarities of the architecture of this city that, like the English architects in their roofs, those of Bijapur clung to wood as a constructive expedient long after its use had been abandoned in other parts of India. The Ashur Moobaruk, one of the most splendid palaces in the city, is entirely open on one side, the roof being supported only by two wooden pillars with immense bracket-capitals; and the internal ornaments are in the same material. The result of this practice was the same at Bijapur as in England--far greater depth of framing and greater richness in architectural ornamentation, and an intolerance of constructive awkwardness which led to the happiest results in both countries.

Among the principal edifices in the city is one of those seven-storeyed palaces which come across us so strangely in all out-of-the-way corners of the world. Add to this that the Ashur Moobaruk has been converted by the Mahomedans into a relic-shrine to contain some hairs of the Prophet’s beard, and we have a picture of the strange difficulty of weaning a Tartar from the innate prejudices of his race.

Besides these two there are five other palaces within the walls, some of them of great splendour, and numberless residences of the nobles and attendants of the court. But perhaps the most remarkable civil edifice is a little gateway, known as the Mehturi Mehal (“the Gate of the Sweeper”)--with a legend attached to it too long to quote here. It is in a mixed Hindu and Mahomedan style, every part and every detail covered with ornament, but always equally appropriate and elegant. Of its class it is perhaps the best example in the country, though this class may not be the highest.

The gigantic walls of the city itself, 6¼ miles in circumference, are a work of no mean magnitude, and, combined with the tombs of those who built them, and with the ruins of the suburbs of this once great city, they make up a scene of grandeur in desolation, equal to anything else now to be found even in India.

SCINDE.

Among the minor styles of Mahomedan art in India there is one that would be singularly interesting in a historical sense if a sufficient number of examples existed to elucidate it, and they were of sufficient antiquity to connect the style with those of the West. From its situation, almost outside India, the province of Scinde must always have had a certain affinity with Persia and the countries lying to the westward of the Indus, and if we knew its architectural history we might probably be able to trace to their source many of the forms we cannot now explain, and join the styles of the East with those of the West in a manner we cannot at present pretend to accomplish.

It is doubtful, however, whether the materials are in existence for doing this. The buildings in this province were always in brick, no stone being available; and though they are not exposed to the destructive agencies of vegetation like those of Bengal, the mortar is bad, and the bricks are easily picked out and utilised by the natives to build their huts or villages.

All we at present know belongs to a series of tombs in the neighbourhood of Tatta, which were erected under the Mogul dynasty by the governors or great men of the province, during their sway. At least the oldest now known is that of Amir Khalleel Khan, erected in or about A.D. 1572, the year in which Akbar deposed the Jami dynasty and annexed Scinde to his empire. No tombs or mosques of the earlier dynasties have yet been edited, though they may exist. The known series extends from A.D. 1572-1640, and all show a strongly-marked affinity to the Persian style of the same or an earlier age. One example must for the present suffice to explain their general appearance, for they are all very much alike. It is the tomb of the Nawab Amir Khan, who was governor of the province in the reign of Shah Jehan, from A.D. 1627-1632, and afterwards A.D. 1641-1650. The tomb was built apparently about A.D. 1640 (Woodcut No. 326). It is of brick, but was, like all the others of its class, ornamented with coloured tiles, like those of Persia generally, of great beauty of pattern and exquisite harmony of colouring. It is not a very monumental way of adorning a building, but, as carried out on the dome of the Rock at Jerusalem, in the middle of the 16th or in the mosque at Tabreez in the beginning of the 13th century,[534] and generally in Persian buildings, it is capable of producing the most pleasing effects.

Like the other tombs in the province, it is so similar to Persian buildings of the same age, and so unlike any other found at the same age in India Proper, that we can have little doubt as to the nationality of those who erected them.

X. MOGUL ARCHITECTURE

CONTENTS.

Dynasties--Tomb of Mohammad Ghaus, Gualior--Mosque at Futtehpore Sikri--Akbar’s Tomb, Secundra--Palace at Delhi--The Taje Mehal--The Mûti Musjid--Mosque at Delhi--The Imambara, Lucknow--Tomb of late Nawab, Junaghur.

CHRONOLOGY.

Baber A.D. 1494 Humayun 1531 Shere Shah 1539 Selim 1545 ---- dies 1553 Akbar 1556 Jehangir 1605 Shah Jehan 1628 Aurungzebe 1658 Bahadûr Shah 1707

Till very recently, a description of the style introduced by the Mogul emperors would have been considered a complete history of Mahomedan architecture in India. It is the style which was described by Roe and Bernier, and all subsequent travellers. It was rendered familiar to the public in Europe by the drawings of Daniell in the beginning of this century, and, since Agra and Delhi became practically British cities, their buildings have been described, drawn, and photographed till they have become almost as well known as any found in Europe. It will take a very long time before even photography will render the mosques or tombs of such cities as Ahmedabad or Bijapur as familiar or as easily understood. Yet it is, perhaps, true to assert that the buildings of other dynasties, commencing with the mosques at the Kutub and at Ajmir, and continuing till the last Dekhani dynasty was destroyed by Aurungzebe, make up a whole as extensive and more interesting, in a historical point of view, than even all that was done by the Moguls. On the other hand, however, there is a unity in the works of that dynasty, and a completeness in their history, which makes the study of their art peculiarly fascinating, and some of their buildings will bear comparison, in some respects, with any architectural productions in any part of the world. Their buildings, however, are so original, and so unlike any of the masterpieces of art that we are generally acquainted with, that it is almost impossible to institute any comparison between them which shall be satisfactory. How, for instance, can we compare the Parthenon with the Taje? They are buildings of nearly equal size and magnificence, both in white marble, both admirably adapted for the purposes for which they were built; but what else have they in common? The one is simple in its outline, and depending on pillars for its external adornment; the other has no pillars, and owes its greatest effects to its singularly varied outline and the mode in which its various parts are disposed, many of them wholly detached from the principal mass. The Parthenon belongs, it is true, to a higher class of art, its sculptures raising it into the region of the most intellectual branch of phonetic art; but, on the other hand, the exquisite inlay of precious stones at the Taje is so æsthetically beautiful as, in a merely architectural estimate, almost to bring it on a level with the Grecian masterpiece.[535]

Though their value, consequently, may be nearly the same, their forms are so essentially different that they hardly look like productions of the same art; and in an art so essentially conventional as architecture always is and must be, it requires long familiarity with any new form, and a knowledge of its origin and use, that can only be acquired by constant study, which makes it very difficult for a stranger to realise the real beauty that often underlies even the strangest forms. When, however, these difficulties are conquered, it will probably be found that there are few among the Eastern styles that deserve more attention, and would better repay any study that might be bestowed upon them, than the architecture of the Moguls.

* * * * *

Some little interruptions are experienced at the beginning of the narrative from the interpolation of the reigns of Shere Shah and his son Selim in the reign of Humayun. He was an Afghan by descent and an Indian by birth, and, had he been left to follow his own devices, would, no doubt, have built in the style of architecture used at Agra and Delhi before his countrymen were disturbed by the Mogul invasion. We have, it is true, very little to tell us what that style was during the 170 years that elapsed between the death of Tugluck Shah and the first invasion of Baber, but it seems to have been singularly plain and solid, and very unlike the florid art introduced by the Moguls, and practised by Shere Shah and his son apparently in rivalry to the new master of Hindustan. So little difference is there, however, between the architecture of Shere Shah and of Akbar that they must be treated as one style, beginning in great sobriety and elegance, and ending in something nearly approaching to wildness and exuberance of decoration, but still very beautiful--in some respects superior to the chaste but feeble elegance of the later Mogul style that succeeded it.

There is, again, a little difficulty and confusion in our having no examples of the style as practised by Baber and Humayun. The well-known tomb of the latter king was certainly built by his son Akbar; Baber was buried near Cabul, and no building known to be his has yet been identified in India. Yet that he did build is certain. In his own ‘Memoirs’ he tells us, “In Agra alone, and of the stone-cutters belonging to that place only, I every day employed on my palaces 680 persons; and in Agra, Sikri, Biana, Dhulpur, Gualior, and Koel, there were every day employed on my works 1491 stone-cutters.”[536] In the following pages he describes some of these works, and especially a Bowlee of great magnificence he excavated in the fort of Agra.[537] This was in the year 1526, and he lived to carry on these works for five years longer. During the ten years that his son retained the empire, we learn from Ferishta and other sources that he adorned his capital with many splendid edifices: one, a palace containing seven pavilions or audience-halls--one dedicated to each of the planets, in which he gave audience on the day of the week dedicated to the planet of the day.[538] There are traditions of a mosque he is said to have built on the banks of the Jumna, opposite where the Taje now stands; and his name is so frequently mentioned in connexion with buildings both at Agra and Delhi that there can be little doubt that he was a builder to as great an extent as the troubled character of his reign would admit of. But his buildings have perished, so that practically the history of Mogul architecture commences with the buildings of an Afghan dynasty who occupied the throne of India for sixteen years during the last part of Humayun’s reign.

It is probable that before long very considerable light will be thrown upon the origin of the style which the Moguls introduced into India, from an examination of the buildings erected at Samarcand by Timur a hundred years before Baber’s time (A.D. 1393-1404). Now that the city is in the hands of the Russians, it is accessible to Europeans. Its buildings have been drawn and photographed, but not yet described so as to be available for scientific purposes, but sufficiently so to indicate the direction in which light may be expected. Though a frightful savage in most respects, Timur was possessed of a true Turki love for noble architecture; and though he generally massacred the inhabitants of any town that resisted him, he always spared the architects and artists, and sent them to work on the embellishment of his capitals. Samarcand was consequently filled with splendid edifices, but, so far as can be judged from the materials available, more resembling in style those of Persia than anything now known to exist in India. The bulbous dome appears everywhere, and was not known at that time in India, unless it was in the quasi-Persian province of Scinde. Coloured tiles were the favourite mode of decoration, and altogether their style was gorgeous in the extreme as compared with the sobriety of the later Pathan buildings in India. A few years hence all this may be made quite clear and intelligible, meanwhile we must pass on to

SHERE SHAH, A.D. 1539-1545.

Certainly one of the most remarkable men who ever ruled in northern India, though his reign was limited to only five years’ duration; and during that brief space, disturbed by all the troubles incident to a usurpation, he left his impress on every branch of the administration. The revenue system, the police, the army administration, all the great reforms, in fact, which Akbar so successfully carried out, were commenced, and to some extent perfected, by this usurper, as the Moguls call him. In architecture, too, which most concerns us here, he certainly pointed out the path by which his successor reached such eminence.

The most perfect of his buildings that I am acquainted with is the mosque in the Purana Kìlah at Delhi. The walls of this place were repaired by Humayun in A.D. 1533, and I do not feel quite sure he had not something to do with the mosque. According to the latest authorities, however, it is said to have been built--I have no doubt it was finished--by Shere Shah in A.D. 1541.[539] It is a single hall, with five openings in front through pointed arches of what we would call Tudor form, but beautifully varied in design, and arranged in panels carved with the most exquisite designs and ornamented with parti-coloured marbles. One important dome, pierced with twelve small windows, crowns the centre; it has, however, no minarets and no courtyard, but even without these adjuncts it is one of the most satisfactory buildings of its class in India.[540]

In the citadel at Agra there stands--or at least stood when I was there--a fragment of a palace built by Shere Shah, or his son Selim, which was as exquisite a piece of decorative art as anything of its class in India. Being one of the first to occupy the ground, this palace was erected on the highest spot within the fort; hence the present Government, fancying this a favourable site for the erection of a barrack, pulled it down, and replaced it by a more than usually hideous brick erection of their own. This is now a warehouse, and looms, in whitewashed ugliness, over the marble palaces of the Moguls--a fit standard of comparison of the tastes of the two races.[541]

Judging from the fragment that remains, and the accounts received on the spot, this palace must have gone far to justify the eulogium more than once passed on the works of these Pathans--that “they built like giants, and finished like goldsmiths:” for the stones seem to have been of enormous size, and the details of most exquisite finish. It has passed away, however, like many another noble building of its class, under the ruthless barbarism of our rule. Mosques we have generally spared, and sometimes tombs, because they were unsuited to our economic purposes, and it would not answer to offend the religious feelings of the natives. But when we deposed the kings and appropriated their revenues, there was no one to claim their now useless abodes of splendour. It was consequently found cheaper either to pull them down, or use them as residences or arsenals, than to keep them up, so that very few now remain for the admiration of posterity.

The tomb of Shere Shah has been already described (ante, p. 516), as it is essentially Pathan in style. It was erected at his native place in Behar, to the south of the Ganges, far from Mogul influence at that time, and in the style of severe simplicity that characterised the works of his race between the times of Tugluck and those of Behlol Lodi (A.D. 1450-1488), the last really independent king of his line.

It is not quite clear how much of the tomb was built by himself, or how much by his son Selim, who certainly finished it. Selim also built the Selimghur on an island in the Jumna, to which Shah Jehan afterwards added his palace in New Delhi. Whether, however, he erected any buildings inside is not certain--nothing at least now remains of any importance. Generally he seems to have carried on and completed his father’s buildings, and between them they have left a group of architectural remains which, if collected together and illustrated, would form an interesting chapter in the history of Indian-Mahomedan styles.[542]

AKBAR, 1556-1605.

It would require a volume to describe all the buildings erected by this remarkable man during his long reign of forty-nine years, and a hundred plates would hardly suffice to make known all their peculiarities. Had Akbar been content to follow in the lines of the style invented by the Pathans and perfected by Shere Shah, it might be easy enough to follow the sequence, but nothing in his character is so remarkable as the spirit of tolerance that pervaded all his acts. He seems to have had as sincere a love and admiration for his Hindu subjects as he had for those of his own faith, and whether from policy or inclination, to have cherished their arts as much as he did those that belonged exclusively to his own people. The consequence is a mixture throughout all his works of two styles, often more picturesque than correct, which might, in the course of another half century, have been blended into a completely new style if persevered in. The spirit of tolerance, however, died with him. There is no trace of Hinduism in the works of Jehangir or Shah Jehan, and Aurungzebe would have been horrified at the suggestion that arts of the infidels could influence anything he did.

One probably of his earliest works was the mausoleum, which he erected over the remains of his father, Humayun, at Delhi. Though it certainly was finished by Akbar, it most probably was designed and commenced by his father; for, as frequently remarked in the previous pages of this work, the great architectural peculiarity of the Tartar or Mongolian races is their tomb-building propensity, in which they are so strongly distinguished from the Aryan, and also from the great Semitic families, with whom they divide the greater part of the habitable globe. Nowhere is this more forcibly illustrated than in India--where the tombs of the Pathans and Moguls form a complete and unbroken series of architectural monuments from the first years of the Moslem invasion to the present hour.

The tombs of the Pathans are less splendid than those of the Moguls; but nevertheless the whole series is singularly interesting, the tombs being far more numerous than the mosques. Generally speaking, also, they are more artistic in design, and frequently not only larger but more splendidly decorated than the buildings exclusively devoted to prayer.

The princes of the Tartar races, in carrying out their love of tombs, made it the practice to build their own in their lifetime, as all people must who are really desirous of sepulchral magnificence. In doing this they rejected the Egyptian mode of preparing dark and deep chambers in the heart of the rock, or of the massive pyramid. The Tartars, on the other hand, built their sepulchres of such a character as to serve for places of enjoyment for themselves and their friends during their lifetime, and only when they could enjoy them no longer they became the solemn resting-places of their mortal remains.

The usual process for the erection of these structures is for the king or noble who intends to provide himself a tomb to enclose a garden outside the city walls, generally with high crenellated walls, and with one or more splendid gateways; and in the centre of this he erects a square or octagonal building, crowned by a dome, and in the more splendid examples with smaller and dome-roofed apartments on four of the sides or angles, the other four being devoted to entrances. This building is generally situated on a lofty square terrace, from which radiate four broad alleys, generally with marble-paved canals ornamented with fountains; the angular spaces are planted with cypresses and other evergreens and fruit-trees, making up one of those formal but beautiful gardens so characteristic of the East. During the lifetime of the founder, the central building is called a Barrah Durrie, or festal hall, and is used as a place of recreation and feasting by him and his friends.

At his death its destination is changed--the founder’s remains are interred beneath the central dome. Sometimes his favourite wife lies beside him; but more generally his family and relations are buried beneath the collateral domes. When once used as a place of burial, its vaults never again resound with festive mirth. The care of the building is handed over to priests and cadis, who gain a scanty subsistence by the sale of the fruits of the garden, or the alms of those who come to visit the last resting-place of their friend or master. Perfect silence takes the place of festivity and mirth. The beauty of the surrounding objects combines with the repose of the place to produce an effect as graceful as it is solemn and appropriate.

Though the tombs, with the remains of their enclosures, are so numerous throughout all India, the Taje Mehal, at Agra, is almost the only tomb that retains its garden in anything like its pristine beauty, and there is not perhaps in the whole world a scene where nature and art so successfully combine to produce a perfect work of art as within the precincts of this far-famed mausoleum.

The tomb of Humayun Shah, the first of the Moguls who was buried in India, still stands tolerably entire among the ruins of Old Delhi, of which indeed it forms the principal and most striking object. It stands well on a lofty square platform, adorned with arches, whose piers are ornamented with an inlay of white marble. The tomb itself is an octagonal apartment, of considerable dimensions, crowned by a dome of white marble, of very graceful contour externally. Four sides of the octagon are occupied by the entrances; to the other four smaller octagonal apartments are attached, making up a building nearly a square in plan, with only the angles slightly cut away.[543] Its plan is in fact that afterwards adopted at the Taje (Woodcut No. 338), but used here without the depth and poetry of that celebrated building. Its most marked characteristic, however, is its purity--it might almost be called poverty--of design. It is so very unlike anything else that Akbar ever built, that it is hardly possible it could have been designed by him. It has not even the picturesque boldness of the earlier Pathan tombs, and in fact looks more like buildings a century at least more modern than it really is. It is, however, a noble tomb, and anywhere else must be considered a wonder.

Humayun’s tomb, however, is so well known from drawings and photographs, that, in order to illustrate the architecture of the day, it may be preferable to take the contemporary tomb of Mohammad Ghaus at Gualior, which certainly was erected during the early part of Akbar’s reign, and is a singularly interesting example of the tombs of the period. It is a square, measuring 100 ft. each way, exclusive of the hexagonal towers, which are attached to the angles (Woodcut No. 327). The chamber of the tomb itself is a hall 43 ft. square, with the angles cut off by pointed arches so as to form an octagon, on which the dome rests. Around this square building is a gallery, 20 ft. wide between the piers, enclosed on all sides by a screen of the most exquisite tracery in pierced stone-work with a projecting porch on each face (Woodcut No. 328).[544]

On comparing this with the tomb of Shere Shah at Sasseram, which in many respects it resembles to a considerable extent, it will be seen that it marks a considerable progress in tomb-building during even the short period that elapsed between the erection of the two. There is an inherent weakness in an octagonal form as compared with the square, that even the Pathans never quite successfully conquered; and the outward screen of trellis-work is far more elegant than the open arcade of the Sasseram tomb. Something may be due to the fact that Gualior was a city where building of an ornamental character had long been going on, and where consequently a superior school of masons and architects may always have existed, while Sasseram was a remote country village, where these advantages were unknown. But be this as it may, the progress is such in so short a time, that we can only ascribe it to the invigorating touch of Akbar’s genius, which was afterwards to work such wonders.

One of the most remarkable and characteristic of Akbar’s buildings is the old or Red Palace in the fort, so called from being constructed entirely of red sandstone, unfortunately not a very good quality, and consequently much of its ornament has peeled off. It is a square building, measuring 249 ft. by 260 ft. In the centre is a courtyard, 71 ft. by 72 ft., on either side of which are two halls facing one another. The largest, 62 ft. by 37 ft., has a flat ceiling of stone, divided into panels, and supported by struts of purely Hindu design, very similar to those used in the palaces of Mân Sing and Vicramaditya at Gualior. Every feature around this court is indeed of pure Hindu architecture. No arches appear anywhere, but the horizontal style of construction everywhere. The ornamentation, too, which is carved on all the flat surfaces, is of a class used by Akbar, but not found in the buildings of others. Indeed, throughout this palace arches are used so sparingly, and Hindu forms and Hindu construction prevail to such an extent, that it would hardly be out of place at Chittore or Gualior, though it still bears that impress of vigour and originality that he and he only knew how to impress on all his works.[545]

It is, however, at Futtehpore Sikri that Akbar must be judged of as a builder. During the whole of his reign it was his favourite residence. He apparently was the first to occupy the spot, and apparently the last, at least, to build there, no single building being identified as having been erected by any of his successors.

Akbar seems to have had no settled plan when he commenced building there. The original part of the building seems to be the Khas Mehal, a square block of building measuring about 260 ft. each way, and therefore of about the same dimensions as the Red Palace in the fort at Agra. Its courtyard, however, is larger, about 170 ft. each way, and the buildings that surround it very inferior in richness of design and ornamentation. This, however, is far more than compensated for by the courts and pavilions that he added from time to time. There is the Dewanni Khas, or throne-room, a square building with a throne consisting of an enormous flower-like bracket, supported on a richly-carved pillar;[546] a peristylar building, called his office, very similar to one he erected at Allahabad, to be mentioned hereafter; a five-storeyed open pavilion, all the pillars of which are most richly carved, and long colonnades and walls connecting these with one another. The richest, the most beautiful, as well as the most characteristic of all his buildings here are three small pavilions, said to have been erected to please and accommodate his three favourite sultanas: hence called Bîr Bul ka Beti ka Mehal, for his Hindu wife, the daughter of his favourite minister, Bîr Bul; Miriam’s House, appropriated to his Christian consort; and the palace of the Roumi Sultana. They are small, but it is impossible to conceive anything so picturesque in outline, or any building carved and ornamented to such an extent, without the smallest approach to being overdone or in bad taste. The two pillars shown in the annexed woodcut, are from a cast from the last-named pavilion, which is now in the South Kensington Museum. It is, perhaps, the most elaborate of the three; but the other two are generally in better taste.

The glory, however, of Futtehpore Sikri is its mosque, which is hardly surpassed by any in India (Woodcut No. 330). It measures 550 ft. east and west, by 470 ft. north and south over all. The mosque itself, 290 ft. by 80 ft., is crowned by three domes. In its courtyard, which measures 350 ft. by 440 ft., stand two tombs: that of Selim Chisti, wholly in white marble, and the windows with pierced tracery of the most exquisite geometrical patterns--flowing tracery is a subsequent invention. It possesses besides a deep cornice of marble supported by brackets of the most elaborate design, so much so indeed as to be almost fantastic--the only approach to bad taste in the place; the other tomb, that of Islam Khan, is soberer and in excellent taste, but quite eclipsed by its surroundings. Even these parts, however, are surpassed in magnificence by the southern gateway, measuring 130 ft. by 85 ft. in plan, and of proportionate dimensions in height (Woodcut No. 331). As it stands on a rising ground, when looked at from below, its appearance is noble beyond that of any portal attached to any mosque in India, perhaps in the whole world. This gateway may also be quoted as a perfectly satisfactory solution of a problem which has exercised the ingenuity of architects in all ages, but was more successfully treated by the Saracenic architects than by any others.

It was always manifest that to give a large building a door at all in proportion to its dimensions was, to say the least of it, very inconvenient. Men are only 6 ft. high, and they do not want portals through which elephants might march. The Greeks never ventured, however, to reduce the proportionate size of their portals, though it may be they only opened the lower half, and they covered them, in almost all instances, with porticos to give them a dignity that even their dimensions failed to impart.

The Gothic architects tried, by splaying their deeply-embowed doorways, and by ornamenting them richly with carving and sculpture, to give them the dignity that was indispensable for their situation without unnecessarily increasing the size of the openings. It was left, however, for the Saracenic architects completely to get over the difficulty. They placed their portals--one, or three, or five, of very moderate dimensions--at the back of a semi-dome. This last feature thus became the porch or portico, and its dimensions became those of the portal, wholly irrespective of the size of the opening. No one, for instance, looking at this gateway can mistake that it is a doorway and that only, and no one thinks of the size of the openings which are provided at its base. The semi-dome is the modulus of the design, and its scale that by which the imagination measures its magnificence.

The same system pervades almost all the portals of the age and style, and always with a perfectly satisfactory result--sometimes even more satisfactory than in this instance, though it may be in less proportionate dimensions. The principle seems the best that has yet been hit upon, and, when that is right, failure is as difficult, as it is to achieve success when the principle of the design is wrong.

Taking it altogether, this palace at Futtehpore Sikri is a romance in stone, such as few--very few--are to be found anywhere; and it is a reflex of the mind of the great man who built it more distinct than can easily be obtained from any other source.[547]

Allahabad was a more favourite residence of this monarch than Agra, perhaps as much so as even Futtehpore Sikri; but the English having appropriated the fort, its glories have been nearly obliterated. The most beautiful thing was the pavilion of the Chalîs Sitûn, or forty pillars, so called from its having that number on the principal floor, disposed in two concentric octagonal ranges, one internal of sixteen pillars, the other outside of twenty-four. Above this, supported by the inner colonnade, was an upper range of the same number of pillars crowned by a dome. This building has entirely disappeared, its materials being wanted to repair the fortifications. The great hall, however, still remains, represented in the annexed woodcut (No. 332). It is now the arsenal; a brick wall has been run up between its outer colonnades with windows of English architecture, and its curious pavilions and other accompaniments removed; and internally, whatever could not be conveniently cut away is carefully covered up with plaster and whitewash, and hid by stands of arms and deal fittings. Still its plan can be made out; a square hall supported by eight rows of columns, eight in each row, thus making in all sixty-four, surrounded by a deep verandah of double columns, with groups of four at the angles, all surmounted by bracket capitals of the most elegant and richest design, and altogether as fine in style and as rich in ornament as anything in India.

Perhaps, however, the most characteristic of Akbar’s buildings is the tomb he commenced to erect for himself at Secundra, near Agra, which is quite unlike any other tomb built in India either before or since, and of a design borrowed, as I believe, from a Hindu, or more correctly, Buddhist, model. It stands in an extensive garden, still kept up, approached by one noble gateway. In the centre of this garden, on a raised platform, stands the tomb itself, of a pyramidal form. The lower storey measures 320 ft. each way, exclusive of the angle towers. It is 30 ft. in height, and pierced by ten great arches on each face, and with a larger entrance adorned with a mosaic of marble in the centre (Woodcuts Nos. 333, 334).[548]

On this terrace stands another far more ornate, measuring 186 ft. on each side, and 14 ft. 9 in. in height. A third and fourth, of similar design, and respectively 15 ft. 2 in. and 14 ft. 6 in. high, stand on this, all these being of red sandstone. Within and above the last is a white marble enclosure 157 ft. each way, or externally just half the length of the lowest terrace, its outer wall entirely composed of marble trellis-work of the most beautiful patterns. Inside it is surrounded by a colonnade or cloister of the same material, in the centre of which, on a raised platform, is the tombstone of the founder, a splendid piece of the most beautiful arabesque tracery. This, however, is not the true burial-place; but the mortal remains of this great king repose under a far plainer tombstone in a vaulted chamber in the basement 35 ft. square, exactly under the simulated tomb that adorns the summit of the mausoleum.

At first sight it might appear that the design of this curious and exceptional tomb was either a caprice of the monarch who built it, or an importation from abroad (Woodcut No. 335). My impression, on the contrary, is, that it is a direct imitation of some such building as the old Buddhist viharas which may have existed, applied to other purposes in Akbar’s time. Turning back, for instance, to Woodcuts Nos. 66 and 181, representing the great rath at Mahavellipore, it will be seen that the number and proportion of the storeys is the same. The pavilions that adorn the upper storeys of Akbar’s tomb appear distinct reminiscences of the cells that stand on the edge of each platform of the rock-cut example. If the tomb had been crowned by a domical chamber over the tombstone, the likeness would have been so great that no one could mistake it, and my conviction is, that such a chamber was part of the original design. No such royal tomb remains exposed to the air in any Indian mausoleum; and the raised platform in the centre of the upper cloister, 38 ft. square, looks so like its foundation that I cannot help believing it was intended for that purpose. As the monument now stands, the pyramid has a truncated and unmeaning aspect. The total height of the building now is a little more than 100 ft. to the top of the angle pavilions; and a central dome 30 or 40 ft. higher, which is the proportion that the base gives, seems just what is wanted to make this tomb as beautiful in outline and in proportion as it is in detail. Had it been so completed, it certainly would have ranked next the Taje among Indian mausolea.[550]

JEHANGIR, A.D. 1605-1628.

When we consider how much was done by his father and his son, it is rather startling to find how little Jehangir contributed to the architectural magnificence of India. Partly this may be owing to his not having the same passion for building which characterised these two great monarchs; but partly also to his having made Lahore the capital during his reign, and to his having generally resided there in preference to Agra or Delhi. The great mosque there, however, which was built by him, seems to be equal in magnificence to that built by Shah Jehan at Delhi. This mosque, however, seems to have been surpassed by one erected in the city of Lahore by his vizir. It is in the Persian style, covered with enamelled tiles, and resplendent in colours, but not very graceful in form. His tomb, in which he lies buried with his queen, the imperious Nurjehan, was worthy of its builder, but has been used as a quarry by the Sikhs, and half the splendour of the temple at Amritsir is due to marbles plundered from this mausoleum. The palace, too, which he erected, was worthy of his other buildings, but it has suffered as much as the rest. It has been used as a habitation from that time to this, and so altered, to adapt it to the wants of its successive occupants, that little of its original form remains.

We have, however, no measurements and no information about these monuments which would enable us to speak with any confidence either regarding them, or the other buildings of that city, which seems to owe its principal splendour to the reign of this monarch.

At the other end of his dominions also he built a splendid new capital at Dacca, in supersession to Gaur, and adorned it with several buildings of considerable dimensions. These, however, were principally in brick-work, covered with stucco, and with only pillars and brackets in stone. Most of them, consequently, are in a state of ruinous decay; marvellously picturesque, it must be confessed, peering through the luxuriant vegetation that is tearing them to pieces, but hardly worthy to be placed in competition with the stone and marble buildings of the more northern capitals.

There is one building--the tomb known as that of Eti-mad-Doulah--at Agra, however, which certainly belongs to this reign, and, though not erected by the monarch himself, cannot be passed over, not only from its own beauty of design, but also because it marks an epoch in the style to which it belongs. It is situated on the left bank of the river, in the midst of a garden surrounded by a wall measuring 540 ft. on each side. In the centre of this, on a raised platform, stands the tomb itself, a square measuring 69 ft. on each side. It is two storeys in height, and at each angle is an octagonal tower, surmounted by an open pavilion. The towers, however, are rather squat in proportion, and the general design of the building very far from being so pleasing as that of many less pretentious tombs in the neighbourhood. Had it, indeed, been built in red sandstone, or even with an inlay of white marble like that of Humayun, it would not have attracted much attention. Its real merit consists in being wholly in white marble, and being covered throughout with a mosaic in “pietro duro”--the first, apparently, and certainly one of the most splendid, examples of that class of ornamentation in India.

It seems now to be ascertained that in the early part of the 17th century Italian artists, principally, apparently from Florence, were introduced into India, and taught the Indians the art of inlaying marble with precious stones.[551] No instance of this mode of decoration occurs, so far as I know, in the reign of Akbar; but in that of Shah Jehan it became the leading characteristic of the style, and both his palaces and his tombs owe their principal distinction to the beauty of the mode in which this new invention was employed.

It has been doubted whether this new art was really a foreign introduction, or whether it had not been invented by the natives of India themselves. The question never, probably, would have arisen had one of the fundamental principles of architecture been better understood. When we, for instance, having no art of our own, copy a Grecian or Roman pillar, or an Italian mediæval arch in detail, we do so literally, without any attempt to adapt it to our uses or climate; but when a people having a style of their own wish to adopt any feature or process belonging to any other style, they do not copy but adapt it to their uses; and it is this distinction between adopting and adapting that makes all the difference. We would have allowed the Italians to introduce with their mosaics all the details of their Cinque-cento architecture. The Indians set them to reproduce, with their new materials and processes, the patterns which the architects of Akbar had been in the habit of carving in stone or of inlaying in marble. Every form was adapted to the place where it was to be used. The style remained the same, so did all the details; the materials only were changed, and the patterns only so far as was necessary to adapt them to the smaller and more refined materials that were to be used.[552]

As one of the first, the tomb of Eti-mad-Doulah was certainly one of the least successful specimens of its class. The patterns do not quite fit the places where they are put, and the spaces are not always those best suited for this style of decoration. Altogether I cannot help fancying that the Italians had more to do with the design of this building than was at all desirable, and they are to blame for its want of grace. But, on the other hand, the beautiful tracery of the pierced marble slabs of its windows, which resemble those of Selim Chisti’s tomb at Futtehpore Sikri, the beauty of its white marble walls, and the rich colour of its decorations, make up so beautiful a whole, that it is only on comparing it with the works of Shah Jehan that we are justified in finding fault.

SHAH JEHAN, A.D. 1628-1658.

It would be difficult to point out in the whole history of architecture any change so sudden as that which took place between the style of Akbar and that of his grandson Shah Jehan--nor any contrast so great as that between the manly vigour and exuberant originality of the first, as compared with the extreme but almost effeminate elegance of the second. Certainly when the same people, following the same religion, built temples and palaces in the same locality, nothing of the sort ever occurred in any country whose history is now known to us.

Nowhere is the contrast between the two styles more strongly marked than in the palace of Agra--from the red stone palace of Akbar, with its rich sculptures and square Hindu construction, a door opens into the white marble court of the hareem of Shah Jehan, with all its feeble prettiness, but at the same time marked with that peculiar elegance which is found only in the East. The court is not large, 170 ft. by 235 ft., but the whole is finished with the most elaborate care. Three sides of this are occupied by the residences of the ladies, not remarkable for size, nor, in their present state, for architectural beauty; but the fourth, overhanging the river, is occupied by three white marble pavilions of singular elegance, though it is not easy now to see them, some English officer having pitched upon the principal one as a residence, and having in consequence covered the polished marble and elegant arabesques of flowers inlaid in precious stones with thick coatings of that whitewash which was indispensable to his idea of comfort and elegant simplicity.

As in most Moorish palaces, the baths on one side of this court were the most elegant and elaborately decorated apartments in the palace. The baths have been destroyed, but the walls and roofs still show the elegance with which they were adorned.[553]

Behind this, in the centre of the palace, is a great court, 500 ft. by 370 ft. surrounded by arcades, and approached at the opposite ends through a succession of beautiful courts opening into one another by gateways of great magnificence. One one side of this court is the great hall of the palace--the Dewanni Aum--208 ft. by 76 ft., supported by three ranges of arcades of exquisite beauty. It is open on three sides, and with a niche for the throne at the back. This, like the hall at Allahabad, is now an arsenal, and reduced to as near a similarity as possible to those in our dockyards.[554] Behind it are two smaller courts, the one containing the Dewanni Khas, or private hall of audience, the other the hareem. The hall in the former is one of the most elegant of Shah Jehan’s buildings, being wholly of white marble inlaid with precious stones, and the design of the whole being in the best style of his reign.

One of the most picturesque features about this palace is a marble pavilion, in two storeys, that surmounts one of the circular bastions on the river face, between the hareem and the Dewanni Khas. It looks of an earlier style than that of Shah Jehan, and if Jehangir built anything here it is this. On a smaller scale, it occupies the same place here that the Chalîs Sitûn did in the palace at Allahabad; and exemplifies, even more than in their larger buildings, the extreme elegance and refinement of those who designed these palaces.[555]

PALACE AT DELHI.

Though the palace at Agra is perhaps more picturesque, and historically certainly more interesting, than that of Delhi, the latter had the immense advantage of being built at once, on one uniform plan, and by the most magnificent, as a builder, of all the sovereigns of India. It had, however, one little disadvantage, in being somewhat later than Agra. All Shah Jehan’s buildings there, seem to have been finished before he commenced the erection of the new city of Shah Jehanabad with its palace, and what he built at Agra is soberer, and in somewhat better taste than at Delhi. Notwithstanding these defects, the palace at Delhi is, or rather was, the most magnificent palace in the East--perhaps in the world--and the only one, at least in India, which enables us to understand what the arrangements of a complete palace were when deliberately undertaken and carried out on one uniform plan (Woodcut No. 336).

The palace at Delhi, which is situated like that at Agra close to the edge of the Jumna, is a nearly regular parallelogram, with the angles slightly canted off, and measures 1600 ft. east and west, by 3200 ft. north and south, exclusive of the gateways. It is surrounded on all sides by a very noble wall of red sandstone, relieved at intervals by towers surmounted by kiosks. The principal entrance faces the Chandni Chowk, a noble wide street, nearly a mile long, planted with two rows of trees, and with a stream of water running down its centre. Entering within its deeply-recessed portal, you find yourself beneath the vaulted hall, the sides of which are in two storeys, and with an octagonal break in the centre. This hall, which is 375 ft. in length over all, has very much the effect of the nave of a gigantic Gothic cathedral, and forms the noblest entrance known to belong to any existing palace. At its inner end this hall opened into a courtyard, 350 ft. square, from the centre of which a noble bazaar extended right and left, like the hall, two storeys in height, but not vaulted. One of these led to the Delhi gate, the other, which I believe was never quite finished, to the garden. In front, at the entrance, was the Nobut Khana (A), or music hall, beneath which the visitor entered the second or great court of the palace, measuring 550 ft. north and south, by 385 ft. east and west. In the centre of this stood the Dewanni Aum (B), or great audience hall of the palace, very similar in design to that at Agra, but more magnificent. Its dimensions are, as nearly as I can ascertain, 200 ft. by 100 ft. over all. In its centre is a highly ornamental niche, in which, on a platform of marble richly inlaid with precious stones,[556] and directly facing the entrance, once stood the celebrated peacock throne, the most gorgeous example of its class that perhaps even the East could ever boast of. Behind this again was a garden-court; on its eastern side was the Rung Mehal (C), or painted hall, containing a bath and other apartments.

This range of buildings, extending 1600 ft. east and west, divided the palace into two nearly equal halves. In the northern division of it were a series of small courts, surrounded by buildings apparently appropriated to the use of distinguished guests; and in one of them overhanging the river stood the celebrated Dewanni Khas (D), or private audience hall--if not the most beautiful, certainly the most highly ornamented of all Shah Jehan’s buildings. It is larger certainly, and far richer in ornament than that at Agra, though hardly so elegant in design; but nothing can exceed the beauty of the inlay of precious stones with which it is adorned, or the general poetry of the design. It is round the roof of this hall that the famous inscription runs: “If there is a heaven on earth it is this, it is this,” which may safely be rendered into the sober English assertion, that no palace now existing in the world possesses an apartment of such singular elegance as this.

Beyond this to the northward were the gardens of the palace, laid out in the usual formal style of the East, but adorned with fountains and little pavilions and kiosks of white marble, that render these so beautiful and so appropriate to such a climate.

The whole of the area between the central range of buildings to the south, and eastward from the bazaar, measuring about 1000 ft. each way, was occupied by the hareem and private apartments of the palace, covering, consequently, more than twice the area of the Escurial, or, in fact, of any palace in Europe. According to the native plan I possess, which I see no reason for distrusting, it contained three garden courts, and some thirteen or fourteen other courts, arranged some for state, some for convenience; but what they were like we have no means of knowing. Not one vestige of them now remains. Judging from the corresponding parts of the palace at Agra, built by the same monarch, they must have vied with the public apartments in richness and in beauty when originally erected, but having continued to be used as an abode down to the time of the mutiny, they were probably very much disfigured and debased. Taste was, no doubt, at as low an ebb inside the walls of the palace during the last hundred years as it was outside, or as we find it at Lucknow and elsewhere; but all the essential parts of the structure were there, and could easily have been disencumbered from the accretions that had been heaped upon it. The idea, however, of doing this was far from entering into the heads of our governors. The whole of the hareem courts of the palace were swept off the face of the earth to make way for a hideous British barrack, without those who carried out this fearful piece of Vandalism thinking it even worth while to make a plan of what they were destroying, or preserving any record of the most splendid palace in the world.

Of the public parts of the palace all that now remains is the entrance hall, the Nobut Khana, the Dewanni Aum and Khas, and the Rung Mehal--now used as a mess-room--and one or two small pavilions. They are the gems of the palace, it is true, but without the courts and corridors connecting them they lose all their meaning and more than half their beauty.[557] Being now situated in the middle of a British barrack-yard, they look like precious stones torn from their settings in some exquisite piece of Oriental jeweller’s work and set at random in a bed of the commonest plaster.[558]

TAJE MEHAL.

It is a pleasure to turn from this destroyed and desecrated palace to the Taje Mehal, which even more, perhaps, than the palace was always the chef-d’œuvre of Shah Jehan’s reign (Woodcut No. 337). It, too, has been fortunate in attracting the attention of the English, who have paid sedulous attention to it for some time past, and keep it now, with its gardens, in a perfect state of substantial repair.

No building in India has been so often drawn and photographed as this, or more frequently described; but, with all this, it is almost impossible to convey an idea of it to those who have not seen it, not only because of its extreme delicacy, and beauty of material employed in its construction, but from the complexity of its design. If the Taje were only the tomb itself, it might be described, but the platform on which it stands, with its tall minarets, is a work of art in itself. Beyond this are the two wings, one of which is a mosque, which anywhere else would be considered an important building. This group of buildings forms one side of a garden court 880 ft. square; and beyond this again an outer court, of the same width but only half the depth. This is entered by three gateways of its own, and contains in the centre of its inner wall the great gateway of the garden court, a worthy pendant to the Taje itself.[559] Beautiful as it is in itself, the Taje would lose half its charm if it stood alone. It is the combination of so many beauties, and the perfect manner in which each is subordinated to the other, that makes up a whole which the world cannot match, and which never fails to impress even those who are most indifferent to the effects produced by architectural objects in general.

The plan and section (Woodcuts Nos. 338, 339) explain sufficiently the general arrangement and structural peculiarities of the tomb or principal building of the group. The raised platform on which it stands is 18 ft. high, faced with white marble, and exactly 313 ft. square. At each corner of this terrace stands a minaret 133 ft.

in height, and of the most exquisite proportions, more beautiful, perhaps, than any other in India. In the centre of this marble platform stands the mausoleum, a square of 186 ft., with the corners cut off to the extent of 33 ft. 9 in. The centre of this is occupied by the principal dome, 58 ft. in diameter and 80 ft. in height, under which is an enclosure formed by a screen of trellis-work of white marble, a chef-d’œuvre of elegance in Indian art.[560] Within this stand the tombs--that of Mûmtaz-i-Mehal in the centre, and that of Shah Jehan on one side. These, however, as is usual in Indian sepulchres, are not the true tombs--the bodies rest in a vault, level with the surface of the ground (as seen in the section) beneath plainer tombstones, placed exactly underneath those in the hall above.

In every angle of the building is a small domical apartment of two storeys in height, 26 ft. 8 in. in diameter, and these are connected, as shown in the plan, by various passages and halls.

The light to the central apartment is admitted only through double screens of white marble trellis-work of the most exquisite design, one on the outer, and one on the inner face of the walls. In our climate this would produce nearly complete darkness; but in India, and in a building wholly composed of white marble, this was required to temper the glare that otherwise would have been intolerable. As it is, no words can express the chastened beauty of that central chamber, seen in the soft gloom of the subdued light that reaches it through the distant and half-closed openings that surround it. When used as a Barrah Durrie, or pleasure palace, it must always have been the coolest and the loveliest of garden retreats, and now that it is sacred to the dead it is the most graceful and the most impressive of the sepulchres of the world.

This building, too, is an exquisite example of that system of inlaying with precious stones which became the great characteristic of the style of the Moguls after the death of Akbar. All the spandrils of the Taje, all the angles and more important architectural details, are heightened by being inlaid with precious stones, such as agates, bloodstones, jaspers, and the like. These are combined in wreaths, scrolls, and frets, as exquisite in design as beautiful in colour; and, relieved by the pure white marble in which they are inlaid, they form the most beautiful and precious style of ornament ever adopted in architecture; though, of course, not to be compared with the intellectual beauty of Greek ornament, it certainly stands first among the purely decorative forms of architectural design. This mode of ornamentation is lavishly bestowed on the tombs themselves and the screen that surrounds them, though sparingly introduced on the mosque that forms one wing of the Taje, or on the fountains and surrounding buildings. The judgment, indeed, with which this style of ornament is apportioned to the various parts is almost as remarkable as the ornament itself, and conveys a high idea of the taste and skill of the Indian architects of that age.

The long rows of cypresses, which line the marble paths that intersect the garden at right angles, are now of venerable age; and, backed up by masses of evergreen foliage, lend a charm to the whole which the founder and his children could hardly have realised. Each of the main avenues among these trees has a canal along its centre studded with marble fountains, and each vista leads to some beautiful architectural object. With the Jumna in front, and this garden with its fountains and gateways behind; with its own purity of material and grace of form, the Taje may challenge comparison with any creation of the same sort in the whole world. Its beauty may not be of the highest class, but in its class it is unsurpassed.

* * * * *

Though neither so magnificent nor so richly ornamented as some of his other buildings, the Mûti Musjid, or Pearl Mosque, which Shah Jehan erected in the fort of Agra, is one of the purest and most elegant buildings of its class to be found anywhere (Woodcut No. 340). It is not large, measuring only 187 ft. by 234 ft. over all externally; and though raised on a lofty stylobate, which ought to give it dignity, it makes no pretentions to architectural effect on the outside; but the moment you enter by the eastern gateway the effect of its courtyard is surpassingly beautiful. The whole is of white marble, and the forms all graceful and elegant. The only ornament introduced which is not strictly architectural, is an inscription in black marble, inlaid in the frieze of the mosque itself. The courtyard is nearly a square, 154 ft. by 158 ft. On three sides it is surrounded by a low colonnade 10 ft. 10 in. deep; but on the west, by the mosque itself, 159 ft. by 56 ft. internally. It opens on the court by seven arches of great beauty, and is surmounted by three domes of the bulbous form that became universal about this time (Woodcut No. 341). The woodcut cannot do it justice, it must be seen to be appreciated; but I hardly know, anywhere, of a building so perfectly pure and elegant, or one that forms such a wonderful contrast with the buildings of Akbar in the same palace.

The Jumma Musjid at Delhi is not unlike the Mûti Musjid in plan, though built on a very much larger scale, and adorned with two noble minarets, which are wanting in the Agra example; while from the somewhat capricious admixture of red sandstone with white marble, it is far from possessing the same elegance and purity of effect. It is, however, one of the few mosques, either in India or elsewhere, that is designed to produce a pleasing effect externally. As will be seen from the woodcut (No. 342), it is raised on a lofty basement, and its three gateways, combined with the four angle-towers and the frontispiece and domes of the mosque itself, make up a design where all the parts are pleasingly subordinated to one another, but at the same time produce a whole of great variety and elegance. Its principal gateway cannot be compared with that at Futtehpore Sikri (Woodcut No. 331); but it is a noble portal, and from its smaller dimensions more in harmony with the objects by which it is surrounded.

It is not a little singular, looking at the magnificent mosque which Akbar built in his palace at Futtehpore Sikri, and the Mûti Musjid, with which Shah Jehan adorned the palace at Agra, that he should have provided no place of worship in his palace at Delhi. The little Mûti mosque that is now found there was added by Aurungzebe, and, though pretty enough in itself, is very small, only 60 ft. square over all, and utterly unworthy of such a palace. There is no place of prayer, within the palace walls, of the time of Shah Jehan, nor, apparently, any intention of providing one. The Jumma Musjid was so near, and so apparently part of the same design, that it seems to have been considered sufficient to supply this apparently anomalous deficiency.

AURUNGZEBE, A.D. 1658-1707.

There are few things more startling in the history of this style than the rapid decline of taste that set in with the accession of Aurungzebe. The power of the Mogul empire reached its culminating point in his reign, and there were at least no external signs of decay visible before the end of his reign. Even if his morose disposition did not lead him to spend much money on palaces or civil buildings, his religious fanaticism might, one would think, have led him to surpass his predecessors in the extent or splendour of their mosques or religious establishments. This, however, is far from being the case. He did, indeed, as mentioned above, pull down the temple of Vishveshwar, at Benares, in order to erect a mosque, whose tall and graceful minarets still form one of the most prominent features in every view of the city. It was not, however, from any love of architectural magnificence that this was done, but to insult his Hindu subjects and mark the triumph of Islam over Hinduism. The mosque itself is of no great magnificence, but none more important was erected, so far as I know, during his reign.

Few things can show how steadily and rapidly the decline of taste had set in than the fact that when that monarch was residing at Aurungabad between the years 1650-70, having lost his favourite daughter, Rabia Dûranee, he ordered his architects to reproduce an exact copy of his father’s celebrated tomb, the Taje Mehal, in honour of her memory. They believed they were doing so, but the difference between the two monuments, even in so short an interval, is startling. The first stands alone in the world for certain qualities all can appreciate; the second is by no means remarkable for any qualities of elegance or design, and narrowly escapes vulgarity and bad taste. In the beginning of the present century a more literal copy of the Taje was erected in Lucknow over the tomb of one of its sovereigns. In this last, however, bad taste and tawdriness reign supreme. It is difficult to understand how a thing can be so like in form and so unlike in spirit; but so it is, and these three Tajes form a very perfect scale by which to measure the decline of art since the great Mogul dynasty passed its zenith and began its rapid downward career.

Aurungzebe himself lies buried in a small hamlet just above the caves of Ellora. The spot is esteemed sacred, but the tomb is mean and insignificant beyond what would have sufficed for any of his nobles. He neglected, apparently, to provide for himself this necessary adjunct to a Tartar’s glory, and his successors were too weak, even had they been inclined, to supply the omission. Strange to say, the sacred Tulsi-tree of the Hindus has taken root in a crevice of the brickwork, and is flourishing there as if in derision of the most bigoted persecutor the Hindus ever experienced.

We have scarcely any remains of Aurungzebe’s own works, except, as before observed, a few additions to the palace at Delhi; but during his reign many splendid palaces were erected, both in the capital and elsewhere. The most extensive and splendid of these was that built by his aspiring but unfortunate son Dara Shekoh. It, however, was converted into the English residency; and so completely have improvements, with plaster and whitewash, done their work, that it requires some ingenuity to find out that it was not wholly the work of the Anglo-Saxons.

In the town of Delhi many palaces of the age of Aurungzebe have escaped this profanation, but generally they are either in ruins or used as shops; and with all their splendour show too clearly the degradation of style which had then fairly set in, and which is even more apparent in the modern capitals of Oude, Hydrabad, and other cities which have risen into importance during the last hundred years.

Even these capitals, however, are not without edifices of a palatial class, which from their size and the picturesqueness of their forms deserve attention, and to an eye educated among the plaster glories of the Alhambra would seem objects of no small interest and beauty. Few, however, are built of either marble or squared stone: most of them are of brick or rubble-stone, and the ornaments in stucco, which, coupled with the inferiority of their design, will always prevent their being admired in immediate proximity with the glories of Agra and Delhi.

In a history of Mahomedan art in India which had any pretensions to be exhaustive, it would be necessary to describe before concluding many minor buildings, especially tombs, which are found in every corner of the land. For in addition to the Imperial tombs, mentioned above, the neighbourhoods of Agra and Delhi are crowded with those of the nobles of the court, some of them scarcely less magnificent than the mausolea of their masters.

Besides the tombs, however, in the capitals of the empire, there is scarcely a city of any importance in the whole course of the Ganges or Jumna, even as far eastward as Dacca, that does not possess some specimens of this form of architectural magnificence. Jaunpore and Allahabad are particularly rich in examples; but Patna and Dacca possess two of the most pleasing of the smaller class of tombs that are to be met with anywhere.

OUDE AND MYSORE.

If it were worth while to engrave a sufficient number of illustrations to make the subject intelligible, one or two chapters might very easily be filled with the architecture of these two dynasties. That of Mysore, though only lasting forty years--A.D. 1760-1799--was sufficiently far removed from European influence to practise a style retaining something of true architectural character. The pavilion called the Deriah Doulut at Seringapatam resembles somewhat the nearly contemporary palace at Deeg in style, but is feebler and of a much less ornamental character.[561] The tomb, too, of the founder of the dynasty, and the surrounding mausolea, retain a reminiscence of former greatness, but will not stand comparison with the Imperial tombs of Agra and Delhi.

On the other hand, the tomb of Saftar Jung, the founder of the Lucknow dynasty, situated not far from the Kutub at Delhi, is not quite unworthy of the locality in which it is found. Though so late in date (A.D. 1756), it looks grand and imposing at a distance, but it will not bear close inspection. Even this qualified praise can hardly be awarded of any of the buildings in the capital in which his dynasty was finally established.

If mass and richness of ornamentation were in themselves sufficient to constitute architecture, few capitals in India could show so much of it as Lucknow. It is, in fact, amazing to observe to what an extent this dynasty filled its capitals with gorgeous buildings during the one short century of its existence, but all--or with the fewest possible exceptions--in the worst possible taste. Whatever may be said of the Renaissance, or revival of classical architecture in Europe in the 16th century, in India it was an unmitigated misfortune. The unintelligent vulgarity with which the “Orders” are there used, by a people who were capable of such noble things in their own styles, is one of the most startling phenomena in the history of architecture. The subject hardly belongs to this work, and has already been treated of in the ‘History of Modern Architecture.’[562]

Even at Lucknow, however, there are some buildings into which the European leaven has not penetrated, and which are worthy of being mentioned in the same volume as the works of their ancestors. Among these is the great Imambara, which, though its details will not bear too close an examination, is still conceived on so grand a scale as to entitle it to rank with the buildings of an earlier age.

As seen by the plan of the Imambara (Woodcut No. 343), the principal apartment is 162 ft. long by 53 ft. 6 in. wide. On the two sides are verandahs, respectively 26 ft. 6 in. and 27 ft. 3 in. wide, and at each end an octagonal apartment, 53 ft. in diameter, the whole interior dimensions being thus 263 ft. by 145 ft. This immense building is covered with vaults of very simple form and still simpler construction, being of a rubble or coarse concrete several feet in thickness, which is laid on a rude mould or centering of bricks and mud, and allowed to stand a year or two to set and dry. The centering is then removed, and the vault, being in one piece, stands without abutment or thrust, apparently a better and more durable form of roof than our most scientific Gothic vaulting; certainly far cheaper and far more easily made, since it is literally cast on a mud form, which may be moulded into any shape the fancy of the architect may dictate.

* * * * *

It would be a curious and instructive subject of speculation to try to ascertain what would have been the fate of Mahomedan architecture in India had no European influence been brought to bear upon it. The materials for the inquiry are not abundant, but we can perceive that the decadence had set in long before the death of Aurungzebe. It is also evident that in such buildings as were erected at Agra or Delhi during the lapse of the 18th century, even where no European influence can be traced, there is a feebleness and want of true perception, though occasionally combined with a considerable degree of elegance. There, however, the inquiry fails, because European influence made itself felt before any actual change had developed itself, but in remote corners the downward progress became apparent without any extraneous assistance. This is partially the case, as just mentioned, in the Mysore; but there is a cemetery at Junaghur, in Gujerat, where there exists a group of tombs, all erected within this century, some within the last twenty or thirty years, which exhibit more nearly than any others I am acquainted with the forms towards which the style was tending. The style is not without a certain amount of elegance in detail (Woodcut No. 344). The tracery of the windows is frequently fascinating from its beauty, and all the carving is executed with precision and appropriateness--but it is all wooden, or, in other words, every detail would be more appropriate for a sideboard or a bedstead, or any article of upholstery, than for a building in stone. The domes especially can hardly be traced back to their grand and solemn form as used by the Pathan architects. The pinnacles are fanciful, and the brackets designed more for ornament than work. It is a style, in fact, broken loose from the true principles of constructive design, and when this is the case, no amount of ornament, however elegant it may be, will redeem the want of propriety it inevitably exhibits.

It is curious, however, and instructive, in concluding our history of architecture as practised within the limits of India properly so called, to observe how completely we have been walking in a circle. We began by tracing how, two hundred years before Christ, a wooden style was gradually assuming lithic forms, and by degrees being elaborated into a style where hardly a reminiscence of wood remained. We conclude with finding the style of Hullabîd and Bijapur, or Delhi, returning to forms as appropriate to carpentry but as unsuited to masonry as the rails or gateways at Bharhut or Sanchi. It might some time ago have been a question worth mooting whether it was likely it would perish by persevering in this wrong direction. That enquiry, however, seems idle now, as it is to be feared that the death-blow will be given, as at Lucknow and elsewhere, by the fatal imitation of a foreign style.