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INDIAN ARCHITECTURE

ITS PSYCHOLOGY, STRUCTURE, AND HISTORY

FROM THE FIRST MUHAMMADAN INVASION TO

THE PRESENT DAY

BY E. B. HAVELL

AUTHOR OF
INDIAN SCULPTURE AND PAINTING," "THE IDEALS OF INDIAN ART," ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

IV H

. / / / ,

PREFACE

IN two previous works I have endeavoured to lay down a sound
critical basis for the study of Indian sculpture and painting:
the present one deals with Indian architecture on the same lines.
The history of architecture is not, as Fergusson thought, the
classification of buildings in archaeological water-tight compart-
ments according to arbitrary academic ideas of style, but a
history of national life and thought. The first duty of an
historian of Indian architecture is to realise for himself the
distinctive qualities which constitute its Indianness, or its value
in the synthesis of Indian life. Fergusson only read into
Indian architecture the values he attached to it from his know-
ledge of Western archaeology, and consequently the only result
of his magnificent pioneer work has been to give the subject
an honourable place in the Western architect's library among
the books which are never read. At the same time Fergusson's
authority among archaeologists has been so great that, except
on minor points of classification, his views of Indian history
have never been seriously disputed ; and the ever-increasing
quantity of most valuable material collected by the Archaeo-
logical Survey of India year by year is still religiously docketed
and labelled according to the scheme laid down by him forty
years ago.

Indian architecture covers a field as wide as the whole
architecture of Europe, and therefore in this first attempt to
turn the study of it off the side-track in which Fergusson left
it I have limited myself to those chapters of it which have most

PREFACE

practical interest for the modern architect. And as historical
studies miss their aim unless they can make clear the bearing
of the experience of the past upon the actualities of the present
day, I have planned this work so as to make evident to expert
and layman alike the relation between Indian architectural
history and a great problem which is exercising the public mind
at the present moment — the building of the new Delhi — and a
question of much more vital importance — the preservation of
Indian handicraft.

For fifty years Indian departmentalism has followed a
system of building, demoralising alike to the architect and the
craftsman, which has been as injurious to the true interests of
the British Raj as it has been fatal to the development of art
and craft in India. Great Britain, like every other European
country, has slowly come to realise how prodigal she has been
in the last two centuries with her own handicrafts and all other
forms of artistic wealth which belong to national well-being
and are the true expression of it. What finer opportunity can
there be than the building of the new Delhi for inaugurating
a new architectural and educational policy which will remove
the incubus now pressing so hardly upon Indian craft and in-
dustry, and at the same time give a great impulse to the new
movement for the revival of architecture in this country?

The ethics of the present departmental system will not be
raised to a higher plane by removing the official architect's
office from Simla to London ; the fineness of the architectural
effect of the new Delhi, academically considered, will not
justify methods which are ruinous to Indian handicraft. We
shall be more British by giving Indian craftsmen their due.

When all sincere architects in Europe are doing their
best to revive the principle of collaboration between architect
and craftsman which has been and will be the foundation of
the true art of building in all ages, it would be a calamity both

PREFACE

for India and for this country if the only result of the building
of the new Delhi is the establishment of another departmental
school for teaching Indians modern pseudo-scientific methods
by which architecture, so far as concerns themselves, ceases to
be an art.

In working out the principal historical sequences I have
relied chiefly upon the documents which the buildings them-
selves provide: they are by far the most reliable, and the
deductions I have drawn from them can be easily checked by
the architectural student. Those who wish to enter into further
detail can follow up the various clues I have given, either by
investigations on the spot or by consulting the finely illustrated
works published by the Archaeological Survey of India ; espe-
ciallythe reports of the Survey of Western India by Dr. Burgess
and Mr. Cousens, Mr. Edmund Smith's four volumes on
Fatehpur-Sikri, and the more recent reports presented by Mr.
Marshall.

Fergusson and Dr. Burgess are my chief authorities for
chronological facts and measurements of buildings. I am
greatly indebted to the Secretary of State for India for permis-
sion to use material from various reports of the Archaeological
Survey, and also to Mr. Murray for the use of some blocks
from Fergusson's "History." Mr. J. H. Marshall, C.I.E.,
Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, has
given me invaluable help with the illustrations. Dr. F. W.
Thomas, Librarian, and Mr. A. G. Ellis, Assistant Librarian,
India Office, have given me much assistance in etymological
questions. I have also to thank Professor Rhys Davids and
Mr. Abanindro Nath Tagore for the information they have
very kindly furnished. For the loan of photographs I am
much indebted to Dr. A. K. Coomaraswamy, Colonel T. H.
Hendley, C.I.E., Mr. E. V. Lanchester, F.R.I. B.A., and Mr.
W. Rothenstein. Similar assistance in the illustrations has

vili PREFACE

been very kindly given me by Sir David Prain, Director of
the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Mr. and Mrs. Carl Melchior,
and by Mrs. Villiers Stuart. Messrs. Bourne & Shepherd ;
Messrs. Johnston & Hoffmann, Calcutta ; and Messrs. R. C.
Mazumdar, Benares, have kindly allowed me to reproduce
some of their copyright photographs.

LONDON.

March 1913.

CONTENTS

_. PAGES

PREFACE

« ••.... v

CHAPTER I

Hindu and Saracenic Art— The Pointed Arch— The Migrations of

Craftsmen— The First Muhammadan Invaders of India . . 1-13

CHAPTER II
Hindu Symbolism — The Design and Building of the Taj Mahall . 14-38

CHAPTER III

THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
Mosques at Delhi and Ajmir — The Qutb Minar .... 39-50

CHAPTER IV

THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY

Gujerat — Gaur — The Arch in Indian Architecture — Kulbarga — Muham-
madan Tombs . 51-63

CHAPTER V

THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

Mandu : The J ami' Masjid ; Mulik Mughi's Mosque — Jaunpur: The Atala
and Jami' Masjids— Ahmadabad : The Jami' Masjid ; Muhafiz Khan's
Masjid — Alif Khan's Masjid — Mosque and Tombs at Sarkhej — Sayyid
Usman's Tomb — Sayyid Mubarak's Tomb— Gaur — Dakhil Gate and
Eklakhi Masjid 64-78

x CONTENTS

CHAPTER VI

PAGES

Indian Arches, Brackets, Capitals, and Domes — The Hindu Temple

Sikhara 79-115

CHAPTER VII

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY IN BENGAL

Husain Shah and the Cult of Satya Pir — The Influence of Bengali Crafts-
manship upon Indo-Muhammadan Architecture — The Buildings at
Gaur : The Qadam-i-Rasul Masjid ; The Sona Masjid ; The Chota
Sona Masjid ; The Jami' Masjid of Akhi Seraj-ud-Din . . 116-128

CHAPTER VIII

GUJERAT ARCHITECTURE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

The Champanir Mosques — Buildings in Ahmadabad : Rani Rupavati's
Masjid ; Sidi Sayyid's Masjid ; Mosque and Tomb of Rani Spiari ;
Dada Harir's Well — Hindu Buildings in Rajputana — The Palace of
Man Singh of Gwalior 129-147

CHAPTER IX

THE ADVENT OF THE MOGULS
Sher Shah's Mosque and Tomb — Humayun's Tomb .... 148-159

CHAPTER X

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Akbar — The Buildings at Fatehpur-Sikri — Akbar's Palace at Agra . 160-176

CHAPTER XI

VIJAYANAGAR AND BIJAPUR

The Architectural Relationship of Vijayanagar and Bijapur — The Vitthala-
swami Temple and other Buildings at Vijayanagar — The Jami' Masjid,
Bijapur — Ibrahim's Mosque and Tomb — The Mehtar Mahall —
Mahmud's Tomb — Indian Stucco ...... 177-193

CONTENTS xi

CHAPTER XII

HINDU BUILDINGS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

PAGES

Govind Deva's Temple at Brindaban — Hinduism and Idolatry — Jaina

Temples— Man Singh's Observatory, Benares .... 194-198

CHAPTER XIII
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Bir Singh Deva's Palace, Datiya — Palaces at Jodhpur — Mogul Buildings
at Agra and Delhi — Tirumalai Nayyak's Palace and Chaultri, Madura
— Chandragiri Palace ......... 199-213

CHAPTER XIV

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY

The Decay of the Mogul Empire — Tomb of Safdar Jang, Delhi—
Eighteenth-century Buildings at Lucknow — The Sikandara Bagh,
Agra — Modern Rajput Architecture: The City of Jaipur; Palaces at
Dig and Udaipur ; Domestic Buildings — Anglo-Indian Architecture —
Indian Architecture in the Victorian Period — Modern Buildings 214-241

CHAPTER XV
The Future of Architecture in India — The Building of the New Delhi 242-249

APPENDIX 251-254

INDEX . .255

LIST OF PLATES

ABBREVIATIONS.— I. O., India Office. A.S.I., Archaeological Survey of India.
BlR SINGH DEVA'S PALACE, DATIYA . . • ..... Frontispiece

PLATE FACING PAGE

I. FA9ADE OF CHAPTER-HOUSE AT AJANTA ........ 6

(7.0. List)

II. BARODA GATEWAY, DABHOI (ELEVENTH CENTURY) ..... 10
(7.0. List)

III. REMAINS OF HINDU BUILDINGS, DABHOI (ELEVENTH CENTURY) . .12
(7.0. List)

V- THE TAj MAHALL, FROM THE RIVER ....... 18

V. SARACENIC AND HINDU DOMES'. . . . . . . . .22

I. DOMES AT AJANTA ........... 24

VII. THE TAj MAUSOLEUM .......... 26

III. THE SCREEN, TAj MAUSOLEUM ......... 34

IX. DOME OF QuTBU-D-DfN's MOSQUE, OLD DELHI ...... 42

(7.0. List)

X. ARCHED SCREEN IN MOSQUE AT AJM!R . . . . . . '. 44

(,4.5.7. Photo)

XI. THE QUTB MmAR ........ . . 46

XII. PORCH OF TEMPLE AT MUDHERA . ....... 52

XIII. PORCH OF JAMI' MASJID, CAMBAY ......... 52

(A.S.I. Photo)

XIV. PORCH OF HILAL KHAN QAzi's MOSQUE, DHOLKA ..... 52

(7.0. List)

xiv LIST OF PLATES

PLATE FACING PAGE

. AD!NAH MOSQUE, CENTRAL CHAMBER IN WESTERN CORRIDOR . . 54

(A.S.I. Photo)

XVI. QADAM-I-RASUL MOSQUE, GAUR ........ 56

XVII. HINDU TEMPLE AT VISHNUPUR ........ 56

(I.O. List)

XVIII. JAMI' MASJID, MANDU .......... 64

(A.S.I. Photo]

XIX. MANDU: MALIK MUGHI'S MOSQUE, INTERIOR OF UWAN . . .64

(A.S.I. Photo]

XX. JAUNPUR, ATALA MASJID .......... 66

(A.S.I. Photo]

XXI. SAS BAHU, OR PADMANABHA TEMPLE, GWALIOR . . . • .66

(I.O. List]

XXII. JAMI' MASJID, AHMADABAD ......... 68

(I.O. List]

XXIII. TOWER OF VICTORY, CHITOR (A.D. 1440) ...... 68

(I.O. List]

XXIV. JAMI' MASJID, AHMADABAD ......... 70

A. Half Longitudinal Section.

B. Cross Section.

XXV. JAMI' MASJID, AHMADABAD, INTERIOR OF LlwlN. . -7°

XXVI. TEMPLE AT RANPUR ...... . • 72

XXVII. ALIF KHAN'S MASJID, DHOLKA ..... . . 74

(I.O. List]

XXVIII. TOMB OF SAYYID MUBARAK, MAHMUDABAD ...... 76

(I.O. List]

DECORATIVE APPLICATIONS OF THE AURA ... . 80

XXX. DECORATIVE AND STRUCTURAL APPLICATIONS OF THE AURA . . 82
XXXI. CHOTA SONA MASJID, GAUR ......... 86

(I.O. List]

XXXII. MIHRAB, JAMI' MASJID, JUNAGARH ....... 86

(I.O. List]

XXXIII. MIHRAB, AD!NAH MOSQUE, GAUR ........ 88

(A.S.I. Photo]

XXXIV. STONES FROM RUINED TEMPLES, MANBHUM DISTRICT, BENGAL . . 88
(I.O. List]

LIST OF PLATES xv

PLATE PACING PAGE

XXXV. DOORWAY OF 'AL! SHAHI P!R-KI MASJID, BJJAPUR . . . .90

(I.O. List)

XXXVI. MONOLITHIC TEMPLE, KALUGUMALI (ELEVENTH CENTURY?) . . 94
(I.O. List)

XXXVII. DECORATION OF DOMES 96

XXXVIII. A RUINED TEMPLE, KHAJURAHO 98

(A.S.I. Photo)

XXXIX. TEMPLES AT SIBSAGAR 9g

(A.S.I. Photo)

XL. TOMB OF SIKANDAR LODI ....... . 104

(A.S.I. Photo)

XLI. HINDU TEMPLE AT VISHNUPUR 120

(I.O. List)

XLII. SONA MASJID, GAUR, SOUTH-EAST CORNER OF UWAN . . .122
(A.S.I. Photo)

XLIII. INTERIOR OF SONA MASJID, GAUR 124

(,4.5.7. Photos)

XLIV. INTERIOR OF SAT GUMBAZ MOSQUE, KHULNA 124

(A.S.I. Photo)

XLV. JAMI' MASJID OF AKHI SERAJ-UD-DIN, GAUR . . . . .126

(.4.5.7. Photo)

XLVI. JAMI' MASJID, CHAMPAN!R : NORTH SIDE ...... 130

(7.0. List)

XLVII. JAMI' MASJID, CHAMPAN!R : MAIN ENTRANCE PORCH . . . 130
(7.0. List)

XLVI 1 1. JAMI' MASJID, CHAMPAN!R : FACADE OF L!WAN ... . 132

(7.O. List)

XLIX. JAMI' MASJID, CHAMPAN!R: LONGITUDINAL SECTION .... 132

L. JAMI' MASJID, CHAMPAN!R : INTERIOR OF CENTRAL DOME . . . 134
(7.0. List)

LI. JAMI' MASJID, CHAMPAN!R : BACK OF UWAN ... . 134

(7.0. List)

LII. NAG!NA MASJID, CHAMPAN!R ........ 136

(7.O. List)

LIII. NAG!NA MASJID, CHAMPAN!R: DETAIL OF MINARET .... 136
(7.0. List)

LIV. RANl RUPAVATI'S MOSQUE, AHMADABAD ...... 138

(7.O. List)

xvi LIST OF PLATES

PLATE FACING PAGE

LV. RANl RupAvATl's TOMB, AHMADAsAn . . . . . .138

(I.O. List]

LVI. SIDI SAYYID'S MOSQUE, AHMADABAD : CROSS SECTION OF UWAN . 140

LVII. SIDI SAYYID'S MOSQUE, AHMADABAD : INTERIOR OF LlwAN . . 140
(A.S.I. Photo)

LVIII. SIDI SAYYID'S MOSQUE, AHMADABAD : PERFORATED STONE WINDOW 142

(I.O. List)

LIX. RANl SlpARl's MOSQUE, AHMADABAD 142

(I.O. List)

LX. DAoA HARIR'S WELL, NEAR AHMADABAD : PLAN AND PART SECTION 144
LXI. DAoA HARIR'S WELL, NEAR AHMAoAeAo : PART SECTION . . . 144

LXII. DAoA HARIR'S WELL, NEAR AHMADAaAo : CENTRAL SHAFT •. . 144
(I.O. List)

LXIII. MAN SINGH'S PALACE, GWALIOR ........ 146

(I.O. List)

LXIV. COURTYARD OF MAN SINGH'S PALACE, GWALIOR .... 146

(I.O. List)

LXV. MAN SINGH'S PALACE, GWALIOR : APARTMENT ADJOINING COURT-
YARD ...... ..... 146

(I.O. List)

LXVI. MOSQUE OF SHER SHAH, DELHI 154

LXVII. TOMB OF SHER SHAH, SAHSARAM ....... 156

(,4.5.7. Photo)

LXVIII. TOMB OF HUMAYUN, DELHI 158

(I.O. List)

iXIX. JAMi' MASJID, FATEHPUR-S!KR! : INTERIOR OF CHAPEL . . . 162

(7.0. List)

LXX. JAMi' MASJID, FATEHPUR-SIKR! : FACADE OF LiwAN . . . .164
(7.0. List)

LXXI. THE BULAND DARWAZA, FATEHPUR-SIKR! 166

(7.0. List)

LXXII. AKBAR'S OFFICE, FATEHPUR-S!KR! . . . . . . .168

(7.0. List)

LXXII I. DlwAN-i-KnAs, FATEHPUR-SIKR! 170

(7.0. List)

LXXIV. PILLAR SUPPORTING AKBAR'S THRONE, FATEHPUR-SIKR! . . .170

LIST OF PLATES xvii

PLATB FACING PACK

. RAJAH BIRBAL'S HOUSE, FATEHPUR-SiKRt ..... I72

(7.0. L*s/)

LXXVI. ENTRANCE TO JODH BAi's PALACE, FATEHPUR-SIKR! . . .172

LXXVII. PANCH MAHALL, FATEHPUR-S!KR! ....... I74

(7.0.

. ^ LXXVIII. JAHANG!R! MAHALL, AGRA : CORNER OF COURTYARD . . .174

(AS./. Photo)

LXXIX. jAHANGiRt MAHALL, AGRA: THE COURTYARD BEFORE RESTORATION 176

(7.0.

LXXX. APARTMENT IN jAHANGiRf MAHALL, AGRA ..... 176

(AS./. Photo)

LXXXI. VlTTHALASWAMI TEMPLE, VlJAYANAGAR ...... 180

(7.O. Lts<)

LXXXII. SHRINES ON ROOF OF VITTHALASWAMI TEMPLE, VIJAYANAGAR . 182

(7.0. L«0

LXXXIIL " ELEPHANT STABLES," VIJAYANAGAR ...... 184

(7.O. Lts/)

LXXXIV. JAMI' MASJID, BIJAPUR: SECTION OF LIWAN ..... 186

LXXXV. IBRAHIM'S TOMB, BIJAPUR ........ 188

LXXXVI. SECTION OF IBRAHIM'S TOMB, BIJAPUR ...... 188

LXXXVII. CEILING OF IBRAHIM'S TOMB, BIJAPUR ...... 188

LXXXVIII. CORRIDOR OF IBRAHIM'S TOMB, BIJAPUR ...... 190

(7.0. Lw/)

LXXX IX. MEHTAR MAHALL, BIJAPUR ........ 192

(7.0. Lts<)

XC. MAHMUD'S TOMB, BIJAPUR ...... . 19?

(AS.7. Photo)

XCI. JAIN TEMPLE, PALITANA ...... • J94

(7.O. Lw/)

\^K\\. KANDARYA MAHADEVA TEMPLE, KHAJURAHO . . • 194

(7.0. List)

XCIII. GOVIND DEVA'S TEMPLE, BRINDABAN .... • 19&

(I.O. Lw/)

XCIV. INTERIOR OF GOVIND DEVA'S TEMPLE, BRINDABAN . • i96

(AS.7. Photo]

XV111

LIST OF PLATES

PLATE

xcv.

XCVI.

XCVII.

XCVIII.

XCIX.

CI.

CII.

• cm.

CIV.

cv.

CVI.
CVII.

GOVIND DEVA'S TEMPLE : PILLARS IN CROSS AISLES .

(7.0. L{st)

BALCONY OF MAN SINGH'S PALACE, BENARES

BlR SINGH DEVA'S PALACE, DATIYA : WATER FRONT .

BtR SINGH DEVA'S PALACE, DATIYA : EASTERN FACADE

THE PALACE OF URCHA ......

(7.0. List)

JODHPUR FORT AND PALACE . .

BENGALI ROOFS AND CORNICES

THE SAMMAN BURJ, AGRA PALACE ....
ITMAD-UD-DAULAH'S TOMB, AGRA .....

(/J.S.7. Photo)

AUDIENCE-HALL OF MADURA PALACE ....
TIRUMALAI NAYYAK'S CHAULTRI, MADURA .
GATEWAY OF THE SIKANDARA BAGH, AGRA .

FACING PAGE
. 196

THE PALACE OF D!G : GARDEN FRONT

(7.0. LJS/)

CVIII. THE PALACE OF DIG : WATER FRONT ....

(7.O. LJS/)

vCIX. THE PALACE OF UDAIPUR

CX. A MERCHANT'S HOUSE, BIKANIR

CXI. BUILDINGS AT JODHPUR

CXII. A SOUTH INDIAN TEMPLE STAPATHI ....
CXIII. INDIAN MASONS AT WORK ... . .

CXIV. A MODERN INDIAN PALACE, MARWAR ....
CXV. A MODERN INDIAN PALACE, MUNSHI GHAT, BENARES
CXVI. A MODERN INDIAN PALACE, GHUSLA GHAT, BENARES
CXVII. A MODERN HINDU TEMPLE, BRINDABAN
CXVIII. A MODERN HINDU TEMPLE (DURGA TEMPLE, BENARES)

. 200
. 202

. 204
. 206
. 206
. 208

. 2IO
. 212
. 214

. 216
. 218

. 22O

. 222

. 224

. 226

. 228

• 230

. 232

LIST OF PLATES xix

FACING PAGE

. MODERN INDIAN SCULPTURE (TEMPLE AT RAMNAGAR, BENARES) . 234
CXX. MODERN INDIAN SCULPTURE (AHMETY TEMPLE, BENARES) . . 234
CXXI. A MODERN MASTER-BUILDER'S BRIDGE, LASHKAR . . . 236

CXXII. STREET IN A MODERN MASTER-BUILDER'S TOWN (LASHKAR) . . 238

CXXIII. DETAILS OF BUILDINGS, LASHKAR . 238

CXX1V. A MODERN CHHATRI, LASHKAR ....... 240

CXXV. POST" OFFICE, LASHKAR 242

CXXVI. A MODERN MASTER-BUILDER'S RAILWAY-STATION (ALWAR) . . 244

CXXVII. MODERN INDIAN SCULPTURE, PURI 246

CXXVIII. VERANDAH OF A MODERN HOUSE, PURI ...... 246

CXXIX. GATEWAY OF A MODERN TEMPLE, BENARES 248

LIST OF TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS

FIG. PAGE

1. Plan of Taj Mausoleum . . . . . . . . . . .22

2. Roof Plan of Chandi Sewa, Java . . . . . . . . .22

3. Miniature Votive Buddhist StCipa ......... 24

4. TVjpp nf i-hp (^rpajL_T_emple at Tanjore (eleventh century) L . . .25

5. Plan of the Taj Garden, as drawn by Colonel Hodgson in 1828 . . -35

6. Plan of Mosque at Ajmir . . . . . . . . ... 42

7. Plan of Adinah Mosque ........... 53

8. Plan of Mosque at Kulbarga .......... 59

9. View of Mosque at Kulbarga .60

10. Jami' Masjid, Jaunpur : Principal Entrance to liwan . . . . -67
n. Jami' Masjid, Ahmadabad : Plan of liwan . . . . . . . 71

12. Plan of Sayyid Usman's Tomb. ......... 76

13. Plan of Sayyid Mubarak's Tomb ....... . 76

14. Tomb of Sayyid Mubarak : Longitudinal Section . . . -77
. Leaf of Pipal Tree (Ficus religiosa) . 8t

1 6. Foiled Arches a Martand .... • 83

17. Arch at Fatehpur-Sikri • • 86

xx LIST OF TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS

FIG. PAGE

1 8. Diagram of Bell-shaped Dome ......... 93

19. Construction of Ribbed Dome ......... 94

20. Dome similar to Fig. 19, constructed of Permanent Materials . . 95

21. Seed-capsule of the Lotus .......... 97

22. Hindu Capital 97

23. Finial from a Mosque in Baghdad ......... 99

24. Section of a Hindu Dome .......... 102

25. Pendentive from Mosque at Old Delhi . . . . . . . . 106

26. Plan of Darya Khan's Tomb . . . . . . . . . .108

27. Darya Khan's Tomb : Section of Principal Dome . . . . . .109

28. Dholka. The Khan's Masjid : Plan of One of the Compartments of the Liwan no

29. Dholka. The Khan's Masjid : Section of One of the Compartments of the

Liwan . . . . . . . . . . . . . .in

30. Plan of Mahmud's Tomb 112

31. Section of Mahmud's Tomb . . . . . . . . . .114

32. Pendentives of Mahmud's Tomb, looking upwards . . . . . 115

33. Plan of Jami' Masjid, Champanir . . . . . . . . -131

34. Section of Mihrab, Champanir . . . . . . . . . 135

35. Plan of Mihrab, Champanir . . . . . . . . . .136

36. Rani Rupavati's Masjid: Plan of Liwan ........ 137

37. Plan of Tomb, Rani Rupavati's Masjid . . . . . . . .138

38. Plan of Jami' Masjid, Fatehpur-Sikri . . . . . . . .165

39. Plan of Buland Darwaza . . . . . . . . . . .166

40. Section of the Diwan-i-Khas, Fatehpur-Sikri . . . . . . .170

41. Ground Plan of Rajah Birbal's House . . . . . . . .171

42. Ground Plan of Jodh Bai's Palace . . . . . . . . .173

43. Arcade of Ram Raja's Treasury, Vijayanagar . . . . . . .184

44. Plan of Jami' Masjid, Bijapur. 186

45. Plan of Govind Deva's Temple, Brindaban . . . . . . .195

46. The Jami' Masjid, Delhi . . . . . . . . . .211

47. South Elevation of Chandragiri Palace . . . . . . . .213

48. Ground Plan of Chandragiri Palace . . . . . . ^ . 213

49. Plan of the City of Jaipur . . . . . . . . . .216

INDIAN ARCHITECTURE

CHAPTER I

HINDU AND SARACENIC ART — THE POINTED ARCH — THE
MIGRATIONS OF CRAFTSMEN — THE FIRST MUHAMMADAN
INVADERS OF INDIA

THE student who tries to thread his way through the some-
what bewildering mazes of Indian art is often confused by the
classifications and analysis of European writers. First, by
the Graeco-Roman or Gandharan theory of the inspiration
of Buddhist sculpture ; next by a misunderstanding of the
whole theory of Indian art in the medieval or Puranic period,
and by the sectarian classification of Buddhist-Hindu archi-
tecture ; and thirdly by the attribution of the masterpieces of
painting and architecture in the Muhammadan period to the
superior creative and constructive genius of Islam, or, as in
one notable instance, the Taj Mahall, to the art of Europe.

All of these misconceptions have their root in one fixed
idea, the belief that true aesthetic feeling has always been
wanting in the Hindu mind, and that everything really great
in Indian art has been suggested or introduced by foreigners.

Fergusson, though generally far in advance of his time
in the appreciation of Indian art, was by no means free from
these prejudices, and his analysis of Indian architecture of the
Muhammadan period confirms the general belief of the present
day that between Hindu and Saracenic ideals there is a great

2 ORIGINS OF INDIAN ART

gulf fixed, and that the zenith of Mogul architecture in the reigns
of Jahangir and Shah Jahan was only reached by throwing
off the Hindu influences which affected the so-called " mixed "
styles of Indo-Muhammadan art. Fergusson distinctly de-
clares that " there is no trace of Hinduism in the works of Ja-
hangir and Shah Jahan." J Though he does not lend his great
authority to the legend I have discussed in detail elsewhere,
which makes the Taj Mahall the creation of an Italian adven-
turer in Shah Jahan's service, he treats all of Jahangir's and Shah
Jahan's buildings as not being of Indian origin, but as entirely
conceived by architects of Western Asia, and suggests Samar-
kand, rebuilt by Timtir (A.D. 1393-1404), as the locality which
would throw light on " the style which the Moguls introduced
into India."

This persistent habit of looking outside of India for the
origins of Indian art must necessarily lead to false conclusions.
One may find primitive types, or any of the forms and symbols
which Indian artists moulded to their own desires, and trace
them back to their archaic roots in Chaldaea, Babylon, Assyria,
Persia, or Greece; but for the vital creative impulse which inspired
any period of Indian art, whether it be Buddhist, Jain, Hindu,
or Muhammadan, one will only find its source in the traditional
Indian culture planted in Indian soil by Aryan philosophy,
which reached its highest artistic expression before the Mogul
dynasty was established, and influenced the greatest works of
the Muhammadan period as much as any others. The Taj,
the Moti Masjid at Agra, the Jami' Masjid at Delhi, and the
splendid Muhammadan buildings at Bijapur were only made
possible by the not less splendid monuments of Hindu architec-
ture at Mudhera, Dabhoi, Khajuraho, Gwalior, and elsewhere,
which were built before the Mogul Emperors and their Vice-
roys made use of Hindu genius to glorify the faith of Islam.

1 " History of Indian Architecture," vol. ii. p. 288 (edit. 1910).

THE HINDU PERIOD 3

The Anglo-Indian and the tourist have been taught to
admire the former and to extol the fine aesthetic taste of the
Moguls ; but the magnificent architectural works of the preced-
ing Hindu period, when Indian sculpture and painting were at
their zenith, but rarely attract their attention, though in mas-
sive grandeur and sculpturesque imagination they surpass any
of the Mogul buildings. Even the term " Mogul " architecture
is misleading, for as a matter of fact there were but few Mogul
builders in India. The great majority of the builders employed
by the Moguls — including not only the humbler artisans but the
master-minds which directed them — were Indians, or of Indian
descent. Some were professed Muhammadans, but many were
Hindus. Mogul architecture does not bear witness, as we as-
sume, to the finer aesthetic sense of Arab, Persian, or Western
builders, but to the extraordinary synthetical power of the
Hindu artistic genius.

The truth of this statement can be demonstrated not only
from documentary evidence, which may or may not be trust-
worthy, but from the incontrovertible record of the buildings
themselves. Western writers have been so eager to seize upon
the divergences between Muhammadan and Hindu civilisation,
that the common basis which underlies them both generally
fails to impress them. Even the main point of difference which
divided Muhammadans and Hindus — the use of anthropo-
morphic symbols — was not by any means essential to Hindu-
ism ; and but for the differences, sectarian and racial, which
drove many Hindus into the service of Musulman states be-
yond the north-west frontier, the Muhammadan conquest of
Hindustan would have been hardly possible.

The fundamental antagonism between Hindu and Musul-
man religious beliefs which we so often assume, never existed
at any time. The basis of Muhammad's idealism was the
concept of the Unity of the Godhead — " There is One God " —

ARABIAN ART

which is only a condensation of the Hindu concept of the God-
head manifesting Itself in all things animate and inanimate.
To the simple-minded Arab, either a mariner on the wide ocean
or living in tents in the vast expanse of the lonely desert, the
idea of the Divine Unity made an irresistible appeal : it suf-
ficed to explain that infinite vastness of sky and earth and sea
which surrounded him everywhere by day and night. His
whole instinct of art creation was to draw everything in pure
outline silhouetted against the sky, as he saw things in the
glare of the open desert by day, or in the mysterious splendour
of star- and moon-light, like the rocky coasts of Arabia seen
from ships at sea.

All Arab design, whether in architecture, in the forms of
domestic utensils, or in surface decoration, was distinguished
by this feeling for pure outline and colour, rather than by a
plastic treatment of surfaces or the massing of forms for con-
trast of light and shade in which the Hindu architectural
genius especially asserted itself. Practically all Saracenic sym-
bolism in architecture was borrowed directly or indirectly from
India, Persia, Byzantium, or Alexandria, though devout Muham-
madans put their own reading into the symbols they borrowed,
just as the early Christians did with those they borrowed from
paganism.

Even the pointed arch only acquired from India the re-
ligious significance which eventually led the Saracenic builders
to adopt it as their own, through the contact of the Arabs
with the Buddhists of Western Asia ; and thus the very feature
by which all Western writers have distinguished Saracenic
architecture from the indigenous architecture of India was
originally Indian. If this proposition is opposed to all archi-
tectural authority in Europe at the present day, it is only
because Western writers, through treating Indo-Muhammadan
architecture as a subdivision of the Saracenic schools of

THE MIHRAB r

Egypt, Spain, Arabia, and Persia, have left out of account
the great mass of historical evidence bearing upon the arts of
the West which is afforded by the architectural monuments
of India.

It is of course a recognised fact that a certain type of the
pointed arch was in use in Egypt and in Asia Minor even
before the days of Buddhism, and long before the Hegira.
But the mihrdb of Muhammadan mosques — the niche in the
wall of the sanctuary — and all its religious associations from
which the structural application of Saracenic arches started,
was not in any way connected with this early type.

The permanent mosques of the first Arab disciples of the
Prophet, like the churches of the early Christians, were in
most cases not buildings specially constructed for their own
ritual, but those belonging to rival creeds reconsecrated for
the worship of Allah. When the Arabs started on their
career of conquest, the first objects of their iconoclastic zeal
were the temples and monasteries of the hated idolaters — the
Buddhists of Western Asia. After smashing the images and
breaking as much of their sculptured ornamentation as offended
against the injunctions of their law, the buildings with the
empty niches — the quondam Buddhist shrines— remaining in
their solid walls were often converted into mosques.

The hallowed associations of generations of Buddhist wor-
shippers still clung to these desecrated shrines, and the doctors
of Islam found it necessary to explain them in a Muhammadan
sense. Hence the mihrab — the niche of the principal image
of Buddha — came to indicate the direction of the holy city of
Mecca ; it was traced in the sand or woven in the prayer-mat
as a symbol of the faith. The idea appealed strongly to the
Arab race, for every mariner saw the mihrab in the bow of
his ship and every desert nomad in the door of his tent. The
sentiment of devotion which the image in the niche formerly

6 INDIAN ARCHES

inspired in the worshipper was thus transferred to the niche
itself, and especially to the arch of the niche. The arrangement
of niches in Muhammadan houses and palaces (Plate CII) was
a secular adaptation of the shrines of Buddhist monasteries.
Here, then, was the psychological germ of the pointed style of
architecture — Saracenic and Gothic — or of the idealism which
was the motive force behind it.

All the forms of the pointed arch which characterise Sara-
cenic buildings in the West are found in the niches of the tem-
ples of the various Brahmanical sects in India which inherited
the early Buddhist traditions. Remove the images and the
sculptured ornament of the niches, and you find the ordinary
Arab arch, the stilted arch, the foliated arch, etc. The process
of adaptation by which Indian arches were converted into Sara-
cenic, begun by the Arabs in Western Asia in the first centuries
after the Hegira, were continued in successive centuries by all
the Muhammadan invaders of India — Arab, Afghan, Turk,
and Mongol.

The contemptuous name which Arabian historians gave
to all the temples of the infidel in India — Boud-khana, or
" Buddha-house " —is one of the many proofs of the early con-
nections of Buddhism with Islam. Buddhist influence pene-
trated much farther west than the borders of Asia and Europe.
Professor Flinders Petrie has found evidences of the presence
of Asoka's missionaries at Alexandria ; and the resemblance of
the so-called horse-shoe arch in Moorish palaces and mosques
of the eighth century A. D. and later to the lotus-leaf arches of the
seventh-century Buddhist chapter-house at Ajanta (Plate I)
can easily be accounted for by the presence of the Indian crafts-
man in Egypt. Seeing that Indian mariners carried on a
regular trade with Egypt even before the third century B.C.,
it is reasonable to assume that Indian craftsmen often found
their way there in later times. No Western structural process

PLATE I

FACADE OF CHAPTER-HOUSE AT AJANTA (CAVE XIX)

SARACENIC SYMBOLISM 7

by which this form of arch, derived from bent cane or bambu,
might have been evolved independently is known to
archaeologists.

Modern European writers who try to trace the derivation
of architectural style entirely from constructive or technical
processes would do well to note that the pointed arch in Arab
architecture was a purely religious symbol before it became a
distinctive structural feature in Saracenic building. The sym-
bolic idea connected with the pointed arch preceded the general
use of it as an organic structural feature in place of the round
arch and horizontal beam. It appealed to the devout Musul-
man not because it was architecturally useful and beautiful,
but because it symbolised the two fundamental concepts of his
faith — God is One, and Muhammad is His Prophet. It was
the architectonic symbol of the hands joined in prayer ; it
pointed the way to Mecca and to Paradise, and demonstrated
mathematically the divine truth that all things converge
towards and meet in the One — the inverse of the Hindu
proposition.

M. Prisse d'Avennes, in his work " L'Art Arabe," adopts
the ingenious theory put forward by M. Salzmann that. the
different varieties of the Arab dome and the characteristic
" stalactite " pendentives which supported them were originally
derived from the form and structure of the water-melon. He
places sections of the latter and details of Arab buildings in
Cairo side by side to show the striking similarity between
them. We can very well admit the similarity without adopt-
ing the conclusion which the author derives from it — a con-
clusion which ignores entirely the religious idealism which lies
behind both Saracenic and Hindu art. If the Arab domes and
pendentives were derived from naturalistic motifs only we
should see the resemblance more marked in the earlier ex-
amples than in the later. As a matter of fact there is no such

8 SARACENIC SYMBOLISM

resemblance in any of the earliest existing examples ; the illus-
trations given by M. Prisse d'Avennes are all of late date, and
merely indicate that some Arab builders, struck by the simi-
larity between their traditional architectural forms and the
structure of the water-melon, made the resemblance more com-
plete. When a Hindu recognised a resemblance between his
sacred symbols and any natural forms he dedicated the latter
to the deity represented by the symbol. Thus the bel tree and
many others became sacred to Siva on account of the resem-
blance between its compound leaves and the three-pronged
trident of Mahadeva ; but the latter symbol was not derived
from the natural forms.

There is nothing to show that the Arabs attached any
religious significance to the water-melon, either before or after
the time of Muhammad. On the other hand, the pointed arch,
or mihrab, was a religious symbol before it was used architec-
turally by the Arabs. The so-called stalactite pendentive is
simply an agglomeration of miniature mihrab niches * geome-
trically arranged to perform the structural purpose for which
it was intended. The pointed domes, pendentives, and other
characteristic features of pure Saracenic architecture are there-
fore not to be derived from any natural motifs, but simply
from the application of their religious symbolism to all the
ancient constructive forms, Roman, Byzantine, Egyptian,
Babylonian, Assyrian, Phoenician, Buddhist, and Hindu, used
by the builders of the many different races and creeds whom
the Arabs employed.

For understanding the development of architecture in
different countries it is most important to realise that the con-
ventional nomenclature now given to different styles is apt to

1 The structure of the stalactite pendentives was in all probability derived from the
use of semi-cylindrical tiles, set in mortar, in place of brick corbelling, or arches, for the
support of light domes.

MIGRATIONS OF CRAFTSMEN 9

be very misleading unless we recognise the very cosmopolitan
organisation of the building craft in the Middle Ages as well
as in previous periods. No class of society has stood so strongly
for religious tolerance and the principle of the universal brother-
hood of man as the master-builders, and none have done more
for the spread of civilisation, peace, and goodwill among all
men. However bitter religious and racial animosities might
be, the building fraternity knew none of them. Pagan crafts-
men built for Christian, Christian for Musulman, Buddhist
for Jain and Hindu, Hindus for every sect. The same rule
applied to craftsmen of different races. In times of peace the
master-builders wandered far and wide in search of lucrative
employment wherever it might be found. In times of war
their lives were often the only ones that were spared by the
victors in battle or in the sack of cities, for their services were
highly valued by all combatants, even by barbarian marauders
like the Huns and Mongols. Every new city that was founded
or great monument that was built drew to it builders and crafts-
men even from far-distant countries. Thus we read of an
architect from Ferghana in Central Asia building the Nilo-
meter in Egypt, of Chinese craftsmen assisting in the building
of Baghdad, of Indian craftsmen in Japan, and of Persian
architects employed in Cairo. If the master-builders of the
East had left written records of their travels, we should probably
know many Indian Marco Polos who journeyed westwards as
well as eastwards when Buddhism was spreading its civili-
sation all over Asia.

When therefore we speak of Arab architecture and Arab
art, it is necessary to remember that few builders and craftsmen
were Arab by race : we simply mean the different phases of
art and architecture which were evolved in different countries
and by different races under the influence of Arab culture.
Dr. Gustave le Bon distinguishes twelve different styles of

BUDDHIST ART IN WESTERN ASIA

Arab architecture, of which the only two which can be con-
sidered pure — i.e. not dominated by Byzantine, Romanesque,
Persian, or Hindu influences — are an Egyptian style, repre-
sented by the series of mosques dating from the tenth to the
fifteenth centuries, and a Spanish style, represented by Saracenic
buildings in Seville and Grenada. But even in Egypt and
Spain, the sources of inspiration of all that is typical of pure
Arab art and architecture were in India, Mesopotamia, Persia,
and Central Asia.

Though Saracenic and Indian art had this much in com-
mon, it is essential to remember that if India, from the time
of Asoka down to the early centuries of the Christian era, had
borrowed much artistic material from the countries with which
she had had intimate commercial and political relations from
time immemorial — Mesopotamia, Persia, and Central Asia —
she was at the time of the Muhammadan invasions no longer
a borrower, but a lender. Buddhist art had spread all over
Western Asia in the previous centuries,- and Buddhist-Hindu
art was at its zenith when India received the first shock of
the Muhammadan invasions. As the armies of Islam, largely
recruited from Tartary and Central Asia, came nearer to the
north-west frontier of India, Saracenic art came into closer
contact with Buddhist-Hindu civilisation and became more
and more impregnated with Indian influences, until at last
Arab, Persian, and Central Asian art lost their own individual
identity as creative forces, and merged themselves into dif-
ferent local phases of Indian art of which the aesthetic basis
was essentially Hindu, and only Arab, Mogul, and Muslim in
a political, ritualistic, and dogmatic sense.

History was, as usual, repeating itself in this ; for exactly
similar circumstances had arisen in the early centuries of the
Christian era, when the art of Gandhara, from being a provincial
phase of Buddhist art with a strongly developed Graco-

PLATE II

10]

BARODA GATEWAY, DABHOI (ELEVENTH CENTURY)

MAHMUD OF GHAZNi

Roman dialect, became gradually Indianised and merged itself
into the Indian aesthetic synthesis. The Saracenic art which
came into India had likewise been Indianised before it crossed
the Indus ; for it was upon the basis of Buddhist-Hindu civili-
sation that the two earliest styles of Indo-Muhammadan archi-
tecture, which Fergusson calls the Ghaznavide and the Pathan,
had been built. It was in the Gandhara country that Mahmud
of Ghazni and his successors had the centre of their power, and
Indian builders were employed in constructing " the palaces
and public buildings, mosques, pavilions, reservoirs, aqueducts,
and cisterns " with which Mahmud's capital was adorned " be-
yond any city in the East." The builders were not the fighting
Afghans, but descendants of the peaceful Buddhist builders
adapting their art structurally as well as decoratively to the
needs of a militant instead of a monastic community, and to
the symbolism of a monotheistic creed.

The Muhammadan invaders of Hindustan certainly did
not have the same opinion with regard to the inferiority
of Hindu art and architecture, as compared with their own,
which is commonly held by Europeans to-day. The Arabs,
before they came to India as conquerors, had drunk deeply at
many sources of Hindu culture ; and though they detested
Hindu sculpture and painting on religious grounds, they had
the highest respect for the skill of Indian architects and artists.
Alberuni, the Arab historian who visited India in the beginning
of the eleventh century and knowing all the architectural
splendour of Baghdad at the height of its glory, before it was
laid waste by the Mongols, expressed his astonishment at and
admiration for the works of Hindu builders. "Our people,"
he said, "when they see them, wonder at them and are unable
to describe them, much less to construct anything like them."

With this we may compare the admiration of a later
Musulman writer, Abul Fazl, Akbar's chronicler, for Hindu

i2 HINDU BUILDERS

painting. " It passes our conception of things : few indeed in
the whole world can compare with them." Alberuni's contem-
porary, the great Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni, in spite of his
detestation of Hindu idolatry, could not refrain from express-
ing his admiration for Hindu builders. Ferishta tells us that
after the sack of Mathura he wrote to the Governor of Ghazni
extravagantly extolling the magnificence of the buildings and
the city. " There are here," he said, " a thousand edifices as
firm as the faith of the faithful ; nor is it likely that this city
has attained its present condition but at the expense of many
millions of deenars nor could such another be constructed
under a period of two centuries." When he returned to
Ghazni he brought back 5,300 Hindu captives, doubtless the
greater number of them masons and craftsmen, for building
the magnificent mosque of marble and granite known by the
name of the Celestial Bride, which he caused to be built to
commemorate his triumphs. Seeing how great the reputation
of Hindu craftsmen was, and since we know that Harotin-al-
Rashid renewed the ancient intercourse of Mesopotamia with
India and had Indian ambassadors at his Court, we may safely
assume that Indian builders, artists, and craftsmen were among
those of other nations which the great Khalif and his succes-
sors employed in the building of Baghdad, just as Timur, the
founder of the Mogul dynasty, used them five centuries later in
the building of Samarkand.

When the Muhammadan dynasties — Arab, Turk, or Mongol
—established themselves firmly in Hindustan, the reversion of
what we may call the pure Saracenic or Arabian characteristics
to the old Indian or Buddhist-Hindu types becomes more and
more evident. The stern simplicity of the Pathan fortress style,
which at first sight seems so very un-Indian in conception, gave
way to the luxury and elaboration of Akbar's and Jahangir's

1 Ferishta, Briggs's translation, vol. i. p. 59.

FERGUSSON'S CLASSIFICATIONS 13

palaces. Of the thirteen local divisions of Indo-Muhammadan
architecture enumerated by Fergusson, those of Gujerat, Gaur,
and even that of Jaunpur, in spite of its pointed arches, are
so conspicuously Hindu in general conception and in detail that
it is evident at first glance that the builders and craftsmen
must have been almost entirely Indian, and probably many
of them Hindus. The Jami' Masjid and other mosques of
Ahmadabad are, as Fergusson says, " Hindu or Jain in every
detail," only here and there an arch is inserted, not because it
is " wanted constructively, but because it was a symbol of the
faith." At first sight the essential Indianness of the remaining
Indo-Muhammadan styles, as classified by Fergusson, is not
so apparent. In two of the most important, namely the Mogul
and Bijapur styles, Fergusson and all other writers have ignored
the Hindu element entirely and treated them both as foreign to
India. Here, I think, they are as mistaken as the archaeological
experts who have attributed the inspiration of Indian sculpture
to the Graeco- Roman craftsmen of Gandhara. It is Indian art,
not Arab, Persian, or European, that we must study to find
whence came the inspiration of the Taj Mahall and great
monuments of Bijapur. They are more Indian than St. Paul's
Cathedral and Westminster Abbey are English.

CHAPTER II

HINDU SYMBOLISM — THE DESIGN AND BUILDING
OF THE TAJ MAHALL

WE have already seen that the religious idealism and philosophy
of the Arabs were summed up in the pointed arch. What the
mihrab was to the Musulman, the lotus was to the Buddhist
and Hindu. The shining lotus flowers floating on the still
dark surface of the lake, their manifold petals opening as the
sun's rays touched them at break of day, and closing again at
sunset, the roots hidden in the mud beneath, seemed perfect
symbols of creation, of divine purity and beauty, of the cosmos
evolved from the dark void of chaos and sustained in equili-
brium by the cosmic ether, akdsha. Their colours, red, white,
and blue,1 were emblems of the Trimurti, the three Aspects of
the One — red for Brahma, the Creator ; white for Siva, the
Divine Spirit ; blue for Vishnu, the Preserver and Upholder of
the Universe. The bell-shaped fruit was the mystic Hiranya-
garbha, the womb of the Universe, holding the germ of worlds
innumerable still unborn. The lotus was the seat and footstool
of the Gods, the symbol of the material universe and of the
heavenly spheres above it. It was the symbol for all Hinduism,
as the mihrab was for all Islam.

Closely connected with the symbolism of the lotus was
that of the water-pot — the kalasha or kumbhu — which held the
creative element, or the nectar of immortality churned by gods

1 The lotus in Hindu ritual must be taken to include the water-lily (Nymphaa) as
well as the sacred lotus of Egypt (Nelumbium).

HINDU SYMBOLISM 15

and demons from the cosmic ocean. These two pregnant sym-
bols were employed in Indian architecture and art, both struc-
turally and decoratively, in an infinite variety of ways. The
open lotus flower is used as a sun-emblem on the Buddhist
rails of Bharhut, Sanchi, and Amaravati ; the so-called " horse-
shoe " arch of early Buddhist gables and windows, derived from
bent bambu, suggested the lotus leaf; Buddhist and Hindu
domes, constructively derived from the bambu also, were made
to imitate the bell-shaped lotus fruit and sculptured with the
petals of the flower. The combination of the lotus flower, the
bell-shaped fruit, and the water-pot forms the basis of the design
of most Hindu temple pillars (fig. 20), the prototypes of which
were doubtless the carved wooden posts marking the sacrificial
area, in the ancient Vedic rites, to which the victims were ,
bound.

Though the sacrificial element was excluded from Muham-
madan symbolism, there was nothing in the latter, either in the
abstract or in its concrete artistic applications, which would
seem new and strange to the Hindu. A Hindu craftsman
would instantly recognise it as part of his own. If the Musul-
man preferred to concentrate his thoughts on the Unity of the
Godhead rather than on Its infinite manifestations, Hindu
philosophy would not dispute with him on that account. The
pointed arch was only the familiar lotus petal, the eye of the
Gods, used constructively in a way the Hindu craftsman did
not usually follow, except in the construction of shrines for his
deities, for he preferred the beam and bracket as a structural
device ; yet he could easily construct it by placing two brackets,
or two series of brackets, opposite to each other. The Musul-
man dome in construction did not differ materially from the
Hindu dome. All varieties of it had their Buddhist or Hindu
prototypes, and were classified in the Silpa-sastras, the canonical
books of Indian craftsmen. Fergusson made a great mistake

I6 THE ARAB DOME

when, after suggesting Timer's capital at Samarkand as the
place of origin of the style which the Moguls "introduced
into India," he states that the " bulbous " dome which appears
everywhere at that place was not known in India in the four-
teenth century, unless it was in the quasi-Persian province of
Sind. The " bulbous" or so-called Tartar dome was common
in Indian, Buddhist, and Hindu buildings centuries before it
appears in Persia in Saracenic buildings, and that most typical
feature of Mogul architecture was certainly not first introduced
into India by Muhammadan builders.

The dome which is distinctively Saracenic is not thebulbous
one, but the stilted Arab form characteristic of the tombs of the
Mameluks at Cairo (fig. A, Plate V). The distinguishing cha;
racteristic of this, which we may call the pure Arab dome, is the
perfect purity and simplicity of its whole contour ; except for sur-
face ornament in low relief, it is quite unbroken ; only the spring-
ing of it from a circular drum or polygonal base is sometimes
marked by a plain band. This type of dome is also sometimes
fluted or ribbed. The finial, as in all Arab and true Persian
domes, is very inconspicuous, being only a more or less orna-
mental spike projecting from the crown of the dome, and not,
like the Indian one, an important member forming an integral
part of the dome itself. We shall see the importance of this
for distinguishing the Hindu element in Mogul design later on.

The prototype of this Arab dome is to be found in the mud
huts of ancient Mesopotamia, which are sculptured on Assyrian
bas-reliefs and are still found in village dwellings of the
present day in the neighbourhood of the ruins of Babylon
and Nineveh.

The Muslim Arabs perfected the primitive form, used
more permanent and costly materials, and lavished ornament
in relief and gorgeous colour upon it, but hardly varied the
form itself otherwise. The other types of Arab domes in

THE TAj MAHALL 17

Egypt and elsewhere were borrowed either from Roman,
Byzantine, or Persian buildings.

Now, this type of dome, the only one in Saracenic buildings
not borrowed from Roman, Byzantine, or Persian architecture,
never established itself permanently in India. Indian builders
under Muhammadan rule borrowed largely Arab geometric
patterns and the splendidly decorative Tughra and Kufic char-
acters ; they used also to some extent the Arab stalactite pen-
dentive and the Arab pointed arch, which was also their own ;
but the structural forms of Muhammadan buildings in India,
whenever they can be called Saracenic, were nearly always Hindu
adaptations of, and often great improvements upon, the Sara-
cenic types: The greater engineering problems with which
they had to deal, notably in dome building, were solved in their
own way. Neither the Arabs nor the Persians had previously
attempted them.

From this general analysis let us proceed to discuss in
detail the marks of their dominating creative genius which
Hindu master-builders have left on the great monuments of
the Indo-Muhammadan styles. It will make the point clearer
if we take first a typical and supreme example of the Mogul
period which exhibits the peculiar characteristics of Muham-
madan buildings of that epoch in their highest perfection—
namely, the Taj Mahall at Agra. It will better illustrate my
thesis because no authority, European or Indian, has yet dis-
covered in it the smallest suggestion of Hindu influence. The
whole controversy connected with the building of the Taj has
been concentrated on the story related by the Augustinian friar,
Father Manrique, that its chief architect was an Italian adven-
turer in Shah Jahan's service, one Geronimo Veroneo. As I
have dealt with this question fully elsewhere,1 I will not dis-
cuss it further here.

1 See "Handbook to Agra and the Taj," revised edition 1912 (Longmans).

i8 THE TAj MAHALL

Fergusson, as noticed above, expressly excludes Hindu
influence from any of Jahangir's or Shah Jahan's buildings.
The characteristic Hindu roof of the upper pavilion in Itmad-
ud-daulah's tomb and of the Golden Pavilion in the Agra palace
are sufficient proof that this statement is not precisely accurate.
But the Taj in its superb simplicity and purity of form seems
at first sight so great a contrast to anything that Indian builders
had created at any time before the Musulman conquest that
the suggestion of Hindu influence might be ridiculed as absurd.
Every one would regard the Taj as a typical example of pure
Muhammadan art.

On the other hand, when we come to examine it more
closely, there is one thing which has struck every writer about
the Taj, and that is its dissimilarity to any other monument
in any part of the world. There is only one other building
which has been regarded as its prototype, and that is another
Indian monument, Humayun's tomb at Delhi(Pl. LXVIII). So
whether the designer of it was an Italian or of any other nation-
ality, the unique combination of excellences which Western
critics find in the Taj belongs to no Saracenic building outside
of India. We may analyse its details archaeologically and say
this came from Persia, that from Arabia, and here is something
which dimly suggests the Italian Renaissance. But when the
archaeologists have had their say, the fact remains indisputable
that whether we regard it as a whole for the perfection of its
proportions, the symmetry and just balance of its structural
masses, or for the exquisiteness of its decorative details, we
shall find no Saracenic building to compare with it. Whatever
it may be it is Indian, for even if its chief architect were an
Italian, he discarded European models entirely and took those
which India herself had created.

What is the significance of the fact that India is the classic
land of Muhammadan architecture ? For it can hardly be dis-

ARABIAN ARCHITECTURE 19

puted that there are certain fine qualities in the best Indo-
Muhammadan buildings— qualities which are not confined to
the Taj alone, but are characteristic of all the best examples of
Muhammadan work in India — which entitle it to be regarded
as such.

An enthusiastic admirer of Muhammadan architecture in
Egypt and in Spain, Mr. Stanley Lane Poole, is constrained
to admit that the mosques of Cairo owe their peculiar charm
not to architectural form or sound constructive principles, but
to their decorative beauty, " to tone and air, to association, to
delicacy and ingenuity of detail." He quotes as a criticism
which is generally just the following words of another good
authority, Franz Pasha, architect to the Khedive's Government.
" While bestowing their full meed of praise on the wonderfully
rich ornamentation and other details of Arabian architecture,
one cannot help feeling that the style fails to give entire
aesthetic satisfaction. Want of symmetry of plan, poverty of
articulation, insufficiency of plastic decoration, and an incon-
gruous mingling of wood and stone are the imperfections which
strike most northern critics. The architects, in fact, bestowed
the whole of their attention on the decoration of surfaces ; and
down to the present day the Arabian artists have always dis-
played far greater ability in designing the most complicated
ornaments and geometrical figures than in the treatment and
proportion of masses. Although we occasionally see difficulties
of construction well overcome, as in the case of the interior of
the Bab-en-Nasr, these instances seem rather to be successful
experiments than the result of scientific workmanship."

Exactly the same criticism may be applied to Saracenic
architecture in Persia. Very few of the existing buildings,
however magnificent they may be in the decorative use of
painted tiles and tile-mosaic, can be compared with Indian for

1 " Art of the Saracens in Egypt," Stanley Lane Poole, pp. 89-90.

20 INDIAN BUILDERS

beauty of architectural structure, scientific engineering, skilful
planning, and perfect masonic craftsmanship. The one con-
structive feature of Muhammadan mosques in Persia, the great
semi-domed portal, is praised by Fergusson as being " a per-
fectly satisfactory solution of a problem which exercised the
ingenuity of architects in all ages, but was more successfully
treated by the Saracenic architects than by any others." l If
Persian ingenuity first devised this most admirable structural
application of the Arab mihrab, the Indian architects improved
greatly upon their use of it, as one can easily see by comparing
the entrance of the mausoleum of the Taj, or the Buland
Darwaza of Akbar's great mosque at Fatehpur-Sikri (PL LXXI)
with any Persian examples. The grandly recessed portals of
Indo-Muhammadan buildings never seem out of harmony
with structural intentions ; they are so finely proportioned and
perfectly adjusted to the whole building as never to
disturb the balance of the architectural design with their
colossal dimensions. In Persian mosques their effect is equally
imposing in a decorative sense, but structurally their design is
vastly inferior to Indian examples, for the whole facade to
which they belong looks more like a temporary screen or
hoarding put up to make a display of gorgeous colour than any
part of the building itself.

" Stalactite" pendentives and similar structural or orna-
mental devices were also borrowed frequently by Indian
builders; but in this again the superiority of the Hindu to the
Saracenic craftsman is conspicuous, for the adaptation is always
used in India with perfect taste and structural propriety. In the
Alhambra the pendentives and the soffits of arches were over-
loaded with ornaments in such a way as to destroy entirely the
appearance of strength and stability which is essential to good
building design. One might imagine that vast swarms of wild

1 "Indian Architecture," vol. ii. p. 297 (edit. 1910).

INDIAN BUILDERS 21

bees had built gigantic nests under the arches and domes.
Indian builders knew the ethics of their art too well to perpe-
trate such an outrage.

There can be only one explanation of the manifest architec-
tural superiority of Muhammadan buildings in India to the
monuments of Saracenic art in other parts of the world, whether
it be in Egypt, Arabia, Persia, or Central Asia. It is that in
the eighth and ninth centuries of the Christian era, the time
of the first Muhammadan invasions of India, the Hindus were
— as both Arberuni and Mahmud of Ghazni bore witness later—
the master-builders par excellence of Asia, and probably of the
whole world. The impact of Islam upon India brought new
ideas and stirred Indian builders to new creative efforts, but
Hinduism was as superior to Islam in the arts of peace as Islam
was to Hinduism in the arts of war. The Arabs, Tartars,
Mongols, and Persians who came into India had much to learn
from Hindu civilisation, and it was from what they learnt and
not from what they taught that Muhammadan art in India be-
came great. The Taj Mahall belongs to India, not to Islam.

Obviously it is necessary to find something more than
general proofs to make such an assertion acceptable. The
specific proofs which are necessary the Taj itself also supplies.
The Indianness of the general impression made by the Taj is
borne out by a detailed examination of its structure. First one
may remark that the weakness which is found in most Saracenic
monuments, except when they are based upon Roman, Byzan-
tine, or Hindu models, namely that in the massing of structural
form they are only completely satisfactory from one point of
view — the direction in which the believer turns towards Mecca-
is not apparent in the Taj and is seldom found in Indo-
Muhammadan buildings. It has what the sculptor calls a good
all-round design artistically pleasing from all points of view.
This sculpturesque or architectonic quality, which is generally
3*

THE DOMES OF THE TAj

lacking in pure Saracenic buildings, belongs pre-eminently to
Hindu architectural design : the Hindu builder was a sculptor
as well as mason, having acquired his skill at Elephanta, Ellora,
and Ajanta in many generations from dealing with great masses
of living rock.

Next we can see that the arrangement of the roofing of
the mausoleum itself consists of five domes — one large one, and
four small cupolas. That this is not an after-thought, as Mr.
R.F. Chisholm has suggested, but an integral part of the whole
structural design, will be evident from an examination of the

FIG. l. — Plan of Taj Mausoleum (from Fer-
gusson's " Indian Architecture").

FIG. 2.— Roof Plan of Chandi
Sewa, Java.

plan of the mausoleum, in which the four chapels, surrounding
the central chamber in which the cenotaphs are placed, are
shown.

Now, this structural arrangement is not Saracenic, but
essentially Hindu. It is known in Hindu architecture as the
panch-ratna, the shrine of the five jewels, or the five-headed
lingam of Siva, symbolising the five elements, earth, water,
air, fire, and ether. A typical example of it is found in one of
the small shrines of Chandi Sewa at Prambanam in Java, which
has an arrangement of domes strikingly similar to that of the
Taj. I think it will be obvious that this temple (Plate V, B),

H
<

4-1

THE DOMES OF THE TAj 23

and not Humaytin's tomb, supplies the true prototype of the
Taj mausoleum. The date of the completion of the Chandi
Sewa, given by Sir Stamford Raffles and accepted as approxi-
mately correct by Mr. Phene Spiers, is A.D. 1098, nearly
five and a half centuries before the Taj was begun and more
than a century before any Muhammadan dynasty had estab-
lished itself in Hindustan. The design of Chandi Sewa was
even at that time an old Indian tradition : it had its Javan-
ese prototype in the great Buddhist temple of Borobudur
of about the eighth century A.D. The planning and roofing
of the Taj mausoleum were therefore based upon old Indian
masonic symbolism, recognised in Buddhist art, adopted by
generations of builders throughout the Hindu revival of the
Middle Ages, and finally transmitted by them to their descend-
ants in the reign of Shah Jahan. The tradition survives in
Hindu temple-building of the present day.

The beauty of the Taj, so far as the structure is concerned,
culminates in the supreme grace of the central dome. The
dome of Humayun's tomb differs from that of the Taj in
many essential points. The former is of the Saracenic type
of Persia and Central Asia — i.e. it is not stilted, like the domes
of Arab tombs in Cairo, and instead of springing directly from
the drum in which it is built, it is corbelled out so as to over-
hang the drum slightly at the base. Otherwise it resembles
the Arab type of dome in having an unbroken contour from the
springing to the crown ; the pinnacle or finial being only an
insignificant metal spike coming out of the crown.

The dome of the Taj, on the other hand, is that which is
commonly described as a " bulbous " one — not aggressively so,
like a typical Tartar dome, but growing up from the base with
exquisite tenderness and subtlety, as if the master-craftsman
would sum up in its perfect contours all the grace of ideal
womanhood. We shall see that the curve is not a single un-

24 "BULBOUS" DOMES

broken one, as in the typical Arab dome, but has three marked
divisions : first, the incurving at the base, where a band of in-
laid decoration marks the springing, and suggests a lotus flower
holding the dome within its unfolded petals ; secondly, the
main structure or centre of the dome ; and, thirdly, the
pinnacle, which does not rise abruptly from the crown, but is
connected with the centre of the dome by another lotus-like

member which has the petals
turned downwards instead of up-
wards.

Now, these marked character-
istics do not belong to the pure
Saracenic style of architecture :
they are distinctly Indian, and,
like the panch-ratna grouping of
the domes, are based entirely upon
Buddhist-Hindu masonic tradi-
tions. The dome of the Taj is not
related to that of Humayun's
tomb ; it is not an Italian, but a
Hindu or Indian tvpe.

FIG. 3.— Miniature Votive Buddhist Stupa. " x

With regard to (< bulbous

domes generally and Fergusson's statement that they were
not known in India until after the Muhammadan invasions,
the simple fact is that the " bulbous " form is essentially an
Indian one. Many examples of it exist to this day in the
Buddhist rock-cut temples ; and for every rock-cut example
now extant we may safely assume that, when Buddhism
flourished as a State religion, there were a hundred or a
thousand built of clay, sun-dried bricks, and other imperma-
nent materials. The dagabas in the interior of the chaityas
numbered XIX and XXVI at Ajanta have "bulbous" domes
(Plate VI).

•K'

1-5
PH

HINDU DOMES

PI. VI, B shows a domed canopy of "bulbous" form repre-
sented in the exterior of Cave No. XIX. Here one can see
plainly the lotus-flower moulding at the springing of the
dome : it is found also in the Chandi Sewa dome. The proto-
type of the lotus member connecting the Hindu pinnacle with
the dome can be seen in fig. 3, a Buddhist stupa with lotus
petals springing from the tee and covering the whole dome.

Now, if we refer
to the orders of
Hindu classic archi-
tecture embodied in
the Sanskrit technical
books known as the
Silpa-sastras, a sum-
mary of which is given
in Ram Raz's valu-
able but fragmentary
" Essay on the Ar-
chitecture of the Hin-
dus," we shall find the
connecting links be-
tween the dome of the Taj and its Buddhist prototypes, and see
the derivation of its three divisions, or members. The different
parts of the dome of a Dravidian temple mmdna are there set
forth in minute detail.

Above the acfhisthdna or base which contains the cell. or
shrine of the deity there are three main groups of members.
First there is the griva, the neck of the dome, which is the
drum or polygonal base on which it rests. The griva is crowned
by a projecting cornice called the lupa-nmla. Above this is the
sikhara, or main portion of the dome itself, which is bulbous-
shaped like that of the Buddhist dagaba, and springs from a
composite lotus moulding consisting of three parts, two rows

kalasha

Maha-padma
pattica

sikhara

lotus moulding
lupa-muba

griva

FIG. 4. — Dome of the Great Temple at Tanjore
(Eleventh Century).

26 HINDU DOMES

of lotus petals connected by a bead-moulding called the mdld-
b add ha.

The sikhara is surmounted by the stilpi or pinnacle,
which has two principal members, the Mahd-padma, or great
eight-petalled lotus ' joined to the sikhara by a moulding called
\hz pattica ; and the kumbha or kalasha, the symbolic water-
pot (fig. 4).

This Dravidian type of a Hindu vimana, early examples
of which are found at Mamallupuram in Madras, and in the
Kailasa temple at Ellora, is, as Fergusson has shown, only an
elaboration of the early Buddhist many-storied monastery, or
assembly-hall, surmounted by a domed shrine. A reference to
the illustrations will show clearly that the constituent elements
of the Taj dome follow exactly in form and in symbolism the
old Buddhist-Hindu canon based upon the lotus flower and
the water-pot, and have no connection with either Arabian or
Italian architectural types.

It may, however, be urged quite reasonably and plausibly
that, in spite of this Buddhist-Hindu derivation and resem-
blances in matters of detail, there is in the whole conception,
especially in the purity, simplicity, and subtlety of the contours
of the domes, a wide world of difference between the Taj or the
Moti Masjid at Agra and the fantastic elaboration of most
Hindu temples. That may be granted, but no one who has
entered deeply into the spirit of Buddhist-Hindu art will ad-
mit that it excludes the qualities which most appeal to Western
taste in Indo-Muhammadan monuments. It will be apparent
to every student of Indian painting and sculpture that in their
pursuit of the divine ideal and in their treatment of the human
figure Buddhist and Hindu artists invariably sought for and
realised that same refinement of line and simplification of sur-
faces which we find so admirable in the Muhammadan monu-

1 The divisions between the petals marked the four cardinal and intermediate points.

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TAj 27

ments of Agra, Delhi, and Bijapur. When Indian artists
wished to simplify, they simplified as grandly as they elaborated,
for they possessed in a high degree both the synthetical and
analytical faculty. The vivid imaginative power and con-
summate executive skill which traced the wonderful out-
lines of the Ajanta frescoes, and wrought in stone, bronze,
or clay the Indian divine ideal, in which perfect simplicity is
joined to sublime strength and dignity, would not find the
exquisite tenderness and subtlety of the Taj beyond its artistic
range.

The Taj has its prototype also in the Ajanta paintings ;
in the Mother and Child before Buddha, in the noble Buddha
of the first Cave temple, as well as in the sculptured Buddhas
of Anuradhapura and Borobudur. I have pointed out elsewhere
that in several of the great Mogul monuments, notably the Taj,
the tomb of Itmad-ud-daulah and that of Akbar at Sikandra,
there is a characteristic personal touch which differentiates
them from other monuments of the orthodox Saracenic styles.
Neither Akbar nor his son and grandson were strict Muham-
madans ; all three had more or less strong Hindu leanings.
The tomb of the orthodox Musulman is always impersonal in
its testimony to the glory of God and of the faith of Islam.
But Akbar's tomb is a monument to the great statesman and
thinker — one of the few who have tried to harmonise the jarring
discords of the world's contending sects and creeds, and to
found a universal religion upon a synthesis of all of them. It
was a happy idea to plan his monument upon the Indian tra-
dition of a many-storied assembly hall, where the philosophers
of old had been wont to meet for debating metaphysical and
religious questions — the same plan which Akbar himself had
taken for his audience-hall at Fatehpur-Sikri, where he met all
the doctors of Islam, of Hinduism, Judaism, and of Christianity,
and listened to their disputations. The monument which Nur

28 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TAj

Mahall, Jahangir's favourite wife, raised to the memory of her
father, the Itmad-ud-daulah, shows us equally plainly of the
refined eclectic tastes of the scholar and polished courtier, the
Lord High Treasurer and Prime Minister, and those of his
beautiful and accomplished daughter the Empress.

The Taj itself is still more pregnant with human feeling.
It is India's Venus de Milo ; the apotheosis of Indian woman-
hood. It may be that this personal or human quality is some-
thing too vague and intangible to analyse architecturally,
though it has been felt by every European who has entered
into the spirit of the Taj. One feels instinctively that the
builders tried to rise above the ordinary canons of architectural
law : the Taj is a great ideal conception which belongs more
to sculpture than to architecture ; and in this respect certainly
it is more closely related to Hindu than to Saracenic art, for
such an idea is altogether repugnant to the puritan sense of
Islam. It is true that the Shia sects did not observe the strict
letter of the Quran, which forbids the representation of animate
nature in art, but anything which suggested idolatry in a
building of a religious character would not be tolerated by any
true believer. We find it in the Taj just because its builders
were inspired by Hindu rather than by Saracenic masonic
traditions and symbolism. The Hindu master-builder was
both a sculptor and a mason ; his aesthetic vision was more
intense, more sensitive and wider than that of the Musulman
brought up in the dry geometric tradition which kept anthropo-
morphic idealism beyond the range of artistic expression. The
religious prejudices of Islam prevented the Hindu master-
builders from exercising their skill in the usual form of sculp-
ture; but this tomb of Mumtaz Mahall, whose personal qualities
had endeared her to Hindu and Musulman alike, gave them
an unique opportunity. If they could not carve her statue,
they could satisfy Shah Jahan's desire for a monument which

TECHNIQUE OF THE TAj 29

should be one of the world's wonders by creating an unique
architectonic symbol of her loveliness.

We need not suppose that the builders of the Taj were
consciously and deliberately working with this end in view,
but only that — consummate artists and craftsmen as they were
—being filled with Shah Jahan's passionate desire to create a
monument worthy of his beloved consort, the Taj grew up
under their hands a living thing with all the aesthetic attributes
of perfect womanhood, more subtle, romantic, and tender in its
beauty than any other building of its kind.

From a technical point of view we need only note in the
result achieved the careful selection of fine materials, of marble
drawn from the best quarries of Rajputana, contrasted with
the rich colour of red sandstone, its surface sometimes deli-
cately carved in low relief, sometimes inlaid with all manner of
precious stones as if to simulate a matchless loom-embroidered
sari. Secondly, the avoidance of all strong, rugged contrasts
either in decoration, in the general disposition of masses, or in
the rhythmical spacing of architectural details : all heavy mould-
ings and deep projecting cornices, such as are found in most
other Mogul buildings of the time, are omitted, and the con-
tours of the domes are drawn with extraordinary subtlety and
fineness. Lastly, exquisitely finished craftsmanship through-
out the building.

It might be assumed from my line of argument that I am
trying to prove that there is no connection between the design
of the Taj and the building already mentioned, which Fergus-
son assumes to be its prototype, Humayun's tomb at Delhi,
commenced by Humayun's widow nearly a century before the
Taj was begun, and completed by Akbar in 1565. It would be
foolish to make such an attempt, for the connection between the
two buildings is obvious. Fergusson's mistake is in not recog-
nising that Humayun's tomb is only one link in the evolution

3o HUMAYUN'S TOMB

of the Taj, and that the remaining links must be sought for in
India, not in Persia or Central Asia. In this monument Indian
building tradition, both as regards structure and symbolism,
is to a certain extent departed from. Humayun had been too
little in India to adapt himself to his intellectual environment.
His court was a Persian court, and his tomb is only an Indian
imitation of a Persian tomb. Humayun's architects were try-
ing obsequiously to follow the court traditions of the time,
which was entirely a Persian one, just as " progressive " Indian
princes of the present day follow European example in building,
without considering whether it may be good or bad. But in
the century which had nearly elapsed between the commence-
ment of this building and that of the Taj, this eclectic Persian
influence had been assimilated by Indian builders. The Hin-
du builders of Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan had taken the
Persian court tradition and revitalised it by joining it with their
own. The link in the chain of the Indian masonic tradition
which was weakened in Humayun's tomb is forged anew in
the Taj.

The effect of the Persian art tradition as imported into
India may be compared with that of the Italian Renaissance in
Europe, well described by Professor Lethaby as " the art of
scholars, courtiers, and the connoisseurship of middlemen."1
Akbar made Mogul art great not by setting up a new standard
of architectural taste, as Babar and Humayun did, and as we
foolishly do in India to-day, but by allowing the Hindu build-
ers to weld the Persian and Arabian art tradition on to their
own. It was because the Hindu craftsmen inherited a strong
unbroken tradition, founded upon long centuries of practical
experiment and devotion to their art, that they could so easily
assimilate all the foreign elements which were imported into
India by successive changes of dynasty and religion. Their

1 "Architecture," p. 233 (Home University Library).

CRAFTSMEN OF THE TAj 31

architecture, whether it was Buddhist, Jain, Hindu, or Musul-
man in dogma, was always noble as art, because, like all true
architecture, it was " not a thing of will, of design, or of scholar-
ship, but a discovery of the nature of things in building, a con-
tinuous development along the same line of direction imposed
by needs, desires, and traditions."1 The Taj, then, though re-
lated in some ways to Humayun's mausoleum, was even more
closely connected with its Hindu prototype, the Chandi Sewa
at Prambanam, and with the latter's Buddhist prototypes. In
architecture" it is unique, but neither Arabs, Persians, nor
Moguls can claim it as their own, for it is Indian in body and
in soul.

The method followed by Shah Jahan in making his arrange-
ments for the building of the Taj is fully described in the official
records of the time, and is very interesting for the light it throws
upon the building tradition of the seventeenth century. The
Emperor called together a council of all the best master-builders
and craftsmen to be found in India and in Central and Western
Asia. There were specialists in every branch of building and
decorative craft. There was a master-mason from Kandahar,
one Muhammad Hanif, with a salary of 1,000 rupees a month ;
another, Muhammad Sayyid from Multan, who received 590
rupees, and Abu Torah from the same place paid 500 rupees.
Ismail Khan Rumi, an expert in dome construction, also re-
ceived 500 rupees. Two specialists for making the pinnacle
surmounting the dome, whose names were Muhammad Sharif
of Samarkand and Kazim Khan of Lahore, were paid respec-
tively 500 rupees and 295 rupees a month.

Here we may note in the Persian MS.2 an interesting
etymological proof of Hindu influence in Saracenic masonic

1 " Architecture," W. R. Lethaby, p. 207.

2 The manuscript from which most of these particulars are taken is preserved in the
Imperial Library, Calcutta.

32 CRAFTSMEN OF THE TAj

traditions. We have seen already that one of the distinctive
characteristics of the Arab or Persian dome is that the pinnacle,
or finial, is a comparatively insignificant ornamental feature,
generally nothing more than a metal spike carrying the ensign
of Islam. In Hindu buildings, on the contrary, it is always
treated as an important part of the dome's structure, and as a
symbol called in Sanskrit the kalasha, or water-pot. Curiously
enough, though the water-pot has no symbolic meaning to the
Musulman, the technical name for a pinnacle, kalsa, in Persian
is the Indian word borrowed directly from the Sanskrit. So in
this detail of Saracenic architecture it is clear that Persia and
not India was the borrower.

Three master-masons from Delhi were paid from 400 to
375 rupees a month. A master-carpenter, probably employed
in the erection of the scaffolding and centering of the dome,
whose name was Pira, was also a citizen of Delhi. With regard
to the decorative work, there were four calligraphists who drew
out the inlaid marble inscriptions. The first, Amanat Khan,
from Shiraz, a writer of the Tughra character, drew a salary equal
to the highest, namely, 1,000 rupees a month. Qader Zaman,
" proficient in every branch of Arabic," drew 800 rupees. Mu-
hammad Khan from Baghdad was paid 500 rupees, and Raushan
Khan from Syria received 300 rupees. At the Mogul court, as
in Persia and Arabia, calligraphists were artists of the highest
repute and \vere paid accordingly. The masons who executed
the inlay work, including the so-called/2>/nz dura, which is dis-
tinctly Persian in character, were Indians and Hindus who came
from Kanauj. The chief worker, Chiranji Lai, received one of
the highest salaries, 800 rupees — a sufficient proof that he was
not a mere artisan working under supervision, but a master-
craftsman of high position among Shah Jahan's experts. His
chief subordinates were Chhoti Lai, Mannu Lai, and Manuhar
Singh, whose salaries ranged from 380 rupees to 200.

CRAFTSMEN OF THE TAj 33

Though the extensive use of marble and stone inlaid
decoration in Indian buildings was most probably a fashion
introduced by the Arabs, who had themselves borrowed it from
the Byzantines, it seems that the practice had become a part
of the Hindu craft tradition so long before the building of the
Taj as effectually to dispose of the theory that the/zV/ra dura
of the latter was derived from the Florentine work of the six-
teenth century, to which it has no resemblance except in
technique. Apparently the Indian pietra dura had been
practised in-Rajputana as early as the beginning of the fif-
teenth century, for Colonel Tod mentions that Kumbha, the
Rana of Mewar, in 1438 laid the foundation of a Jain temple
costing over a million sterling in the Sadri Pass, in which the in-
terior is inlaid with mosaics " of cornelian and agate. . . . This
temple is an additional proof of the early existence of the art
of inlaying in India." l

Among other decorative craftsmen, two " flower carvers "
from Bokhara, Ata Muhammad and Shaker Muhammad, are
mentioned as drawing salaries of 500 and 400 rupees respec-
tively. There were three others from Delhi — Banuhar, Shah
Mai, and Zorawar — whose salaries are not given. Lastly, there
was a specialist in garden design, one Ram Lai Kashmiri.

The chief architect who co-ordinated the work of all these
master-craftsmen was Ustad Isa, " the best designer of his
time." According to one account he was a citizen of Agra,
but in another he is said to have come from Shiraz. His salary
was 1,000 rupees — it is significant of his position towards the
whole work that he received no more than the chief mason, for
he was only one among many master-craftsmen carrying on a
great living building tradition ; not, as would be the case now,
a highly paid expert archaeological draughtsman of the literate
caste in command of an army of workmen skilled in copying

1 " Annals of Rajasthan," vol. i. p. 289.
4

THE INDIAN BUILDING TRADITION

paper patterns but with no artistic interest in their work. The
different method of working accounts for all the difference be-
tween seventeenth-century and modern building.

Tradition, in those days, was not, as is often assumed, a
stereotyped line of thought out of touch with the practical needs
of the times. These Oriental master-craftsmen were as keenly
sensitive to new ideas as any budding architect-draughtsman of
the present day, for we are told that before the final design
was approved by Shah Jahan they had seen and discussed
drawings of all the most famous buildings of the world. When
after long consultation the design was settled, a model of it
was made in wood. Modern architectural practice has not
been able to improve upon this excellent method.

The strong influence which the Indian building tradition
exercised over the whole of Western Asia, the tolerant attitude
of the Mogul Emperors towards Hinduism, and the wonder-
ful adaptability of Hindu craftsmen are evident in the result
arrived at by this remarkable assemblage of experts. A Mu-
hammadan craftsman from Rum, which may mean Constanti-
nople or any part of Western Asia, is employed to supervise
the construction of the dome ; yet the dome itself is not in the
slightest degree Byzantine, nor is it Arabian or Persian, but
Hindu both in form and in symbolism. The design of the
floral mosaic work seems to be inspired by Persian art ; but
the master-craftsmen were all Hindus who had probably prac-
tised the same craft for many centuries. The plan of the Taj
garden (fig. 5) x is according to the Mogul tradition ; yet the
garden expert was also a Hindu.

The student of Indian architecture and archaeology would
do well to remember that Persian or Arabian names do not
always indicate Persian or Arabian craftsmen ; on the contrary,

1 The garden was replanted about ten years ago, but without any regard to Indian
symbolism or recognition of the relation of the garden scheme to the design of the buildings.

SHAH JAHAN

the probability is that most craftsmen working on Indian
buildings, whether they be Muhammadan or Hindu in religion,
are of Indian race. Similarly, a Persian or Arabian motif in
the design or deco-
ration of an Indian
building is no more
proof that the de-
signers were for-
eigners than- would
be the case in an
Italian building.

The procedure
which Shah Jahan
adopted in the de-
sign of the Taj
seems to have been
the traditional prac-
tice on such occa-
sions. Akbar had
done the same at
Fatehpur-Sikri, and
likewise Timur, the
founder of the Mo-
gul dynasty, when
he rebuilt Samar-
kand ; probably
Mahmud of Ghaznt
also. It will be
instructive to note how different was the architectural aim
of these conferences of master-builders to that of an Anglo-
Indian departmental committee of the present day. In the
first case, although the master-builders represented many dif-
ferent countries and many different styles of building, the

f ff£T

FIG. 5.— Plan of the Taj Garden, as drawn by Colonel Hodgson
in 1828.

36 STYLE

question of style did not enter into the discussion at all.
Every great monument or new capital city had a proper style
of its own, for the traditions which were the craftsmen's com-
mon heritage was a universal craft language understood by all,
though every craftsman tried to prove his skill in his own
special craft. So, in spite of the cosmopolitan composition of
these committees of experts, a city built in Persia naturally
became a Persian city, a city in China a Chinese city, and in
India an Indian city. Timur, the Tartar, when he conquered
Central Asia, sent to China and to India for expert builders, but
he meant Samarkand to be the first city in Asia, not a second-,
hand Pekin or Delhi. Neither Akbar nor Shah Jahan wasted
time in futile archaeological discussions which act as a dead
weight on the building craft of the present day, both in India
and in Europe. The constant interchange of constructive ideas
among the master-builders of different countries acted as a real
stimulus to creative effort. Architectural style came from the
natural organic growth of the art of building, instead of being
dictated by the caprice of individual taste, by the arbitrary
ruling of bureaucratic decrees, or by the sordid impulse of
commercial greed.

Incidentally it may be said that the artistic proofs, general
and particular, which establish the perfect Indianness of the Taj,
also dispose of the legend regarding its Italian architect more
effectually than any judicial decision based upon an examina-
tion of Father Manrique's statement of Veroneo's claims. So
long as the Taj could be regarded as an isolated phenomenon
in what we call Indo-Saracenic architecture, only distantly
related to one other building of the same style and epoch, the
assumption might seem plausible — though contrary to all his-
torical precedent — that Veroneo was a genius of extraordinary
artistic gifts who, with the aid of Indian craftsmen, had suc-
ceeded in improving on the model provided by the mausoleum

AURANGZIB 37

of Humayun by adapting the canons of Western architectural
taste to an Oriental building. One might say that here was an
exception to the rule stated by Professor Lethaby that " nothing
great or true in building seems to have been invented in the
sense of wilfully designed. ... A whole building, indeed any
work of art, is not a product of an act of design by some in-
dividual genius ; it is the outcome of ages of experiment." But
when it can be shown that the Taj, though unique in itself, is
only one link in a long chain of Indian tradition going back
to Buddhist buildings of the sixth and seventh centuries,
Veroneo's claim becomes on the face of it absurd. When
architecture is a living art, buildings are not " designed " —they
grow. The Taj was not of our modern "architects' architecture."
It was of a living organic growth, born of the Indian artistic
consciousness.

It will be interesting to observe that soon after the com-
pletion of the Taj, when Shah Jahan's successor, Aurangzib,
usurped his father's throne, he placed a ban upon the fine arts
as beingcontrary to the injunctions of the Quran, and dismissed
from his court all but orthodox Musulman craftsmen. The
effect upon Mogul buildings was most significant. The chain
of the Hindu tradition was thus broken, for only the true be-
liever was considered fit to be employed in designing Muham-
madan monuments. Fergusson observes that " 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 Aurangzib."
As an example of it he cites the mausoleum which one of the
sons of Aurangzib caused to be built in memory of his mother,
Rabia Daurani, intended, it is said, to be an exact copy of Shah
Jahan's famous monument to Mumtaz Mahall. " The differ-
ence between the two monuments," says Fergusson, " even in
so short an interval [about thirty years] is startling. The first
stands alone in the world for certain qualities that all can

38 AURANGZIB

appreciate ; the second is by no means remarkable for any
qualities of elegance or design, and narrowly escapes vulgarity
and bad taste."

As Fergusson failed to observe any Hindu influence in
the buildings of Jahangir and Shah Jahan, it is not surprising
that he should overlook the fact that the difference in two
buildings was not due to decline in taste at the Imperial
court, but to the break in the Mogul building tradition caused
by Aurangzib's dismissal of Shah Jahan's Hindu artists and
craftsmen. The effect of this break affords yet another strong
proof of the commanding influence of Hindu tradition in the
creation of the great monuments of the Mogul dynasty in India.
Neither the inferiority of Aurangzib's buildings nor the superi-
ority of Akbar's, Jahangir's, and Shah Jahan's had anything to
do with a decline or improvement in the taste of the Mogul
court ; it was merely a question of bad or good government.
In the latter case the best builders and craftsmen in Asia were
employed, without distinction of race or creed ; in the former
the best were excluded by the arrogant bigotry of Aurangzib,
who may have been well aware that his buildings were badly
designed, but was satisfied by the knowledge that they were not
polluted by the hands of the idolatrous infidel.

After Aurangzib's accession the Hindu master-builders
had no choice but to seek patronage from the princes of their
own religion, and nothing can be more significant than the
fact mentioned by Fergusson that the only Indian buildings
which kept up the great tradition of the reigns of Akbar,
Jahangir, and Shah Jahan were the fine palaces of Central India
and Rajputana, built for Hindu princes, like those of Datiya
and Urcha in Bundelkund (Plates XCVII-XCIX), and that of
Dig at Bharatpur described by Fergusson as a "fairy creation"
(Plates CVII-CVIII). All of these were erected in the
eighteenth century by Hindu builders for Hindu princes.

CHAPTER III

THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
MOSQUES AT DELHI AND AJMIR — THE QUTB MINAR

HAVING now considered the Taj Mahall as a typical example of
Indian design produced under Muhammadan auspices, let us
go back to thebeginnings of Musulman rule in Indiaandattempt
to realise the peculiar conditions which led to the development
of the different styles of architecture usually described as Indo-
Saracenic. The classification adopted by Fergusson in his his-
tory is most misleading to the student, because, for the purpose
of an academic analysis, he has detached all Muhammadan
architecture from its historical context, and treated it as an
importation unto India of a new order of architecture by an
artistically superior race, rather than as a continuous develop-
ment of Indian building traditions proceeding from altered
conditions of social and political life, changes in religious
ritual and symbolism, and in the structural requirements
evolved therefrom.

The oft-quoted phrase that " the Pathans built like Titans
and finished like goldsmiths " conveys an historical fallacy. The
Pathans were fighting men, not builders ; the building tradi-
tions they brought with them into India, called Pathan by
Fergusson, were those which Mahmtid of Ghazni and his de-
scendants had borrowed from India. These traditions in the
course of two centuries had been adapted to the needs of a
militant race. Western writers exalt the simple dignity and

4o THE PATHANS

grandeur of the Pathan tombs in Northern India, to the dispar-
agement of Hindu temple architecture, without pausing to con-
sider that both belong to the Indian building tradition, and
that to draw comparisons between their respective architectural
merits is like discussing together the different styles of a Nor-
man keep and a Gothic cathedral. Among the fighting clans of
Afghanistan a saint's or warrior's tomb on a hilltop was more
often a fortress than a holy shrine, and for a reasonable archi-
tectural analogy one must put the tombs of the Pathans in
India by the side of the stately Hindu fortresses of Chitor or
of Gwalior,or the fort of Agra built by Akbar's Hindu architects.
It will then be easy to understand that the Pathan tombs are
as truly Indian as the military works of the Hindus.

The only satisfactory method of studying the Indian
building styles is to adopt a chronological basis for the general
classification, in the same way as European styles are usually
designated by the centuries to which they belong, using pro-
vincial or local names to distinguish different subdivisions.
When one thus compares a fourteenth-century Indian mosque
in Gujerat with Hindu temples of about the same period and
locality, it will be evident at a glance that there is no real con-
nection, from an architectural point of view, between the former
and Muhammadan buildings in Egypt, Arabia, or Persia, and
that the term Saracenic can only be used in a conventional sense,
for the mosque and the temple are both Hindu.

The beginning of the thirteenth century, or nearly two
centuries after the death of Mahmud of Ghazni, saw one
Muhammadan dynasty established on Indian soil at Delhi, and
another in Bengal at the old Hindu capital at Gaur. The few
monuments of these two dynasties which are now extant are
either mosques or tombs, which show very clearly that the
Muhammadan invaders did not trouble themselves with spread-
ing any new architectural propaganda in India.

THE FIRST INDIAN MOSQUES 41

The armies of Islam brought few masons and other crafts-
men with them, so the Delhi Sultans and their satraps in Ben-
gal did as Mahmud had done — they impressed the Hindu
builders and craftsmen into their service. They wanted
mosques for the true believer to be built quickly and magnifi-
cently. Mathura and other places which had furnished Mah-
mud with builders for his capital were in the vicinity of Delhi.
-Thel/Iuhammadans were thoroughly practical in their methods,
'and, though they hated the idolater, had no scruples against
using the splendid materials provided by Hindu temples, and
doubtless found a grim satisfaction in compelling thousands of
Hindu craftsmen to wreck their own holy shrines and to re-
Id them according to the ritual of Islam.

The building styles of this part of India, which were lithic
developments of the early Indian wooden styles, lent them-
selves easily to the purposes of the Muhammadan iconoclasts.
Nothing was easier than to transport piecemeal the splendidly
carved columns, with their bracketed capitals and lintels, of the
Jain and Hindu temples, and to re-erect them on a plan dictated
by the mullahs who superintended the construction of the
mosques, which, according to Muslim tradition, consisted of a
quadrangle with its two longer walls generally pointing in the
direction of Mecca. On the side opposite to the principal en-
trance was placed the liwan, or sanctuary containing the mihrab
and the mimbar, or pulpit. The three remaining sides were usu-
ally enclosed by narrow colonnades or corridors. The liwan was
necessarily much more spacious than these corridors, and the
roofing of it thus presented many more constructive difficulties.
The domes of the Hindu temple mandapas, or porches,
supplied ready-made roofs both for the corridors and for the
liwans of the mosques. Of course the heavy external masonry
of the Hindu domes with its elaborate sculptured symbolism
was neither necessary nor desirable for the roofing of the

THE FIRST INDIAN MOSQUES

mosques. All that was essential for Muslim practical purposes
was to take the constructive parts, or the inner stone shell of
the Hindu domes (Plate IX), cement them on the outside to
make them water-tight, and finish them with the wonderfully
fine plaster which Indian masons had used from time imme-
morial as a preservative
for brickwork and as a
ground for painted deco-
ration.

No doubt Mahmud's
Indian masons had fol-
lowed a similar method in
roofing the mosques and
palaces at Ghazni, though
in this case they were not
reconstructing ancient
domes but building new
ones. This was the ori-
gin of the so-called Pa-
than or Muhammadan
dome in India. It was
only a simplified Hindu dome, stripped of its external decora-
tion, but constructed entirely according to Buddhist-Hindu
methods. We will discuss these methods later on.

This makeshift mosque, put together by Hindu craftsmen
and made decent and proper according to the Puritan sentiment
of Islam by the mutilation of the Hindu figure-sculpture, satis-
fied for a time all the needs of the faithful. The rapidity as
well as economy with which official requirements were provided
for by these peremptory and drastic measures might well be
envied by our Anglo-Indian administrators. According^tp
tradition, the great mosque^a^Ajn^^nished mJtfielreig
Altamsh~(i2i i^35)pwas^put together in two and a half days !

FIG. 6. — Mosque at Ajmir (from Fergusson).
(Scale, 100 ft. to I in.)

PLATE IX

DOME OF QUTEU-D-DiN's MOSQUE, OLD DELHI

42]

THE FIRST INDIAN MOSQUES 43

Due allowance must be made for Oriental hyperbole, but if the
walls of the quadrangle and the arches in front of the liwan are
left out of account, such a performance, with many thousands
of skilled craftsmen at command and finished materials already
collected at the spot, would not be altogether incredible. The
enclosed quadrangle was probably used for prayer, and thus
was regarded as a complete mosque, before the roofing of the
colonnades was finished.

The methods of the Delhi Public Works Department
in the thirteenth century, if more brutal than those of the
present day, were decidedly more practical and efficient, not
because the Muhammadan military officers and mullahs were
superior in architectural taste to the British subalterns and
military chaplains, and their coadjutors the British engineer
and bricklayer, who have been deputed in these latter days to
instruct the despised Hindu craftsmen, but because the Delhi
Sultans did not expect their officials to play the part of amateur
builders. They were there to rule and enjoy themselves, and
to make the Hindus work for them. Teaching the Hindus
Saracenic "orders" of architecture did not enter into their
official code ; they only required that the heads of the faithful
at prayer should be protected from the dripping of rain through
a leaking roof. The Hindus were acknowledged to be the best
builders that Asia could provide, and Islam had no professional
or commercial interests to promote at the expense of Indian
art and craft.

The advantage to the Hindus was that, provided that they
did not offend the religious susceptibilities of their masters,
they were left free to exercise their wits in the practice of their
art and craft, and were not subjected to a slow process of intel-
lectual starvation by being put to copy paper patterns provided
by official experts not trained in practical craftsmanship and
without knowledge of or sympathy for Oriental art traditions.

44 THE ARCHED SCREEN WALL

The advantage to Islam, from a proselytising point of view,
was that very many Hindu craftsmen, some from conviction
and some from motives of self-interest, adopted the creed of
their masters, and thus in process of time a new style of Indian
building more perfectly adapted to Muhammadan needs and
taste was evolved.

The mosques constructed in the fashion described from
the ruins of Hindu temples became the prototypes of others
constructed by Indian Muhammadan builders, but it was soon
felt that the open colonnades of the corridors and sanctuary
afforded too little protection from sun and rain. To remedy this,
a screen of brick, sometimes plastered, sometimes faced with
stone, was built in front of them (Plate X), and naturally enough
the mullahs insisted that the pointed arch, with its symbolic
associations for Islam, should be used for this screen, the only
original constructive work in most early Indian mosques,
for even the enclosing walls of the quadrangle were originally
the walls of a Hindu or Buddhist temple courtyard. The
screen served also a ritualistic purpose : instead of symbolic
sculpture, the laws of Islam or sacred texts were carved upon
it for the instruction of the congregation. Now, the Hindu
masons were quite familiar with the pointed arch as a sym-
bolical and ornamental feature1 — from the early days of Maha-
yana Buddhism it had been used in Buddhist and Hindu sculp-
ture— but either from experience of earthquakes or for other
practical reasons they mistrusted " the arch which never sleeps "
as a structural device, except for very small spans. And since
they had generally at their disposal unlimited quantities of
first-rate material, either wood or stone, admirably adapted for
their traditional beam-and-bracket system of construction, there
was no practical reason for using any other ; so even when put

1 When Buddhist or Hindu niches containing the images were large, they were some-
times vaulted, so that the arch became structural as well as decorative.

PLATE X

4*1

ARCHED SCREEN IN MOSQUE AT AJMIR

THE ARCHED SCREEN WALL 45

to building arches of wide span for the Muhammadan mullahs,
they made many attempts to adapt their own system to this
innovation.

Fergusson's dictum regarding the great range of arches
in the screen-wall of the mosque of Qutbu-d-Din — that "the
Afghan conquerors had a tolerably distinct idea that pointed
arches were the true form for architectural openings" — seems
to be founded on a complete misconception, both from an
historical and an architectural point of view. It is highly im-
probable that the Musulmans who directed the building of the
mosque — assuming them to have been Afghans, which is not
at all likely — were influenced by any aesthetic reflections, in-
tuitive or otherwise, in insisting that arched openings should be
put into the screen-walls. They wanted arches because they
were the symbols of their religion. We may assume that they
showed the Hindu craftsmen illuminated copies of the Quran
or paintings of Arabian and Persian mosques as a guide, but
otherwise left them to construct the screens as they pleased.
The "Saracenic" arch is not intrinsically more true for architec-
tural openings, either in a constructive or aesthetic sense, than
the round arch or the Hindu beam and bracket. These different
constructive methods have each their respective advantages.
A true craftsman, guided only by practical considerations,
would make the choice of any one of them depend upon the
character of the opening, its size and position in the constructive
scheme, and upon the .character and quality of the materials he
was using. The Hindu craftsman had very good constructive
reasons for preferring the beam and bracket for buildings
adapted for his own religious ritual. In the buildings he made
for Muhammadans the pointed arch may have added to his
constructive resources, but it was in no sense scientifically
superior to his habitual methods of construction. Indeed,
modern developments of building construction, in which iron is

46 MOSQUE AT OLD DELHI

so largely employed, reduces the pointed arch to the place it
generally held in the Hindu system, namely, to a decorative
expedient only, and makes the beam and bracket of the Hindus
the scientific form of construction. For this reason, if for no
other, the Hindu building craft is worthy of more attention
than it has yet received from the Anglo-Indian departmental
expert.

The very ruinous state of the mosque at Old Delhi makes
it less interesting as an architectural example than the almost
contemporary building at Ajmir, built in the same fashion.
The original mosque — in the courtyard of which stands the
famous iron pillar,1 a wonderful monument to the scientific
knowledge and skill of Hindu craftsmen many centuries before
the Muhammadan invasions — was commenced by the first
Delhi Sultan about 1 196 ; the screen of arches in front of the
liwan were added by his successor Qutbu-d-Din about ten years
later. Altamsh, the next Sultan, who succeeded in 1210, began
to enlarge the mosque by extending the liwan with its screen
north and south, and by adding a great quadrangle which
should have enclosed the original building. The next Sultan,
'Alau-d-Din (1296-1316), built a fine gateway on the south side
of this outer quadrangle, and projected yet further extensions
of the building which were never completed, and the present
mosque is only a fragment of the original, for nearly the whole
of the liwan behind the arches and a considerable part of the
corridors surrounding the two quadrangles have disappeared.
The great Tower of Victory, i n what remains of the outer quad-
rangle, known as the Qutb Minar (Plate XI), built about the
same time as the original mosque, belongs to a class of monu-
ment in which the Hindus excelled ; though this one is a Sara-
cenic modification of the Indian type, of which the two towers

1 It is attributed to the time of the famous Hindu King Vikramaditya, who flourished
in the fifth century A.D.

PLATE XI

46]

THE QUTB MINAR

QUTB MINAR 47

at Chitor are the best extant examples. They were no doubt
derived from Buddhist structures, which again may have had
their prototypes in Babylonia and Assyria. The three finely
proportioned lower stories of the Qutb Minar, which were
probably designed by masons from Ghazni, belong to the
original tower ; their exceeding beauty is greatly marred by
the upper part, which is a badly conceived restoration and
addition of the Sultan Firuz Shah (1351-88). A "classical"
cupola added to the summit by a Public Works engineer in
the early part of the nineteenth century has fortunately been
removed.

Though used as a place from which the mn-azzin should
summon the faithful to prayer, the tower of Qutbu-d-Din *
has no connection architecturally with the adjacent mosque.
The two minarets of the latter were comparatively insignificant
and placed on either side of the great central arch of the screen
of the liwan, more for ornamental than practical purposes.
Only small fragments of the two minarets on the Ajmir screen
now exist. In later buildings, in which they become much
more important, both structurally and ornamentally, they were
frequently removed to the extreme ends of the screen of a
mosque, or placed at the four corners of a mausoleum. In the
Taj we find them detached from the building and placed at the
four corners of the platform on which it stands.

The most important contribution of Saracenic art to the
Indian building craft of the thirteenth century was not con-
structive but decorative. Some of the Arabian mullahs were
past masters in calligraphy, and in the beautiful Kufic and
Tughra script the quotations from the Quran carved on the
screens of the mosques (Plate X) made magnificent decoration

1 Mr. R. N. Munshi, in his History oftheKutb Minar (Bombay, 1911), gives reasons
for attributing it to the reign of Qutbu-d-Din's son-in-law and successor the Sultan Altamsh,
who also built the mosque at Ajmir.

48 CARVED INSCRIPTIONS

and admirable sermons in stone. Fergusson admits that in
carrying out this work the Indian craftsmen excelled their
teachers. "As examples of surface decoration," he justly
observes, " these two mosques of Altamsh 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." But when the same
high authority proceeds to discriminate between " Muhamma-
dan largeness of conception " and " Hindu delicacy of ornamen-
tation," one must question his judgment in drawing such a
distinction between the Musulman and Hindu artistic genius.
The remains of the magnificent Hindu architectural works
constructed before and during the time of the first Muhammadan
invasions of India prove that largeness of conception was no
monopoly of the Saracenic building tradition ; and as the earli-
est Muhammadan buildings in India were undoubtedly built
almost entirely by Indians, and mainly according to their own
ideas, we should give full credit to the infinite skill and versa-
tility of the Indian builder, who, with an unbroken craft tradition
of many centuries behind him, could and did adapt it as per-
fectly to the formula of the Muhammadan mullah as to that of
Buddhists, Jains, or Brahmans.

It may seem to the Western eye, trained in the formula
of the classical schoolmaster, that the Muhammadan prescrip-
tion is more pleasing, just because it is more correct according
to the canons called classical ; but the creative impulse in the
great art produced in India under Muhammadan rule, which
seems to us so admirable, belonged to the same Indian races
and the same Indian civilisation and culture which had inspired
the works of earlier times. If the Indian craftsman of to-day
is often a mere copyist, it is chiefly because the methods of our
teaching and the principles of our administration have made him
so. The whole of Muhammadan architecture in India bears

ADAPTATION OF FOREIGN IDEAS 49

this distinctive impress of the soil to which it belongs — that its
structural ideas and symbolism are nearly always essentially
Indian, not foreign importations : the foreign suggestions
adopted by Indian builders were almost without exception
purely decorative ones— e.g. the use of Persian and Arabian
floral and geometric motifs for surface decoration in place of
Hindu sculpture, and the substitution of encaustic and painted
tiles for painted plaster or terra-cotta.

These foreign borrowings were never mere copies, but were
always given a distinctive Indian character, even when they
played an important part in the decorative scheme of a building,
just as in European art the frequent adaptation of Oriental ideas
can generally be recognised as European.

The planning of Muhammadan buildings, the arrangement
of the interior, the various forms of the roofing and its supports,
whether columns, piers, brackets, pendentives, or arches, were
almost invariably derivations from Buddhist or Hindu craft
traditions. The screens of pointed arches often make an Indian
mosque appear Saracenic from the outside ; but directly one
enters, it is evident that the building is as much Indian as a
Hindu temple.

A comparison of Muhammadan buildings of the thirteenths
century in India with one which was being constructed in the
same century on the Western extremity of the vast territory
then under Musulman rule may be useful for showing how
little India really borrowed from Saracenic sources. The Al-
hambra of Grenada is one of the most typical and famous. of
Saracenic buildings. Here Arab civilisation, instead of adapting
the building traditions of conquered races to its own purposes,
was almost for the first time trying to create something which
should be wholly after its own ideals. The Moors of Spain tried
to cast off the traditions of Rome and Byzantium, of Egypt,
Persia, and India, which had hitherto helped them and other
5

50 INDIAN AND SARACENIC ART

Muhammadan races to make magnificent monuments for them-
selves : they would show what the genius of Islam could create
for itself out of brick and stone. The result may be called
magnificent as decoration, but it was not building — rather
stage architecture suggestive of gorgeous scenery inspired by
illuminated Arab manuscripts, and often made constructively
absurd by the painting, gilding, and stucco.

In the thirteenth-century mosques of Delhi and Ajmir it
is evident that the Arabian calligraphist and painter had their
say with regard to the decoration, but the craftsmanship, both
decoratively and constructively, was Indian, and fine because it
was Indian. The construction of the arches was according to
the Hindu bracket system : the weakness which manifested
itself in some of them after many centuries is not due to a faulty
system, but to the fact that, like the Egyptians of old, the
Muhammadan taskmasters expected their captives to build
with unsuitable materials, i.e. with stones too small for the
Hindu method of bridging over open spaces in walls.

CHAPTER IV

THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY

GUJERAT — GAUR — THE ARCH IN INDIAN ARCHITECTURE —
KULBARGA — MUHAMMADAN TOMBS

AFTER the first century of Muhammadan rule in India, when
the ruthless wholesale destruction of Buddhist and Hindu
buildings had diminished, the Indian Musulman builders, with
the help of their Hindu brethren, were engaged in grafting a
new building tradition upon the old one. Their chief efforts
were directed towards giving the arched screens of their
mosques a more Indian or Hindu character, though they
adopted the Saracenic method of arch construction (with radi-
ating voussoirs) whenever they found it convenient to do so.
The screens of Delhi and Ajmir, beautiful as they are in them-
selves, are too ill-fitted to the rest of the building and too much
of a structural afterthought to satisfy the eye of a good crafts-
man. The result of these efforts may be seen in some of the
fourteenth-century mosques in Gujerat, the rich and fertile
Hindu kingdom which was made a viceroyalty to the Delhi
Sultanate in 1311, under a converted Rajput, Muzaffar Shah.
Gujerat was at that time, as the magnificent remains of Hindu
temples at Mudhera, Dabhoi, and elsewhere testify (see Illus-
trations), exceptionally rich in architectural material and in
craftsmen. The Muhammadans made no attempt to impose any
Saracenic ideas upon them. The entrance to the Jami' Masjid
at Cambay, built about 1325, is almost copied from the porch

52 GAUR

of the great sun-temple at Mudhera (Plates XII-XIII), built in
the neighbourhood three centuries before. The arched screen
in front of the sanctuary is the only variation on the ordinary
structure of Hindu builders. The mosque of Hilal Khan Qazi
at Dholka(Pl. XIV), about twenty-three miles from Ahmada-
bad, and the Taka or Tanka Masjid at the same place, belong
to the same century and style, the former being dated about
1333 and the latter 1361. These mosques have also Hindu
entrance porches and ordinary Hindu roofs and colonnades
without any further structural development.

In the meantime the Muhammadans who had established
themselves at Gaur, the ancient Hindu capital of Eastern
Bengal, as early as the end of the twelfth century, were engaged,
by the same methods as at Delhi and Gujerat, in forming a
local style of architecture of strong characteristics and of very
great interest, though the early stages of its development are
more difficult to trace on account of the wanton destruction of
architectural monuments both by the Afghan iconoclasts and
by their successors. When the capital fell into decay on the
decline of Muhammadan rule, Gaur was used as a brickfield
and quarry by the builders of Dacca, Murshidabad, and Calcutta ;
the right to dismantle Gaur of its enamelled bricks being
farmed out to the landholders of the district in the early days
of our revenue administration.1 It is only quite recently,
under Lord Curzon's administration, that the few remains of
the splendid monuments of Gaur and the neighbourhood have
been adequately conserved and protected.

Enough still remains, however, to show that, owing to the
more general use of brick instead of stone in the construction
of their mosques and tombs, the builders employed by the
Muhammadans at Gaur, as early as the middle of the four-
teenth century, were using the pointed arch for constructive

1 Ravenshaw's " Gaur," p. 40, note.

PLATE XII

5**]

PORCH OF TEMPLE AT MUDHERA (ELEVENTH CENTURY)

PLATE XIII

PORCH OF JA.Ml' MASJID, CAM BAY

ADINAH MOSQUE 53

purposes much more extensively than they were doing else-
where in India at that time. This is evident at the Adinah
mosque, built at Pandua, near Gaur, during the reign of Sik-
andar Shah (1358-89): a

superficial survey of this ¥¥¥?¥¥¥¥¥i

building with its Arabic
inscriptions and ra-
diating arches might I
lead one to suppose
that the design and
construction of it
were largely in the
hands of foreign ar-
chitects. But the plan of
it (fig. 7) is evidently of
Buddhist-Hindu origin ;
the mihrabs (PL XXXIV)
are converted Hindu
shrines, and it is much
more than probable that
in this brick-building
country Indian builders
were using radiating
arches, either round or
pointed, for structural
purposes before the Mu-
hammadans came. The
pointed arch was not an
invention of Saracenic
builders, and per se can-
not be taken to prove Saracenic influence in any country.
It was used in Egypt, Syria, and in Asia Minor centuries
before the time of Muhammad. India had had intimate
5*

FIG. 7.— Plan of Adinah Mosque (from Fergusson's
"History")-

54 THE ARCH IN INDIA

relations with these countries from time immemorial, and it is
most improbable that Indian builders, skilled craftsmen as they
were, remained in total ignorance of the principle of the radi-
ating arch until the time of the Muhammadan invasions.
There must have been at one time thousands of Buddhist
chapter-houses in Bengal, where their barrel-vaulted roofs and
" horse-shoe" windows, frequently built of brick as well as of
wood and plaster or thatch, could hardly have been constructed
otherwise than by radiating courses.

Fergusson explains why, in some parts of Bengal at least,
the trabeate style of building was never in vogue. " The
country is practically without stone, or any suitable building
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." This being the case, it is difficult to understand
why he should have assumed that the radiating arches inside
the great temple of Bodh-Gaya could not have been part of the
original structure, but must have been introduced in the course
of the Burmese Buddhist restorations of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. It seems more logical to assume that the
Bengali builders, being bricklayers rather than stonemasons,
had learnt to use the radiating arch whenever it was useful for
constructive purposes long before the Muhammadans came
there.

One important fact which leads to this conclusion is stated
by Fergusson,2 though characteristically he tries to explain it
away. The arch and vault were systematically used by all the
Buddhist builders in Burma, who adopted many of the forms
of architecture originating in Bengal, together with the religion
of Sakyamuni, at a very early date. Burmese tradition says

1 " Indian Architecture," vol. ii. p. 253 (edit. 1910).

2 Ibid. p. 353.

PLATE XV

:S4l

ADINAH MOSQUE, CENTRAL CHAMBER IN WESTERN CORRIDOR

THE ARCH IN INDIA 55

that many of the oldest temples and monasteries were built
by Indian architects ; if this is true, they would have come from
Bengal. Fergusson says that " Indian " may be taken to mean
" foreign," but suggests no reason for rejecting the evidence-
such as it is — that the arch and vault were used in Bengal, as
they were in Burma, before the Afghans came there. The
Afghan invaders were not likely to have brought many builders
with them. Gaur was a great Hindu capital, in the heart of
the Magadhan country, and its Hindu craftsmen were the
direct heirs of the building traditions of the Buddhists. Fer-
gusson, in trying to prove his theory that Hindu builders never
under any circumstances used the radiating arch until the
Muhammadan builders taught them to do so, seems to ignore
the fact that all the Muhammadan buildings at Gaur are just as
obviously adaptations of the local Hindu building tradition as
are all the mosques in Western India.

Assuming that both the Buddhist and Hindu builders of
Bengal were familiar with the structural use of arches in brick-
work, it is inconceivable that in the course of many centuries
of great building operations they should have refused, from
mere prejudice or lack of intelligence, to put bricks on edge
instead of laying them flat, whenever a wide span of arch made
it expedient to do so. Having adopted that simple expedient,
the next would naturally follow — the construction of perfect
arches with brick wedges.

Fergusson's theory that the radiating arch is " Saracenic"
and the horizontal beam and bracket " Hindu " always seems to
imply that the former was a great gift of Western science to
India. It has led archaeologists to attribute every Indian
building with radiating arches in it to foreign inspiration with-
out further investigation.

From a craftsman's point of view there were good practical
reasons why Indian builders should prefer the beam and bracket

56 THE ARCH IN INDIA

to the arch when they had plentiful supplies of wood and fine
building stone. As these conditions obtained in early times over
the greater part of India, it naturally followed that the arch was
not so commonly used as it was in countries where wood and
stone were less abundant. But in brick-building districts like
Bengal one would expect the radiating arch to occur at least
occasionally. Since it.does occur, there is no reason to attempt
to explain it away on archaeological grounds. In the absence
of any proof to the contrary, therefore, I shall assume that the
arches in the Bodh-Gaya temple were, as they seem to be, part of
the original internal structure ; that all the early Muhammadan
buildings at Gaur are, as they seem to be, adaptations of the
local Hindu-Buddhist building tradition, both structurally and
decoratively ; that the brick builders of Bengal, like the brick
builders of Persia, used the radiating arch before there was any
architecture to be called " Saracenic " ; that the Burmans did use
Indian architects, as their traditions say and as might be ex-
pected from the relations between the two countries ; and that
Fergusson was mistaken in asserting that " up to the time of
the first Sultans of Delhi and for some centuries afterwards
the Hindus had never built arches." l

The general character of the Muhammadan buildings at
Gaur differs as widely from the true Saracenic type as any Hindu
temple. Moreover, they closely resemble the local Hindu temple
architecture. The striking similarity will be seen by comparing
the fa£ade of the Qadam-i-Rasul mosque with that of the Hindu
temple at Vishnupur (Plates XVI-X VI I). They are both rather
late examples, the former having been built in 1530 and the
latter about 1643. But though the Hindu temple is a century
later than the other, there can be no mistaking the fact that
both belong to the local Hindu tradition of building.

I take it that the real difference between the Muhammadan

1 " Indian Architecture," vol. ii. p. 203 (edit. 1910).

THE ARCH IN INDIA 57

and Hindu method of construction at Gaur was only this that

the Hindus had used the pointed arch occasionally on a small
scale for connecting their massive brick piers and in constructing
in brick the curvilinear roofs derived from the earliest Indian
roofs of bamboo, thatch, or wood. As the Muhammadans
required more spacious buildings for their religious services
than the Hindus needed for their individualistic ritual, their
craftsmen naturally developed the use of the arch on a larger
and bolder scale. But there is no reason to suppose that Indian
builders were not capable of doing this for them without any
outside assistance, although occasionally, no doubt, the Mu-
hammadan rulers preferred to employ foreign architects. At
Gaur there is no more evidence that they did so than
there is at Delhi or Ajmir, for in spite of the decorative
elements which betray the influence of Arabic scholars, calli-
graphists,and illuminators, rather than that of foreign craftsmen,
and in spite of the bolder use of radiating arches, the Muham-
madan buildings there retain the same strongly marked indige-
nous character which they have in other places where the usual
Hindu constructive methods were employed. The Muhamma-
dan buildings at Gaur, Pandua, and Malda are Bengali, not
Arabian or Persian.

The curvilinear cornices and roofs at Gaur undoubtedly
belong to the ancient Buddhist-Hindu tradition, and the forms
of the smaller arches, or those which are used decoratively in-
stead of structurally, so far from being Saracenic, are all derived
from Buddhist-Hindu prototypes, as will be explained farther
on. Though Persian encaustic tile-work shows foreign in-
fluence, or rather gives evidence of the mutual exchange of
artistic ideas which is natural between two countries so closely
connected in race, language, and religion as India and Persia,
the beautiful terra-cotta and moulded brickwork is characteristic
of Bengal and must have been the work of local craftsmen.

58 MOSQUE AT KULBARGA

KULBARGA

The middle of the fourteenth century saw the armies of
Islam pressing southwards as well as eastwards and westwards,
and by 1347 a new Musulman dynasty had established itself at
Kulbarga, another ancient Hindu capital in the Dekhan, not
far from the great Hindu city of Vijayanagar, the remains of
which still testify to the splendour of the civilisation which
Islam set out to destroy but ended by being brought under its
spell, just as Rome in the pride of conquest had been finally
led captive by the art and civilisation of Greece.

The great mosque of Kulbarga, "built at this time, is, as
Fergusson observes, one of the most remarkable of its class in
India, and in some respects unique. The Muhammadan
builders, dispensing with the use of materials provided by the
Hindu temples they despoiled, here began to build for them-
selves, and by way of experiment they varied the arrangement
of the roof and arched screens. Instead of placing the latter
in the usual way in front of the liwan, or sanctuary, and some-
times in front of the corridors on the side facing the courtyard,
they roofed over the whole area of the courtyard, about
126 feet by 100 feet, by a series of 63 small domes of the usual
Hindu construction supported on columns, the corridorson three
sides of the quadrangle being covered by a similar series of
transverse vaults. To admit light into this covered area the
usual screens of quasi-Saracenic arches had to be placed on
the outside of the quadrangle, the four corners of the latter be-
ing roofed by domes of 25 feet in width. The sanctuary was
roofed by one large dome of 40 feet, raised on a clerestory, and
flanked on either side by six small domes similar to those
which covered the inner courtyard.

The placing of the pointed arches on the exterior of the
quadrangle makes this mosque appear to be more Saracenic

MOSQUE AT KULBARGA

in its design than usual, but as a matter of fact Saracenic de-
signers had no more to do with the construction of the Kulbarga
mosque than they had in other Indian buildings. In the
history of Indian craftsmanship this mosque only marks the

FIG. 8. — Mosque at Kulbarga (from Fergusson's " History").

point where the screen of pointed arches was definitely accepted
by Indian builders as a structural device in buildings for Mu-
hammadan use. Although in the case of the Kulbarga mosque
the appearance of the exterior was greatly altered by this

MOSQUE AT KULBARGA

addition to the resources of the builder, the structure of the
building was not otherwise modified, and the craftsmanship
remained Indian throughout.

For some reason or other the experiment here made in
the interior arrangement was never repeated in other mosques.
From an aesthetic point of view it was successful enough :
the placing of the great arches on the outside walls improved

FIG. 9. — View of the Mosque at Kulbarga (from Fergusson's '• History ").

the ventilation of the whole building greatly, and the roofing
of the whole area afforded much better protection from sun
and rain to the congregation. So thorough was the craftsman-
ship and so excellent the Indian cement used in the roof that
in Fergusson's time the mosque " stood in seemingly good
repair after four centuries of comparative neglect," though, as
he observes, any settlement or crack in the building would have

MUHAMMADAN TOMBS 61

been fatal. With the miserable leaking roofs, designed only
for a European climate and often constructed according to the
directions of Thomas Atkins or non-commissioned officers
acting as amateur builders, most of our modern public build-
ings in India would, under similar circumstances, fall into ruin
in twenty years.

Probably the true reason why this precedent of Kulbarga
was not followed afterwards was the conservatism of the
mullahs, who objected to a departure from the traditional ar-
rangement of a mosque which exposed the congregation so
much to the inquisitive gaze of infidels.

MUHAMMADAN TOMBS

So far we have only dealt with the evolution of the Indian
mosque from the prototypes at Old Delhi and at Ajmir. It
is necessary now to refer to another type of building which
had a very important influence on the development of Indian
architecture from the thirteenth century onwards, namely, the
Muhammadan tomb. I have already alluded to the survival
of Buddhist-Hindu traditions in the wonderful tomb of
Mumtaz Mahall at Agra. In another chapter I will endeavour
to trace more exactly the evolution of the domes of Saracenic
tombs in Persia from Buddhist dagabas, or canopied pavilions
in the form of dagabas, such as that which is sculptured in the
fa$ade of the great chapter-house at Ajanta (Plate VI, B).

The Hindu builders, who were not relic worshippers and
who usually cremated their dead, when they were called upon
to construct Muhammadan sepulchral monuments,1 began by

1 Fergusson assumes that the Rajput custom of building cenotaphs, or chhatris> on
the site of a chieftain's funeral pyre, was borrowed from the Muhammadans. I do not
believe that this was the case ; though the magnificence of Muhammadan tombs induced
the Rajput princes to make a similar display with their chhatris, the custom itself was of
much greater antiquity.

62 . MUHAMMADAN TOMBS

making them in a similar style to their own domed pavilions,
or the porches of Hindu temples. These Hindu pavilions were
also directly derived from similar Buddhist structures, the domes
of which were supported on four, eight, or twelve piers or columns,
according to their size, the plan of the pavilions being either
square or octagonal. The domes were built in the usual Indian
fashion in horizontal layers of stone, brought to an approxi-
mately circular plan at the springing of the dome by cutting
off the angles of the base of it, in the same way as a square
column or pier was changed to a polygonal shape or circular
one. Very many old Pathan tombs of this type, built by
Indian masons, are to be seen in the neighbourhood of Delhi.

The next step was precisely similar to that which took
place in the Indian mosque — the whole structure was en-
closed by screens of quasi-Saracenic arches, forming corridors
round the sanctuary of the tomb, which served both to protect
the pilgrims who resorted thereto and to give more sanctity
to it. The dome gradually became larger and higher in pro-
portion to the importance of the saint or other personage it
commemorated, and then the roofs of the surrounding corridors
were surmounted by four or eight small kiosks or domed
pavilions like those which surrounded the upper floors of the
many-storied Buddhist monasteries.

In later times the custom which the Moguls had of building
tombs for themselves, or for their saints or heroes, in lovely
gardens which had served as pleasure-resorts in their owners'
lifetime, added a peculiar charm to their monuments which has
not quite faded, though the art of the Indian formal garden
with its beautiful symbolism is probably now lost.

From a structural point of view the Muhammadan tomb
played an important part in the development of the Indian
building craft, because the gradual increase in the size and
weight of their domes, built of stone and brick and more mas-

MUHAMMADAN TOMBS 63

siveand solid than any which other builders, except the Romans
and Byzantines, had before attempted, forced Indian builders
to solve the greater engineering problems of dome construction.
They did so, as we shall see, in an entirely original way, by an
application of constructive principles different to thoseemployed
by the Saracenic, Byzantine, or Roman builder. But this was
not fully achieved until several centuries later.

CHAPTER V

THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

MANDU I THE JAMl' MASJID ; MULIK MUGHl's MOSQUE —
JAUNPUR : THE ATALA AND JAMl' MASJIDS — AHMADABAD I
THE JAMl' MASJID ; MUHAFIZ KHAN'S MASJID — ALIF
KHAN'S MASJID — MOSQUE AND TOMBS AT SARKHEJ — SAYYID
USMAN'S TOMB — SAYYID MUBARAK'S TOMB — GAUR I DAKHIL
GATE AND EKLAKHI MASJID

MANDC

IN the fifteenth century Muhammadan building activity inlndia
increased in the centres already established, especially at Gaur
and Ahmadabad, and also extended to others, the chief of which
were Dhar and Mandu in the province of Malwa, and Jaunpur,
about 40 miles north-west of Benares. Both in Malwa and
at Jaunpur there were marked developments in Muhammadan
building craft, though in different directions. At Mandti the
Indian builders began to extend the use of the arch structurally,
just as they had done at Gaur in the previous century,1 so that
their buildings assumed a more decidedly Saracenic or Persian
appearance internally as well as externally. At Jaunpur they
worked in an opposite direction — i.e. they took away the typi-
cal Arabic or Persian character of the arched screens in front
of the liwan, by combining the Hindu beam and bracket with

1 As there was easy communication by sea between Gaur and the west coast of
India, it is extremely probable that craftsmen from Gaur assisted in the building of Mandu
and other Muhammadan cities in the neighbouring provinces.

ARCHES AT MANDU 65

the " Saracenic" arch. This happycombination of the tvvocon-
structive principles continued to be the most common character-
istic of Muhammadan building in India. It was essentially
an Indian invention or adaptation — not a foreign one ; that is,
the Indian craftsmen were not being instructed by foreign
builders, but were adapting the structural use of the arch, first
forced upon them by their Muhammadan rulers, in the way
which pleased themselves.

But in the province of Malwa, as in Gujerat, the pre-Mu-
hammadan buildings had been for many centuries largely built
of stone, and consequently the arch had not been used structur-
ally, even on a small scale, as it had been at Gaur, before the
Muhammadan ascendancy. It was, however, inevitable that
intelligent craftsmen, as Indians undoubtedly were, once they
had accepted the arch as a structural necessity in front of the
sanctuary of Muhammadan mosques, and finding it convenient
for bridging over wide spans between columns, piers, or walls,
should sooner or later begin to experiment with it in the interior
of their buildings. This is what happened at Mandu and some
otherplacesin Malwa. Fergusson, classifying Indian buildings
as a student of architectural style rather than as a craftsman,
assumes that at Mandu, as at Delhi and Ajmir, Persian, Arabian,
" or Syrian builders introduced by the Muhammadan rulers were
beginning to teach Indians the '"true elements of architectural
design," according to Saracenic ideas.

Prima facie, the mosques and palaces of Mandu seem to
afford strong evidence that this was the case ; but the crafts-
manship tells a very different tale. There is tile-work which
might be Persian or have been imported from Gaur, but no
evidence of the Arabian or Persian builder. The stone arches
are built by Indian masons experimenting for themselves in
this form of construction. The voussoirs of the arches are
not divided with mathematical regularity as they would be by
6

66 ARCHES AT MANDU

a Persian or Arabian mason skilled in arch construction, but
are cut irregularly ; the keystone, which to a skilled arch-builder
is the principal one, being the smallest. Moreover, the form of
them is not strictly Arabian or Persian, for the crowns are
tipped up to give that suggestion of the sacred pipal leaf which is
typical of the arch inlndian-Buddhist and in Hindu shrines. The
mihrabs are only adaptations of local Hindu shrines (PI. XVI 1 1).
The domes are not crowned by the correct Saracenic finial,but by
Buddhist-Hindu emblems — a sure sign that the masons were
Indians. There are buildings at Mandu which show the tran-
sition from the old to the new Indian style, some of the columns
in the interior being joined by beam and bracket and others by
arches (PI. XIX.). This is an indication that Indian builders,
being no longer bound by Hindu ritualistic traditions, were
voluntarily adapting their craft to the new structural conditions,
for foreign builders imported to instruct Indians would not
have used Hindu methods and symbolism.

The difference in point of style between Malwa architecture
and the contemporary Muhammadan styles in Gujerat and
Jaunpur is that at Mandu and other places in Malwathe builders
began to obtain the heights they wanted inside the mosques
by joining the piers and columns with pointed arches, instead
of by placing one column on the top of another, or by building
two stories, as Hindus would Have done. We may agree with
Fergusson in appreciating the effect of simple grandeur and
expression of power which they obtained in this way, without
denying to Indian builders the credit which is their due.

JAUNPUR

At Jaunpur the principal buildings of the fifteenth century
are the Atala Masjid (PI. XX.), completed in 1408 during the
Sultanate of Shah Ibrahim (1401-39), and the Jami' Masjid,

JAUNPUR 6

commenced in the time of Husain Shah (1452-78)— both noble
structures with a strongly marked Hindu character though the
exterior arches are without the ptpal-leaf keystone, and though
pointed vaultmgwith ribs is introduced into some compartments
of the interior. A very striking and original effect is produced
by the treatment of the
screen in front of the
liwan, which in these
buildings is reduced to
a single lofty arch,
flanked by turret-like
sloping buttresses l
which serve for mina-
rets, and filled in with
a subsidiary slightly
recessed screen in which
the "Saracenic" arch
and the Hindu lintel
are ingeniously com-
bined. An archaeolo-
gist or purist in style
may think the com-
bination strange and
hybrid, but as architec-
ture it is finely con-
ceived.

The whole style of
the building seems to be a reflection of the massive grandeur

1 The slope inwards of these buttresses is perhaps the Indian craftsman's reminiscence
of early Buddhist methods of construction when the walls of buildings were sloped inwards
to counteract the thrust of vaulted roofs. The sloping architraves sometimes found in the
doorways of modern buildings in Sikhim and Tibet are undoubtedly derived from this
ancient practice. Some early Pathan tombs in India show the same slope, e.g. Tughlaq
Khan's tomb at Delhi.

FIG. IO. — Jami' Masjid, Jaunpur : Principal Entrance
to liwan.

68 AHMADABAD

of Hindu tempks^ke the Sas-Bahu or Padmanabha temple at
Gwalior JFTTXXIj^which resembles these mosques in being
built iiTseveranstories and in being raised on a platform of
masonry. All the domes at Jaunpur are surmounted by Hindu
emblems, as is the case with nearly all Muhammadan mosques
in India.

AHMADABAD

About the same time as the buildings already described
were being constructed at Mandu and Jaunpur, Ahmadabad —
now the capital of an independent Musulman kingdom, and so
called from the name of the second Sultan of the dynasty — was
being adorned with a series of splendid buildings which, like
other Muhammadan edifices of this period, bear striking testi-
mony to Indian constructive genius. Ahmad Shah, being a
Rajput himself, had no foreign prepossessions in architectural
style, so that when he set about building a Jami' Masjid l soon
after the commencement of his reign in 1411, his Indian
builders were given an entirely free hand in the design of it.
It so happened that about the same time, as Fergusson tells
us, another independent Rajput chief, Kumbha Rana, of
Mewar, a Hindu of the Jaina sect, was building a great temple
at Ranpur, about sixty miles from Ahmadabad. A comparison
between these two buildings is particularly useful as an illus-
tration of my contention that Muhammadan and Hindu archi-
tects in India were, with rare exceptions, craftsmen of the same
race, imbued with the same craft traditions and possessing an
equal capacity for dealing with any constructive or purely
artistic work which their rulers might be pleased to place in
their hands.

1 A Jami' Masjid is the mosque in which the principal or Friday services are cele-
brated : hence it might be called a " cathedral mosque " to distinguish it from others.

AHMADABAD 69

The few instances in which it can be shown with certainty
that Muhammadan rulers in India sent to foreign countries
for architects or craftsmen by no means prove that India was
unable to supply men of equal or superior capacity, though
such cases might logically be taken to prove the ruler's pre-
judice or ignorance. The only possible way of deciding this
question judicially is to examine the buildings themselves for
evidence of foreign design and craftsmanship, taking care to
discriminate between the two, for a borrowed idea does not
necessarily mean foreign brains or handiwork.

The term " Saracenic," as applied to Muhammadan archi-
tecture in Gujerat, is even more misleading to the student than
Fergusson's classification is generally. There is not the least
indication in any of these buildings of foreign design or handi-
craft. No other form of Muhammadan architecture in India,
says Fergusson, is so essentially Indian : though generally
he represents the Saracenic builder as the inspirer of the Hindu,
he is constrained to admire this Indian style as being the most
elegant of them all. Comparing the Hindu temple at Ranpur
with the contemporary Jami' Masjid at Ahmadabad, he feels
instinctively that there is more poetry in the former, but, fear-
ing that his artistic instinct may offend his academic conscience,
he adds, " there is a sobriety about the plan of the mosque
which after all may be better taste."

Comparing the facade of the Jami' Masjid at Ahmadabad
(PL XXII) with the screens at Delhi and Ajmir, it is easy to
see how the fifteenth-century builders in Gujerat were trying
to modify the thirteenth-century models which had been forced
upon Indian master-craftsmen. They clearly felt with the
Jaunpur builders, that, however beautiful the Ajmir and Delhi
screens might be in themselves, they were ill-fitted in structure
for their purpose and artistically incongruous with the Hindu
interior of the mosque. So instead of altering the structure of

70 jAMI' MASJID, AHMADABAD

the interior in order to adapt the latter to the facade, as the
Mandu builders tried to do, they Hinduised the design of
the facade to make it fit the interior.

Disliking the regularity of the Ajmir and Delhi screens,
they broke up the horizontal lines by dividing the facade into
five compartments instead of three ; and by increasing the
height of each successive compartment from the ends towards
the centre of the facade, they gave the whole design the pyra-
midal lines which are characteristic of Hindu temple-structures.
The lofty " Saracenic" arches of the screen were reduced in
number to three instead of seven — one on each side of the great
central arch — the ten smaller Hindu arches of the adjoining com-
partments being formed by bringing five of the interior rows of
columns on the north and south of the liwan out to the line of
the facade and linking them together below the capitals with
brackets in Hindu fashion, in the same way as most of the
small arches were formed in the buildings at Gaur. The key-
stones of the three main arches have, as usual, the symbolism
of the pipal leaf worked into them.

The beautiful minarets which are so characteristic of this
and other mosques in Gujerat have none of the Saracenic feel-
ing of the Qutb Minarat Delhi, but are entirely Hindu in style,
being only adaptations of the splendid Raj put Towers of Victory
at Chitor (PI. XXIII). Unfortunately the Jami' Masjid lost
the upper part of its minarets by an earthquake in 1819, and the
unity of the whole design of the facade was thus sadly broken.
But even when this is taken into consideration one feels that
the difficulty of harmonising the Saracenic facade with the
Hindu interior was not overcome quite so successfully in the
Jami' Masjid as in some of the later buildings in Gujerat, par-
ticularly the Rani Rupavati Masjid at Mirzapur (Plate LIV),
which has also lost the upper part of its minarets. Fergusson's
observation that as the style progressed it became more and

PLATE XXIV

7o^]

JAMl' MASJID, AHMADABAD

A. HALF LONGITUDINAL SliCTIGN. B. CKObS SI-XTION.

(Drawn by the Archcrological Survey ot India)

PLATE XXV

Tol]

JAMI' MASJID, AHMADABAD: INTERIOR OF

JAMI' MASJID, AHMADABAD 7,

more Indian, rather than Saracenic, may be noted in this
connection.

The beauty of the Jami' Masjid and of most of the Gujerat
buildings of this century lies, however, mostly in their interior
structure and decoration, into which no trace of the Saracenic
element enters. Even the most sacred symbol of Islam, the
mihrab, is so completely transformed that, except for a small

FIG. II. — Jami' Masjid, Ahmadabad : Plan of liwan (from a drawing by the Archaeological

Survey of India).

pointed arch, as much Hindu as Saracenic, it is only a replica
of the door of a Hindu shrine.

Plate XXV, the interior of this building, and Plate L,
showing the interior of another Gujerat building, the Jami'
Masjid at Champanir, will help the reader to realise the decora-
tive richness and noble structural design of these early Gujerat
mosques, though the Champanir mosque is really about half
a century later than the Ahmadabad building.

72 jAMI' MASJID, AHMADABAD

The plan of the liwan at Ahmadabad (fig. 1 1) will show the
disposition of the columns and arrangement of the domes ; the
sections (PI. XXIV.) will explain the structure of the interior.
There are fifteen large domes, each supported on eight columns
according to the usual Hindu design, and built up in horizon-
tal courses by gradually changing the octagonal base into a
circle. The large domes are linked together by a flat roof and
by a number of smaller domes of similar construction supported
on four columns each. The longitudinal section of the liwan
follows the pyramidal lines of the exterior, the great central
dome in front of the main entrance, together with its four smaller
connecting domes, being raised up above the adjacent ones so
as to admit a diffused light through clerestory windows. A
similar arrangement obtains in the next adjacent aisles on the
longitudinal section. Fergusson observes of this arrangement
that " the necessary amount of light is introduced, as in 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
anyone standing there. The light is reflected from the external
roof into the dome, and perfect ventilation is obtained, with the
most pleasant effect of illumination without glare." He might
have added that the arrangement was not a Saracenic invention,
but a long-standing tradition in Indian temple-building of
that part of India ; being only a slight modification of the
similar idea which is carried out in the lighting of the splendid
chapter-house at Ajanta (Cave XIX.). None of the structural
Buddhist monasteries of the same period are extant, otherwise
we should doubtless have discovered in them the exact proto-
types both of the Ranpur temple and of the Jimi' Masjid at
Ahmadabad.

As the temple built by Kumbha Rana (PL XXVI) lies in
a sequestered valley in Jodhpur far away from the beaten track,
it has not attracted so much attention as the famous shrines of

KUMBHA RANA'S TEMPLE 73

Mount Abu and has not yet been properly photographed, so it
is difficult to add to what Fergusson has given for the purpose
of showing that Kumbha Rana s temple and Ahmad Shah's
mosque belong to exactly the same school of architectural
design. But one interesting point may be noticed, which
might be puzzling to Fergusson's readers— the fact that several
of the domes of the Hindu temple are on the exterior " Mu-
hammadan " —i.e. they are not sculptured in the Hindu style,
but are brought to an even surface by cement and fine plaster
in the same way as the domes of Muhammadan mosques. It
is possible that in this particular instance the domes may be
modern restoration, but it is a fact that soon after the Muham-
madan conquests began, the Hindu temple-builders in Northern
India began to treat the exterior of their domes in the same
way as their craft brethren, the Muhammadan builders, were
doing. It would be quite wrong to take this as a proof that
the Muhammadans were teaching a superior art to the Hindus ;
it was simply that the latter sheltered themselves from the fury
of their oppressors by observing the same law of protective
imitation by which nature provides for the protection of the
weak against the strong. The Brahmans were trying to pro-
tect their temples and to make them less offensive to Muham-
madan susceptibility by making less conspicuous the anthropo-
morphic symbolism which Islam denounced as " idolatry." At
the same time the teaching of Islam was not without its
influence upon Hinduism, inasmuch as both Jaina and Saiva
teachers began to discountenance the use of images in religious
ritual, as the Vedic rishis before the days of Buddhism had
done. Idolatry, in the Puritan acceptance of the word, had
never been and is not now a part of Brahmanical religious
teaching.

The result of this was that in Northern India Hindu and
Muhammadan buildings could no longer be distinguished by

their domes, for they were often exactly similar. This, however,
applies only to the pavilions and to the porch, or mandapam,
in front of Hindu shrines, for neither the curvilinear spire of
the northern styles nor the pyramidal structure which sur-
mounted the shrine containing the image or sacred symbol in
Dravidian temples was ever reproduced in Indian mosques.
Of course the entire absence of figure sculpture, and generally
of animals also, from Muhammadan buildings gave them a
distinctive character, quite apart from the more frequent use of
arches and differences in planning. What they lost in human
interest and in plastic beauty they gained in charm of colour,
in fine combinations of geometric and floral patterns, and in
rich material. To many Europeans with " classical " predilec-
tions they will be more pleasing and correct in taste, owing to
the greater restraint in plastic treatment which the law of Islam
imposed upon Indian craftsmen. On the other hand, those
who can enter into the spirit of the great Gothic masters will
feel not less admiration for the imaginativeness and wider
artistic range which are shown in Hindu temple decoration
of the same period.

Throughout the fifteenth century we find the Indian Mu-
hammadan builders pursuing their own aims on these lines,
often using foreign models in decorative design, as good crafts-
men in all countries use them, not imitatively, but to increase
their stock of artistic material. As regards structural design
and craftsmanship, it would be difficult to name a single Indian
Muhammadan building in this century which could be called
foreign to India in the same sense as St. Mark's at Venice was
foreign to Italy, or as both Gothic and Renaissance architecture
were originally foreign to England.

In several fine mosques at Gujerat and Jaunpur continued
experiments were made in the design of the facade, though no
important variation was made in the interior : the mosque of

PLATE XXVII

741

. / • ..
ALIF KHAN'S MASJID, DHOLKA

ALIF KHAN'S MOSQUE - 75

Muhafiz Khan at Ahmadabad is one of the most successful in
this respect, and one of the few which has its minarets still intact.
The Jami' Masjid at Dholka is another good example which Dr.
Burgess supposes to be not later than 1485. The Alif Khan
Masjid, otherwise known as the Brick Masjid, is dated by
the same authority at about 1450: it is especially interest-
ing in the present day — when one of those many foolish or
cynical reasons urged for neglecting the Indian building-craft
is that it is necessarily extravagant — as showing what beautiful
work Indian builders have done in brick and plaster as well
as in more precious materials. It is necessary to observe in
this connection that comparatively few Indian buildings usu-
ally classed as stone are constructed entirely of solid masonry.
The main walls are generally of brick faced with stone, some-
times marble. The framing-in of the doorways of Alif Khan's
mosque (PI. XXVII) is an adaptation of the design of the
doorways of Hindu shrines.

The mosque and tombs at Sarkhej, near Ahmadabad,
which also belong to the middle of the fifteenth century, are
chiefly remarkable for the development they show in the use
of pierced stone trellises which had been employed in Hindu
temples formany centuries previously. This was anapplication
of indigenous craft which afterwards became a fine art as ex-
quisite as Persian tile-work, and constituting one of the chief
glories of Indian mosques of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries.

Among the important Muhammadan tombs built in this
century, that of Sayyid Usman, near Ahmadabad, is interesting
from a structural point of view from a new departure which
was made in the supports of the dome ; the base of the latter,
instead of being octagonal, was transformed into a dodecagon,
and greater massiveness was given to the supports by joining
two or four pillars into single piers — a practice which became

SAYYID MUBARAK'S TOMB

B B mm m

H Ol B B

a 11 n a H

H H II

B 8

• •

a n

ta a

FIG. 12. — Plan of Sayyid Usman's Tomb (from a drawing
by Mr. H. Cousens).

common in later Mu-
hammadan buildings
and gave them a dis-
tinctive character. It
was built, according to
Fergusson, in 1460.

Another fine tomb
of about the same date,
that of Sayyid Muba-
rak, Minister of Mah-
mud Begarah, who
reigned at Gujerat from
1 459 to 1511, is almost
unique among the
buildings of the pro-
vince, because the
builders, desiring to
plan it on a grander scale than usual by increasing the dis-
tance between the supports of the roof, took to using arches
throughout the building, includ-
ing the double corridors which
surrounded the enclosure of the
tomb, as well as in the exterior
screens which form the four facades
and in the entrance porch. Here,
also, for the first time apparently,
clerestory windows with pointed
arches were introduced into the
octagonal base of the dome,
giving the structure a distinctly
Byzantine appearance. Here, cer-
tainly, the casual observer might "" — ' * ' T ' ' ' ' " ' "

o i -1 i i i FIG. 13. — Plan of Sayyid Mubarak's

say, Saracenic builders have been Tomb

78 GAUR AND MALWA

at work. But a careful study will show the Indian masonic
tradition carried right through the whole building. The
arches are put in by Indian craftsmen,1 for they have the
symbolism of the pipal leaf in the keystones. The piers are
in the form of four square pillars grouped together, a design
which a Hindu builder would adopt when a wider spacing than
usual necessitated an increase in the traditional size of the roof-
supports. A Saracenic master-builder, accustomed to wide
spaces between the piers, would not think of a large pier as four
small pillars combined. The domes are all of Indian construc-
tion and with Indian symbolism. There is no trace anywhere
of foreign suggestion or supervision. All that the Saracenic
or Byzantine appearance of the building proves is that, given
similar conditions and similar constructive problems, skilled
craftsmen in all parts of the world arrive at similar results,
though they may choose different ways of working.

At Gaur and at Mandu the buildings of the fifteenth cen-
tury show little variation on those of the preceding century.
The Dakhil Gate and other entrances to the Fort at Gaur and
the hklakhi Masjid or tomb at Pandua, ascribed to about the
middle of the century, are examples of the beautiful brickwork
with moulded and carved decoration which was one of the
master-crafts of Bengal until quite recent times.

In Malwa there was great building activity throughout the
century, a number of palaces being constructed by the Sultans
of that province at Mandu, and a very fine mosque, the Jami'
Masjid, which was finished by Mahmud Shah in 1454. The
style of these buildings has already been described.

1 It should be noted that Mahmudabad, the place of Sayyid Mubarak's tomb, is close to
the old Hindu city of Dabhoi, some of the remains of which are shown in Plates II and
III. Doubtless the Muhammadans, as they were wont to do, had drawn many Hindu
craftsmen into their service from there.

CHAPTER VI

INDIAN ARCHES, BRACKETS, CAPITALS, AND DOMES — THE
HINDU TEMPLE SIKHARA

HAVING discussed the general characteristics of Muhammadan
buildings in the first three centuries of their domination in
Northern India, I think it will help to explain more fully
the previous chapters as well as those which follow if we
begin now to analyse the evolution of various important
details in Indian architecture, both as regards structure and
symbolism. In Indian art the ideal and the practical act
and react upon each other to such an extent that it is im-
possible for the outsider to understand fully the one without
knowing the other ; for if in the primitive stages of con-
structive development we shall find the symbolism growing
out of practical craftsmanship, we shall discover later that the
symbolism itself often leads to constructive ideas.

We have before noticed that the pointed arch was by no
means unfamiliar to Indian craftsmen before the Muham-
madan invasion, though structurally they had used it very
sparingly and on a small scale. It has not yet been under-
stood by European writers that the trefoil arch originated
in Indian Buddhist symbolism many centuries before it
appeared in Western art. In India, as in Europe, it was a
form which architecture borrowed from the graphic arts, for
it originated with the transcendental ideas connected with the
Indian conception of the Deity, and with anthropomorphic

8o THE TREFOIL ARCH

symbolism. As far as we know, the various forms of Indian
religious ritual wrhich were directly derived from Aryan
teaching had this in common with Muhammad's creed, namely,
that until the beginning of the Christian era they dis-
countenanced any representation of the Deity in human form.
In early Buddhist sculpture the symbols of worship are
inanimate memorials of the Master's life on earth ; the
Bodhi tree underneath which he won Nirvana l ; his sacred
footprints ; his begging bowl ; but not his own person.
Whether Buddhists until the time of Nagarjuna had the
same feelings as Muhammadans regarding the representation
of the Deity, or whether it was simply that they had not
until that time regarded the Buddha as a divine being, I
will not attempt to discuss. The important point in Indian
architectural history is that the various forms of foliated
arches were associated with the first painted and sculptured
representations of the divine Buddha, which began to appear
with the rapid spread of Mahayana Buddhism in the early
centuries of the Christian era.

It has been supposed by Oriental scholars that the earliest
sculptures of this kind are those of Graeco-Roman craftsmen
of the Gandhara and Mathura schools ; but I believe that
further archaeological investigation will show that this assump-
tion is untenable. Sister Nivedita has drawn attention 2 to in-
ternal evidence in the Gandhara sculptures which seems to
indicate that they are only Graeco-Roman reproductions or
imitations of a pre-existing Indian model of the divine Buddha
which should be sought for in the Magadha country. It is
possible, again, that Indian Buddhist sculptors were borrow-

1 Professor Rhys Davids has shown that according to Buddhist teaching the attain-
ment of Nirvana is a purely spiritual achievement, and does not necessarily imply the
dissolution of the physical body.

8 Modern Review, Calcutta, July, August, 1910.

PLATE XXIX

A. LOTUS-LEAK AND I'il'AL-LEAF ARCH, AJAN1A

\>. LOTUS LEAK WITH MAKARA (S. INDIAN UKON/CK) C. LOTUS LKAK AND UANYAN LEAK ( ITUETAN IMAGE)

Bo,

U. LOTUS LEAK AND 1'll'AL LEAF, AJANTA
DECORATIVE APPLICATIONS OF THE AURA

THE TREFOIL ARCH

ing from earlier Jain representations of their quasi-divine
teachers, the Tirthankaras. In any case the symbolism or the
ideal from which the trefoil arch is derived was not Greek, or
Roman, or Saracenic, but purely Indian.

The trefoil was the shape of the aura, the glory or divine
light which shone from the body of the Buddha from the
moment when he attained Nirvana under the Bodhi tree at
Gaya. The simplest form of the aura, as drawn by painters and
sculptors — and probably the earliest — was the lotus-leaf shape,
derived from the gables and windows of the barrel-vaulted roofs
of early Indian buildings, which again might have had their
prototype in the primitive structures of reeds and thatch which
are still found in Mesopotamia.,

The term " horse-shoe "arch as applied to these Indian
Buddhist buildings by Fergusson and
other writers is very inappropriate,
for the horse-shoe has no meaning in
such a connection, whereas the lotus
leaf was a symbol so full of sacred as-
sociations for Buddhists that this form
of window and gable is found con-
stantly repeated in early Indian build-
ings as a decorative motif when it was
not required structurally. The idea of
good luck popularly associated with
the horse-shoe is perhaps derived
from its resemblance to the lotus leaf.
The outer curve of the lotus-leaf arch
(Plate XXIX, fig. A) took the form
of the leaf of the sacred pipal— the Bodhi tree (fig. 14).

The pipal tree was associated with the enlightenment of

1 Dr. Felix Langenegger in " Die Baukunst des Iraq " (Gerhard Kiihtmann :
Dresden, 1911) illustrates one of these (fig. 45).

FIG. 15.— Leaf of the I'tpal Tree
(Fiats religiosa).

82 THE TREFOIL ARCH

Buddha ; but various trees, such as the banyan, were dedicated
to other religious teachers, the favourite place for a yogin's
meditation being under the shade of a tree. When a Rishi
was worshipped as a deity, it was therefore appropriate to make
the aureole round the head of the image take the shape of the
leaf of his especial tree ; by an easy transition of ideas the leaf
was transformed into a flame.

When used to represent the aura in a sculptured or painted
figure of Buddha, the lotus leaf was generally associated with
the makara, a kind of fish-dragon, the fish being an emblem
of Kama, the god of love, and of fertility (PL XXIX, fig. B) :
here points of flame are added to the edge of the lotus leaf.
The fish was also a sign of good luck, for in the Indian legend
of Creation it was a fish that saved Manu, the progenitor of
the human race, from the flood. This form of aureole with
the makara and lotus leaf combined is still a tradition with
Saivaite image makers in Southern India.

The trefoil arch was a compound aureole, or nimbus, made
upof a combination of the lotus and pipal or banyan leaf slightly
different to that which obtained in the window or gable described
above. The pipal leaf stood for the glory round the head of the
Buddha, while the lotus leaf remained as before to indicate the
shape of the aura which surrounded the body. The intersection
of the two formed the trefoil arch with a pointed crown (Plate
XXIX, fig. c). A very common variety of this was made by
the chakra, or wheel of the Law — which was also the emblem
of the sun-gods, Vishnu, Surya, and Mitra — taking the place of
the pipal leaf, making the crown of the arch round instead of
pointed.

The structural use of these trefoil arches and of their de-
rivations began in Indian buildings about the same time as
the painted and sculptured representations of the Buddha were
introduced into Indian art — i.e. in the early centuries of the

PLATE XXX

A. NICHES IN THE 'ALI MASJID STClPA

B. NICHES AT NALANDA

C. AKCHED BRACKET AT MUUHEKA
DECORATIVE AND STRUCTURAL APPLICATIONS OF THE AURA

ARCHED NICHES 83

Christian era, when images were placed in niches in the walls
of temples, monasteries, or relic shrines, the niche itself taking
the form of the aureole. A common form of the niche was
the lotus-leaf gable with the pipal-leaf finial (PL XXIX, fig. D).

A Graeco-Roman adaptation of this with trefoiled arches

showing the round aureole of the cult of Mitra combined with
the pointed pipal leaf of Buddhism— is given in PL XXX, A,
taken from the 'Ali Mas-
jid stupa in the Gand-
hara country, a building
of about the first century
A.D. Several varieties of
arched niches of a date
long anterior to the
Hegira are found in the
ruins of the famous
Buddhist monastery of
Nalanda (Plate XXX, B),
which flourished from
the early days of Buddhism until about the eighth cen-
tury A.D.

The sun-temple of Martand in Kashmir, built in the
middle of the eighth century, shows the round trefoil arch
used structurally both for doorways and for niches (fig. 16) :
this being a stone building, the usual Indian method of con-
structing arches in horizontal courses is used here, as it was
several centuries later in the arched screens of the mosques at
Old Delhi and at Ajmir. The transition from the simple lotus-
leaf, or so-called horse-shoe arch, to lobed or cusped arches was
all the more easy because the inner curve of the early Indian
gable or window was divided into a number of equal spaces by
the ends of the horizontal wooden purlins which supported the
roof (see PL XXIX, fig. A). When an image with the wheel

FIG. 16.— Foiled Arches at Martand.

84 THE BUDDHIST WHEEL

nimbus behind the head was placed in one of these gable niches,
it would be an obvious elaboration of the niche to continue the
half-wheel all round the latter so as to produce the cusped arch
shown in fig. c, which is a form of bracket commonly used
in Hindu temples of Western India for distributing the weight
of the heavy architraves between the columns (PL XXX, c).
The makara or fish emblem at the springing of the arch shows
the derivation of this bracket form from the aureole of images.
This bracket, again, was the prototype of the lobed or cusped
arches in later Muhammadan buildings. It is used for its
original purpose as a bracket in the Jami' Masjid at Ahma-
dabad (PL XXV).

The Buddhist or Vaishnavaite wheel or half-wheel was
also a very common decorative motif in ceilings and in the
interior of Indian temple domes. The wheel is even found
crowning the pinnacle of Saracenic mosques, and it is from
the half-wheel, rather than from the Roman scallop, that both
Saracenic and Gothic cuspings should be derived, for the ex-
amples of sixth- and eighth-century cuspings given by Professor
Lethaby1 as prototypes of the Gothic should, I think, be
recognised as vestiges of the Buddhist influence in Western
Asia rather than of the Roman.

The arched niches for images which were so numerous in
early Buddhist buildings in India, and from India passed into
Western Asia with Buddhism, were superseded in later Indian
buildings, constructed chiefly of stone, by rectangular niches,
not because the symbolism of the aura fell into disuse as
Buddhism declined, but because the aura was elaborated orna-
mentally to such an extent in later Buddhist, Jain, and
Brahmanical iconography that it became a part of the sculptor's
rather than the builder's craft, and in stonework was usually
carved out of the same block as the image to which it belonged.

1 " Architecture," p. 145.

INDIAN ARCHES 83

Thus every conceivable variety of pointed and round arches,
with or without cuspings, were familiar to all Indian craftsmen
for centuries before the Muhammadan invasion, though they
were generally recognised as belonging to the design of metal
and stone images.

Now, when Muhammadan ritual insisted that arches
should be used in Indian mosques, the first impulse of the
Indian craftsmen was to adapt these plastic forms, with
which they had been familiar for centuries, to structural
purposes. They proceeded to Indianise the Persian or
Arabian type of pointed arch, originally derived from early
Buddhist shrines, first by giving the crown the pointed tip
of the pipal leaf, like the aura of Indian Buddhist images.
This we can see in a great many of the thirteenth- and four-
teenth-century Indian mosques — the first one at Old Delhi,
the next at Ajmir, and several of those at Jaunpur, Ahma-
dabad, and Mandu. At first it was done tentatively and
somewhat crudely, with the effect of weakening the appear-
ance of the arch, though it tells unmistakably that Indian
and not foreign masons were at work. The Indian crafts-
men themselves evidently saw that the arches thus partially
Indianised were not aesthetically satisfactory, for already
in Altamsh's mosque at Ajmir they began to foliate them
(Plate X).

Another device used in India in Muhammadan buildings,
for relieving what seemed to the Indian craftsman's eye the
monotonous line of the Saracenic arch, was an enrichment of
the soffit of the arch with a characteristic Indian ornament,
used experimentally in many of the earlier buildings and
developing later on into the more elegant form of it seen
in fig. 17, which is from one of Akbar's buildings at Fatehpur-
Sikri (sixteenth century).

But while, on the one hand, there was a tendency in early

86 FOILED ARCHES

Muhammadan buildings in India to elaborate upon the little
that can be called Saracenic, there was, on the other hand, a
marked endeavour to reduce to the simplest form of expression
the major part which was Buddhist or Hindu. It was almost
as if the Indian craftsmen, under the influence of Islam, were
reverting to the style of early Buddhist art. The masonry
and sculpture of the Muhammadan mosques at Gaur are
•especially interesting for showing the transition of medieval
Buddhist-Hindu forms of structure and decoration into the

FIG. 17. — Arch at Fatehpur-Sikri.

simplified aniconic types which they assumed in Muham-
madan buildings. The architraves of the two doorways of the
Chota Sona Masjid (early sixteenth century) shown in Plate
XXXI are clearly derived from Hindu prototypes similar to
those which were used by the Gujerat builders as models for
a mihrab (Plate XXXII), though in this case all the details
are simplified, all anthropomorphic symbolism is studiously
avoided, and the sculpture is kept in very low relief. Thecusped
arches of the heads of the doorways are of the same type as those
which are used in the more famous Mogul buildings of the
seventeenth century, such as the Diwan-i-Khas at Delhi and

X
X
X

.H
.<

*J
.0,

8661

MIHRAB, JAMl' MASJID, JUNAGARH

FOILED ARCHES 87

the Moti Masjid at Agra. They are obviously only a simpli-
fication of the highly ornate foliated brackets, derived from
the Buddhist half-wheel as explained above, such as we see in
the porch of the Mudhera temple (PL XXX, fig. c). The
ogee curve at the springing of the arch — which distinguishes
most Indian foliated arches from Saracenic — is the simplified
profile of the makara, or fish-dragon emblem, which belongs to-
the Buddhist-Hindu prototype.1

The masonry of the heads of the two doorways shows
the transition from the bracket to the arch. In the right-hand
doorway (B) the mason has constructed the head of it in Hindu
fashion as a bracket pure and simple ; using only four blocks
of stone, but inserting a small oblong piece above the
crown of the false arch, apparently on account of a fault in the
two larger blocks, or to correct some mistake in the carving.
In the other doorway (A) of the same design the blocks are
cut as in the true arch, and a keystone is inserted, probably
because the mason had not stone of sufficient size to complete
the arch with four blocks, like the other. It will be noticed
how frequently the open lotus flower, the sun-emblem, is used
as an ornament — a reminiscence of the early Buddhist rails.

The beautiful mihrab of the fourteenth-century Adinah
mosque abGaur(Pl. XXXIII) is so obviously Hindu in design
hardly to require comment. One only has to search among as
the ancient sculptures which are scattered in profusion about
the districts surrounding Gaur to find any number of its
Hindu or Buddhist prototypes. The image of Vishnu- or

1 The cusped arches of the Chota Sona Masjid are not the earliest of their kind
in Muhammadan buildings in India, though they are most interesting as revealing,
clearly the mental process by which the Indian craftsmen worked them out. There are
similar arches in the tomb of Altamsh at Old Delhi (c. 1235), and it is quite possible that
the Indian masons brought by Mahmud to Ghazni had arrived at the same form of
structural arches by a similar mental process. The main point is that the derivation off
this form of cusped arch is Indian, not Saracenic.

S8 ARABIC INSCRIPTIONS

Surya found lying near a village in the Manbhum district
•of Bengal has a trefoil arched canopy, symbolising the aura
•of the god, of exactly the same type as the outer arch of the
mihrab, only the sculptor of the latter has studiously observed
the Muhammadan law in converting the rakshasas or
•demon's head which Hindu tradition placed at the crown of
the arch, and all other symbolic ornament derived from
animate natural forms into conventional foliage. Except for
the absence of such symbols and of the image in the niche, the
whole mihrab is completely Hindu, both in construction and
in design.

The only suggestion of Saracenic influence is in the inscrip-
tions and arabesque ornament with which the whole of the
plane surfaces of the wall are covered. The technical treat-
ment of these, as a kind of fretwork in two planes of relief,
was derived from the Arabian practice of carving quotations
from the Quran on the walls of their mosques. For the
sake of clearness the inscriptions had to be treated in this way,
without any plastic elaboration, and when they were finished
the inventive imagination of the carvers took delight in cover-
ing the rest of the surface with geometric and foliated patterns
of infinite variety, kept flat like the inscriptions. This was the
Musulman craftsman's substitute for the wider and more
human field of interest in which the Hindu sculptor revelled.
If the former was less liable to run into extravagance, it was
because his range of expression was much more limited ; not
because his artistic capacity was greater : though it may be that
the greater reticence imposed upon him by this limitation was
sometimes a useful discipline for the Oriental imagination.

If the various stages in the evolution of the arch in India
are carefully studied, it will not be difficult to trace the Buddh-
ist-Hindu craft tradition in the later Muhammadan buildings
which Fergusson and other writers wrongly classify as

PLATE XXXIII

>-r.i'i 1 1

88J]

MIHRAB, AD1NAH MASJID, GAUK

PLATE XXXIV

BSh,

STONKS FROM RUINED TKMPLKS : MANl'.HL'M DISTRICT, I'.KNGAL

ARCHES AT BIJAPUR 89

" Saracenic." Take, for example, the fine recessed doorway of
the 'AH Shahi Pir-ki Masjid at Bijapur (Plate XXXV).

The Bijapur buildings are justly commended by Fergus-
son for their originality, largeness, and grandeur, but as usual
he tries to find an explanation for these qualities in the fact
that the Adil Shahi dynasty under which they were constructed
was of foreign (Turkish) descent, and hated everything Hindu.
A careful examination of the doorway in the light of the ex-
planation given above will prove that the whole design of it
bears not a.trace of foreign inspiration ; like the vast majority
of Muhammadan buildings in India, it shows only a skilful re-
arrangement of traditional Hindu constructive and decorative
ideas within the limitations imposed by the law of Islam. All
the arches have the pipal-leaf crown. The bracketing under
the front arch is unmistakably Hindu, likewise the cusped
ornamental arch which goes round it. The conventional device
at the crown of the cusping is the Muhammadan aniconic ren-
dering of the Hindu rakshasa's head (kirtti-mukhi). The cir-
cular ornaments in the spandrils of the arch are flattened-out
lotus sun-emblems, which are so conspicuous in the rails of
Buddhist stupas, in Muhammadan disguise. We have seen
them already (PI. XXXI) in an early sixteenth-century mosque
at Gaur in their original Indian form. Another very common
Hindu motif is the amalaka ornament which fills in the angle
between the two inner arches. The structural basis of the whole
doorway can be seen in the buildings of the Muhammadan
quarter in the neighbouring Hindu city Vijayanagar (fig. 43).

A very characteristic feature of Indian architectural design
from the fourteenth century onwards was the combination of
the arch with the bracket ; the bracket generally playing the
constructive part in accordance with Hindu tradition, the arch
being used as a symbolic and decorative element. We shall
find this combination very frequent in the sixteenth-century

9o BRACKETS

Mogul buildings of Akbar's time. The interior of Ibrahim's
tomb at Bijapur (Plate LXXXV) also illustrates it.

The bracket by itself was of course one of the distinctive
features of Hindu building construction before Muhammadan
times. It would require a lengthy monograph to illustrate all
its constructive applications, and to do justice to the infinite
skill and fancy which the Indian craftsmen lavished upon the
carving of their brackets. The noble gateway at Dabhoi (Plate
II) makes one understand the reluctance of Indian builders to
use the arch, even for wide openings, when they had plenty of
fine material for brackets like these to support the lintels.

The Muhammadans continued to use the bracket through-
out most of their buildings, but added nothing to the Hindu
craftsman's knowledge in this respect. Their smaller arches
were very commonly formed of two brackets joined together.
The true arch was generally reserved for wide openings which
could not be easily spanned by beam and bracket. The deep
bracketed cornices, or dripstones, as well as the balconies sup-
ported on brackets, which are so frequent in Indian Muham-
madan buildings, are of pure Hindu design without any
Saracenic suggestion.

We will now pass on to consider the construction and
symbolism of Indian domes, as found in Muhammadan build-
ings. Though the dome seems to be so distinctively charac-
teristic of Saracenic architecture, there is not, pace Fergusson,
a single type of dome in Indian Muhammadan buildings which
is not of indigenous origin or derived from early Buddhist
prototypes.

It is the case in all countries, but more especially in India,
that the great architectural monuments now extant, which
seem to us to exhaust all the possibilities of ancient art and
science, represent only a very srnall number of the links in the
development of building methods. The missing links are,

PLATE XXXV

DOORWAY OF 'AlJ SHAH1-PIR-KI MASJ1D, BIJAPLR

INDIAN DOMES 91

however, frequently to be found in the humbler dwellings
built by craftsmen of the present day who have inherited the
traditions of ancient times. In India a few pictorial fragments
or rock sculptures are all the indications we now have of many
centuries of architectural growth and of thousands of magnifi-
cent buildings which in the days of powerful' Buddhist and
Hindu dynasties were mostly constructed of wood, brick, and
plaster — materials which have comparatively little permanence
in a tropical climate and offer little resistance to the destructive
energies of foreign invaders or the fury of iconoclasts. But
the living traditions of Indian craft, the study of which has
been so much neglected, will often supply clues for which the
archaeologist searches in vain among the monuments of the past.

There are two methods of domical construction found in
early Muhammadan mosques in India — one, peculiar to India,
in which the dome is built up of horizontal courses of stone ;
the other in which stone ribs resting upon the octagonal base
form the structural framework, the intervals between the ribs
being filled up with horizontal masonry. The reconstructed
Hindu domes used in the Qutb Mosque (Plate IX) are examples
of the first method. The dome of the Champanir Jami'
Masjid (Plate L) is an illustration of the other.

Fergusson made a cardinal mistake in supposing that the
latter method was not an Indian one.1 Not only was it Indian
but the ribbed dome was certainly the earlier of the two
Indian types ; for the method of construction is directly de-
rived from primitive or temporary domes built with a frame-
work of bambu or of wood, whereas the alternative method
is distinctly lithic in its technique.

The principal Indian building styles may be roughly
divided into three main periods according to roof construction,
which is the chief determining factor in the evolution of archi-

1 " Indian Architecture," vol. ii. p. 57.

92 INDIAN DOMES

tectural style. The first period is that in which roofs are built
with a framework of bambu ; in the second period the bambu
construction is reproduced more permanently in timber car-
pentry ; in the third period the wooden construction is adapted
to brick or stone. In all three periods brick and stone were
used to some extent in the substructure of the buildings.
The same classification will serve to indicate roughly the build-
ings which belong to three different strata of society — the first
one representing the humble dwellings of the ryot and of the
lower castes generally ; the second the houses of the well-to-
do middle classes ; the third, the palace of the rajah and of
the nobility, state buildings, military or civil, and temples or
mosques.

The vaulted roofs of Asokan buildings, as sculptured
in the Bharut and Sanchi reliefs, are all derived from bambu
prototypes. The style we see here, which might be called the
Early Magadhan style, belongs to Bengal, a country in which
the bambu even in the present day determines the structural
character of village huts and also that of temple architecture.

The modern Bengali style of temple, so .far from belong-
ing to what Fergusson calls an "aberrant type," is the lineal
descendant of the early Magadhan style. The form of the
lotus-leaf or " horse-shoe " window or gable of the Asokan
buildings is that which bent cane or bambu naturally assumes.
The elasticity of the latter is a valuable quality in roof con-
struction which Bengali craftsmen were not slow to utilise ;
but there were ritualistic as well as technical reasons which
commended this form to the Asokan builders. The lotus-leaf
arch symbolised the sun rising from the sea, or from the banks
of the holy Ganges. The adoration of the rising sun has been
from time immemorial, and still is, an essential part of all
Indian religious ritual, and it agreed well with the joyous
spirit of the early Buddhists to let the sun's first rays enter

INDIAN DOMES 93

into their houses and shine upon the images in their temples
through these lotus-leaf windows and gables. Their vaulted
roofs were first built in bambu ribs of the same form ; in the
rock-hewn Buddhist chapter-houses of a later period we can see
the bambu ribs imitated in wood (Plate I). When stone began
to be used more extensively in building roofs, the difficulty of
making, such stone ribs for vaults of large size probably led to
the trabeate style of building, with terraced roofs, taking the
place of the early Magadhan method, except in the country of
its origin, JBengal, where brick
vaulting and arches came into
use.

The principle of ribbed dome
construction continued, however,
to be used for domes not built
solidly of stone or brick. The
lotus-leaf or bent-bambu arch be-
came the structural basis of the
dome, known to Western writers
as the " bulbous" or " Tartar"
dome. The earliest Indian domes

FIG. 1 8. — Diagram of Bell-shaped Dome.

— those of stupasor relic shrines —

were approximately hemispherical in shape and built of solid
brickwork; but when images of Buddha began to be placed
under domed canopies supported by columns, such as we
see sculptured on the facade of the great Ajanta chapter-house
(PI. VI), the dome was necessarily a structural one, and, being
so, would be constructed in the Magadha country with ribs of
bambu bent into the lotus-leaf or " bulbous " shape. The
eight-ribbed Dravidian domes, such as are sculptured at
Mamallapuran and Kalugumalai (PL XXXVI), are all repro-
ductions of structural domes of this type built with bambu or
wooden ribs ; the bell-shaped dome being derived from the lotus

RIBBED DOMES

kalasha

Maha-padma

or bulbous dome by adding eaves with an upward curve (fig. 18),
which served the practical purpose of keeping the rain off the
walls of the building.

The symbolism which the ancient Hindu craft canons—
the Silpa-sastras — connects with the ornamentation of a dome l
is directly derived from the principles of bambu or wooden
construction. The ornament gave symbolic expression to the

most vital parts of it. In a
primitive ribbed dome, made
with a bambu or wooden
framework, there are four
essential parts which ensure
the stability of the whole
(fig. 19) : (i) the pole or axis,
which must be firmly fixed
either in the ground or upon
a stable base, such as an
inner roof or dome ; (2) the
bambu or wooden ribs ; (3)
the ties by which the ribs
are secured to the pole at
the springing of the dome ;
(4) the cap which secures
them firmly at the crown of the dome.

The lotus petals which invariably decorate the springing
of an Indian dome are placed just where the ties — forming a
chakra, the wheel of the Law to Buddhists and a symbol of
the universe to all Hindus — bind the ribs together at the base.
The eight spokes of the wheel would be placed auspiciously by
the master-craftsman in the direction of the four quarters and
four intermediate points. The cap at the crown of the dome
— decorated by the Maha-padma, the mystic eight-petalled

1 See pp. 25-6.

chakra

FIG. 19.— Construction of Ribbed Dome.

RIBBED DOMES

lotus, or by the amalaka— resembled the nave of a wheel, the
most sacred of symbols as denoting the central force of the
universe, the Cause of all existence. Hence the prominence
which was given to this
member by all Indian crafts-
men, and the veneration
with which the amalaka was
regarded. The water-pot
or kalasha, containing a
lotus bud, placed above the
Maha-padma or the ama-
laka as a finial was a most
appropriate symbol of the
creative element and of life
itself.

The primitive lotus
dome, translated into per-
manent materials (fig. 20),
had many practical recom-
mendations, for the form is
one in which the outward
thrust is reduced to a mini-
'- mum. Hence, although in
India, when stone began to
be largely used in temple
building, the system of
building massive domes in
horizontal courses largely
superseded the Buddhist method, the earlier system used by
Indian craftsmen continued in vogue in Persia and Central
Asia, where stone construction on a large scale never became
general.

The tomb of Timur at Samarkand (1405), in which Indian

Vertical section.

Half-sectional plan.

FIG. 20. — Dome similar to fig. 19, constructed of
Permanent Materials.

96 DECORATION OF DOMES

craftsmen assisted, was built on this early Indian principle, with
internal ties in the shape of a wheel fixed to the central axis
which is supported upon an inner dome.1 This is precisely the
method by which the domed canopies of the Indian Buddhists
shown on Plate VI must have been constructed, when built of
concrete or of brick. In this case the inner dome takes the
place of the principal wheel and acts as a support to the sub-
sidiary one above it. The same methods are used in modern
Persian domes,2 which, like the early Indian structural domes,
are always built of light materials.

The construction of the Indian dome with the wheel and
ribs explains the origin of the foliated devices, somewhat similar
to the stalactite vaulting of the Saracens, and still more sug-
gestive of the Roman scallop, which are so often used in the
internal decoration of domes and ceilings, both in Hindu temples
and Muhammadan mosques.

The whole design (Plate XXXVII) represents the open
lotus flower. The circles and semi-circles arranged in foliated
patterns which are units of the decoration have nothing to do
with the Roman scallop : they are eight-ribbed Indian domes
and half-domes in miniature (seen from the inside) cut into
the masonry to reduce the weight of it. Each miniature
dome also represents a lotus flower enclosed in the wheel
(chakrd) of Vishnu.3

Fig. A, PI. XXXVII, shows the interior of one of the
domes of Qutbu-d-Din's mosque at Old Delhi, constructed from
the material of Hindu temples roughly pieced together. Fig. B
in the same plate shows the plan and section of the dome of a

1 See Saladin, "Manuel d'Art Musulman," fig. 276, p. 361.

2 Langenegger, " Die Baukunst des Iraq," fig. 129, p. 101.

3 It is very probable that this ornamental treatment had its origin in the practice of
using earthenware pots to lessen the weight of concrete domes and vaults ; and it is
quite possible that the practice of using pottery in this way suggested the stalactite
pendentive of the Arabs, as it was certainly the earlier of the two methods.

PLATE XXXVII

.. • •

96]

A. CENTRE OK DOME, QUTBU-D-L)i.\'S MOSQUE

DECORATION OF DOMES

HINDU CAPITALS

Hindu temple at Sunak, in Gujerat, which Dr. Burgess attri-
butes to the tenth century A.D. It is interesting as an example
of the transition from the earlier wooden structural methods of
the Buddhists to the lithic methods of the Hindus, for here the
ribs are reduced to mere ornaments, sculptured with mytho-
logical figures, which serve no structural purpose.

I have already shown how the bell-shaped dome was
derived from the lotus dome. The bell, as one of the symbols
of vibration, the cosmic creative force, played as important
a part in early Buddhist ritual as it does in Hindu ritual of
the present day. The bell-shaped fruit of the sacred lotus

lotus capsule. . . .

water-pot

FIG. 21.— Seed-capsule of the Lotus. FIG. 22. — Hindu Capital.

\Nelumbium speciosiuni) (fig. 21) had been from time imme-
morial a traditional motif for the capitals of Indian temple
"pillars : the torus (a) beneath the seed-capsule to which the
petals of the flower are attached formed a strongly emphasised
moulding in the design of the capital ; and lotus petals were
generally used to decorate the surface of the upper member,
which corresponded to the seed-capsule of the real lotus.

The transition from the lotus dome to the bell-shaped
dome was thus an easy one for the Indian craftsman to make,
whether the starting-point was structural or symbolic. The
bell-shaped dome became the usual one for Buddhist stupas
and temples ; but in order that it might be visible from a
greater distance, the height of the bell in proportion to the base

98 HINDU "SIKHARAS"

was gradually increased. These elongated bell-shaped domes,
which are characteristic of Burmese and Siamese architecture,
were built of solid brickwork in the more important Buddhist
buildings ; but the ribbed principle of construction remained in
the Indian craft tradition, for it must have been followed in all
the temporary or less important structures built of wood or
bambu.

Now when the same kind of structure was made by Indian
stonemasons, it became structurally convenient to simplify the
form by leaving out four of the eight ribs, and thus the curvili-
near spire, the so-called " sikhara" of northern Hindu temples,
was evolved from the Buddhist bell-shaped dagaba or stupa.
This has long been a puzzling problem to archaeologists,
though from a craftsman's point of view the solution of it
seems simple. Fergusson only surmised that the sikhara
was " invented " principally for aesthetic purposes. Several
other archaeological writers have connected the sikhara with
the Buddhist stupa without explaining the process of its
structural evolution — i.e. that it is a four-ribbed, bell-shaped
dome of abnormal height in proportion to the base.

As in the case of the " horse-shoe " arch, the archaeo-
logical name given to this spire, or dome, is inappropriate.
The modern temple craftsman in Orissa, where the Indian
Buddhist traditions are still alive, knows it not as a sikhara
(a pinnacle or spire), but as •& gandhi (a bell), a name which
connects it definitely with the Buddhist bell-shaped dome.

PL XXXVIII, a ruined Hindu temple at Khajuraho, show7s
the ribbed construction of the sikhara or gandhi. The structural
modifications of the original wooden prototype which are
found in stone-built sikharas are only those which the change
of material made necessary. It was impossible to make con-
tinuous stone ribs of the length required, so it became usual
to build them up in small stone vertebrae, like the human

X
X
X

I— I

X
X
X

BUDDHIST INFLUENCES IN PERSIA

spine. The stability of the structure was secured by building
it up in several stories, with through courses of masonry
between each. The transition from an octagonal or polygonal
sikhara to a four-ribbed one is sometimes to be seen in two
adjacent temples (PI. XXXIX). The amalaka which crowned
the sikhara performed structural functions similar to those of
the cap, or Maha-padma, of the lotus dome.

From these considerations it will be clear that Indian
masons, when they were employed by their Muhammadan
rulers to build domes of greater size than was usual for them,
needed no foreign architects to teach them the construction
of ribbed domes — it was part of their ancient craft tradition.
For understanding the development of Muhammadan archi-
tecture in India it is very necessary to realise that many of the
forms which Western writers describe as " Saracenic " in
Persia, Arabia, and in Egypt were Buddhist and Hindu long
before they became Saracenic ; so that the Persian influence
which flowed into India with the founding of the
Mogul Empire was largely a return wave of the
Buddhist influences which spread from India into
Western Asia, and far beyond, centuries before
the Muhammadan supremacy.

Saracenic architecture in Persia shows many
indications of Buddhist influence. I have before
alluded to the fact that the Persian name for the
pinnacle or finial of domes is taken from the In-
dian word kalasha, the water-pot. The combina-
tion of forms used in the metal finials of Persian FlG. 23._Finial
domes also indicates a survival of Buddhist sym- from a Mosque in
bolism. The three balls in fig. 23 recall the three
umbrellas of the Buddhist tee ; the other shape is the Indian
water-pot. Still more significant is the fact that several of the
finials from Persian and Arabian mosques illustrated by

ioo FINIALS OF MOSQUES

Dr. Langenegger1 are surmounted not by the ensign of Islam,
but by the chakra, the wheel of the Law !

It was therefore perfectly easy for any Indian craftsman,
whether Buddhist, Hindu, or Muhammadan, to recognise this
Saracenic art as his own, in spite of its foreign disguise. The
Indian builders did in fact from the very first treat it frankly
as belonging to their own art tradition. Their only endeavour
was to divest it of its foreign accretions ; and the fact that they
consistently did this, unchecked by their Muhammadan em-
ployers, so that Muhammadan architecture in India never
became more "Saracenic" than the Indian builders wished
it to be, is clearly stated in masonic language on all Indian
Muhammadan buildings.

A most significant fact, unnoticed by Fergusson, and I
believe by all other writers, is that with the rarest exceptions
the domes of every Muhammadan building in India, beginning
with the mosques at old Delhi and Ajmir, are crowned not
with the symbols of Islam, as recognised by true believers in
Persia, Arabia, Egypt, or Turkey, but by the Indian kalasha,
the amalaka, or the lotus-flower — the traditional symbols which
surmounted the vimanas and mandapas of Hindu temples.

Nothing could more clearly explain the mental attitude of
Hinduism towards the followers of Islam. " We build these
mosques and tombs for you," these Indian masons say, "we
set our sacred symbols upon them ; for the God whom you
know as Allah is Brahma and Vishnu and Siva. You may
kill us and destroy our temples, but our bhakti is not de-
stroyed. Vishnu and Siva are here, even in these stones.
Though you only bend your knees to Allah, Brahma is im-
manent in every prayer."

Any student with insight into the philosophic attitude of
Hinduism who learns to read the symbolic language of these

1 " Die Baukunst des Iraq," p. 121.

"PATHAN" DOMES 101

Indian Muhammadan monuments might well believe that most,
if not all, of the craftsmen who built them were Hindus at heart,
eventhough professed followers of the Prophet. Inallthelndian-
Muhammadan styles of Fergusson's academic classification —
at Delhi, Ajmir and Agra, Gaur, Malwa, Gujerat, Jaunpur, and
Bijapur — whether the local rulers were Arab, Pathan, Turk,
Persian, Mongol, or Indian, the form and construction of the
domes of mosques and tombs and palaces, as well as the Hindu
symbols which crown them ; the mihrabs made to simulate
Hindu shrines ; the arches Hinduised often in construction, in
form nearly always ; the symbolism which underlies the
decorative and structural design, — all these tell us plainly that
to the Indian builders the sect of the Prophet of Mecca was
only one of the many which made up the synthesis of Hin-
duism : they could be good Muhammadans but yet remain
Hindus.

Let us now proceed to examine further the symbolism and
structure of these Muhammadan domes. In spite of a very
general uniformity of structure, there is considerable variety in
the external form of Indo-Muhammadan domes in the thir-
teenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries ; but usually they
are of three distinct types — first, a conical form following the
internal section ; secondly, the so-called " Pathan " dome with
its flattened top and strongly pronounced haunches ; and
lastly, the hemispherical or semi-elliptical. The Hindu hori-
zontal system of dome-building could never produce a hemi-
spherical shape internally, and if a Hindu dome of solid
masonry were made of the same thickness throughout, the ex-
terior would present the rather ugly conical shape which is seen
in many of the early makeshift domes of Muhammadan mosques
and tombs (PL XIV). The Gujerat builders often tried to meet
this aesthetic difficulty by bringing the exterior approximately
to a semi-circular section, as in the domes of the side-aisles

IO2

PATH AN" DOMES

of the Jami' Masjid at Champanir(Pl. XLIX). This, of course,
meant an increase in the thickness of the domes in the wrong
place, and a great waste of material. The " Pathan " dome
was a much better expedient : it was the most scientific, and
on that account the most beautiful, curve an Indian craftsman

FIG. 24. — Section of a Hindu Dome.

could adopt when he was obliged to puritanise the exterior
of the traditional Hindu dome by leaving out the sculptured
symbolism. The section of the dome of a typical Hindu porch
(fig. 24) will show this. If the external excrescences of the
sculptured masonry are removed, the dome will be naturally
transformed into a " Pathan " dome (PL XCI). This was fre-

RIBBED DOMES ,03

quently done after the Muhammadan conquest, as I haveshown
already, not only in Muhammadan domes, but in the domes
of the porches of Hindu temples.

There was, however, another practical alternative. When
a hemispherical dome was wanted, the builder could use stone
ribs for the structural framework and fill up the interstices with
horizontal courses of stone or with rubble masonry. By this
means the dome could be made of convenient thickness through-
out. There was no need to look to Western models for this
ribbed method of construction, for not only were all the wooden
and bambu domes of the Buddhist builders constructed on this
principle, but the stone-ribbed sikharas of Hindu vimanasand
portions of the roof of the mandapas also. The ribbed dome of
the Jami' Masjid at Champanir (Plate L) is, therefore, not a
borrowing of a Western fashion, but an intelligent Indian
craftsman's expedient for constructing a hemispherical dome
scientifically according to the Indian craft tradition. The
central dome with its sixteen ribs — two for each petal of the
Maha-padma, is both in structure and symbolism as much
Hindu as are those of the side-aisles which are built entirely
in horizontal courses.

Now, according to the Buddhist and Hindu tradition the
tee or finial of a dome should rest either upon the amalaka
or upon the Maha-padma — an eight-petalled lotus with the
petals turned downwards — both of which were sun-emblems.
The springing of the dome, or the outer rim of the bell, was
also ornamented with a row of lotus petals, which suggested
that the dome itself grew out of the heart of a lotus flower.
Bearing this in mind, we can follow the Indian craftsman's
intention in the external decorative treatment of Muham-
madan domes. There are three successive stages. The earliest
Muhammadan domes had no external ornamentation except
the Hindu finial— the bell of the dome was simply plastered

104 LOTUS DOMES

over roughly on the outside. Then the domes are carefully
finished externally either with glazed tile-work or with a
facing of brick or stone, and the octagonal base is ornamented
in the same manner as the parapet of a Hindu fortress wall,
sometimes with a suggestion of the lotus leaf or petal, some-
times with the Persian iris worked into it (PL XL), but with
an obvious intention of reverting to the old Indian masonic
tradition, for it was not usual in Arabian or Persian buildings
to ornament the external springing of the domes in this
manner. Finally, in the Taj Mahall, and still more distinctly
in the domes of the Bijapur and Golconda buildings, the
Buddhist lotus dome — the " bulbous " one — reappears in a
modified form with all its traditional members, according to the
Hindu Silpa-sastras, the base of every " bulbous " dome being
enclosed with strongly marked lotus petals (PI. LXXXV).

This brings us to the further consideration of the interior
treatment of Muhammadan domes and of that great triumph
of idealistic engineering of the Bijapur builders in the tomb of
Mahmud (1638-60), the last but one of the Bijapur dynasty,
justly described by Fergusson as " a wonder of constructive
skill." For the first few centuriesof Muhammadan rule in India
the interior decoration and construction of the roofs of mosques
and tombs presented no essential difference to those of Hindu
temples, except in the absence of anthropomorphic symbolism.
The lotus flower and the chakra, either separately or in com-
bination, formed the usual basis of the decorative scheme in
both cases. Neither was there any difference in constructive
principles until the size and weight of the domes in Muham-
madan buildings were so greatly increased that provision had
to be made for counteracting the outward thrust of these great
masses of masonry or brickwork.

The early Indian domed canopy must, as I have ex-
plained above, have been constructed on the same principles

BIJAPUR DOMES IO5

as modern Persian domes, that is, it had an outer and an inner
dome, the outer, or false, dome being merely a shell of mud,
plaster, or concrete, of so light a character that nothing more
was needed for stability than the inner ties of wood or rope
attached to the central post which kept the pinnacle in its place.
But in this case, as in so many other, the early practice estab-
lished a traditional constructive principle which was followed
when more permanent materials were used — that is to say, the
double roof became a constructive feature in the porches of
Hindu temples in Northern India, even when they were built
of solid masonry, and Indian builders were accustomed to the
idea of counteracting the lateral thrust of a dome from the
inside of it.. This was the antithesis of the Western idea,
which was to build external buttresses and to pile great masses
of masonry on the haunches of the dome — as Fergusson says,
a very clumsy expedient.

The domes of the porches of Hindu temples in Northern
India were usually supported on pillars arranged as in fig. 1 1,
the difficulty of supporting the octagonal base of the dome
being surmounted, when the latter was of large dimensions, by
brackets or stone struts between the pillars. The same princi-
ple was followed in all of the early Muhammadan mosques,
• but the sanctuary of a tomb was often enclosed by walls, like
the shrine of a Hindu vimana, and in this case pendentives
would be more convenient to use at the angles whenever the
stone beams at the base of the dome required this support.

Pendentives would also become a useful constructive ex-
pedient, if not an organic necessity, when, in order to gain
more floor-space, the pillars supporting the octagonal base of
the dome were dispensed with and the four corner pillars or
piers were joined by arches. In Malik Mughis' mosque at
Mandu (PI. XIX), a very interesting example of the transition
from the trabeate to the arched system of building, the capitals

io6

BRACKET PENDENTIVES

of the four corner pillars engaged between the arches are used
as brackets to support the base of the dome in the ordinary
Hindu method ; but here the dimensions are small and the
extra eight pillars would not have been necessary if arches had
not been used. The usual type of pendentive in early Muham-
madan buildings was a solid corner bracket corbelled out of

FIG. 25.— Pendentive from Mosque at Old Delhi (from Fergusson's "History").

the walls, and often treated decoratively with cusped Hindu
arches, as in fig. 25. But when Indian builders got accus-
tomed to using arches of considerable size 1 structurally instead
of pillars and brackets to support the octagonal base of the
dome, the arched pendentive naturally came into use also. A
rather crude early-fifteenth-century application of it can be

1 I assume that before the Muhammadans came, the Buddhists and Hindus had
only used arches of small dimensions structurally, in brick-building districts like the
Magadha country.

GUJERAT DOMES ,07

seen in the Jami' Masjid at Mandu (PL XVIII). It is important
to notice that in this building rubble and brickwork were largely
used instead of pure lithic construction, for it was the technique
of brick construction which led up to the great engineering
achievements of the Bijapur builders in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.

The germ of the idea of the Bijapur dome can be seen in
two Muhammadan buildings in Gujerat, which Fergusson has
left unnoticed in his history, though structurally they are very
important — the tombs of Darya Khan and the mosque of Alif
Khan, belonging to the middle of the fifteenth century. Both
are of brick, both have hemispherical domes, like the Jami'
Masjid and Mahmud's tomb at Bijapur, and both have some
apparent Persian affinities, although on closer examination it
is evident that they are the work of Indian builders working
out for themselves engineering problems which the Muham-
madans in Persia never attempted to solve. Even Fergusson
does not deny the originality of Gujerat architecture. " No
other form," he says, " is so essentially Indian, and no one tells
its tale with the same unmistakable distinctness." l The
larger Perso-Saracenic domes are thin shells of so light a char-
acter that an internal wooden framework often sufficed for their
support. Their builders, in an engineering sense, never pro-
gressed farther than the domes of the Indian Buddhist builders.
Perso-Saracenic buildings on the whole seem hardly to belong
to the domain of architecture— they are rather magnificent chefs-
dczuvre of painted china or majolica supported by a wooden
framework and strengthened with a core of brick to make them
habitable. The Mongolian invasion of Western Asia seems
to have swept away in its terrible holocaust the great Sassanian
building traditions, so that when the later Persian and Chinese
fashions were brought into India by the Muhammadan in-

1 "Indian Architecture," vol. ii. p. 229.

io8

GUJERAT DOMES

vaders, it was left to the Indian masons, who since the palmy
days of Buddhism had progressed much farther than the
Persians in masonic craftsmanship, to teach their masters
what could be done in brick and stone

The tomb of Darya Khan is near Ahmadabad, a mile
north of the Delhi gate. Dr. Burgess gives the date ascribed
to it, 1453, and the dimensions. The plan is the usual one

of Muhammadan
tombs in India. The
sanctuary containing
the tomb is a square of
about 50 feet, covered
by a single large dome
raised on a circular
drum, and surrounded
by corridors 19 feet
wide, which are en-
closed by walls with
five arched openings
on each side and
divided into five cor-
responding square
compartments roofed
by small domes. The
central dome is built
in the following manner: At a height of 17 feet from the
floor a small bracket pendentive is corbelled out of each of
the four corners of the central hall, the base of it being shaped
in successive courses of brickwork like the arched head of a
mihrab. These corner brackets, or pendentives, above the
arched base are brought to a plane surface of about 7 feet wide
reducing the upper part of the hall to an irregular octagon ; and
at a height of 29 feet they support a plain string-course or

FIG. 26. — Plan of Darya Khan's Tomb (drawn by the
Archaeological Survey of India).

GUJERAT DOMES

109

plinth, carried right round the building, which serves as a base
for four larger arches 17 feet wide, built in front of the corner
brackets. These larger arches reduce the walls to a regular

FIG. 27.— Darya Khan's Tomb : Section of Principal Dome (drawn by the Archaeological

Survey of India).

octagon, according to the usual Hindu practice. Light is ad-
mitted into the building by windows placed in the centres of
the four main walls just above the string-course. The octagon

GUJERAT DOMES

is reduced to a sixteen-sided polygon by filling up the angles
with eight smaller brackets ; and at a height of 45 feet from the
floor another string-course or cornice serves as the starting-
line of the circular drum of the dome, which is 17 feet in height.
The brickwork of the drum and dome is laid in successive hori-
zontal rings about 4 feet in height, as if to simulate the Hindu
lithic construction. The total height inside is 86 feet. The
usual Hindu finial crowns the top of the dome, and the spring-
ing of it is marked outside
by the lotus-leaf parapet,
which is not found in any
Arabian or Persian domes.
In fact, the whole building
is structurally as charac-
teristically Indian as are
all the other Muhamma-
dan tombs and mosques
in Gujerat.

Alif Khan's Masjid
at Dholka, about twenty-
three miles to the south-
west of Ahmadabad, has a
liwan, or sanctuary, divi-
ded into three compartments, each about 43 feet square, covered
by domes approximately hemispherical. It was built about the
same time as Darya Khan's tomb, but the arrangement for the
support of the domes is more elegant and marks a distinct
advance in architectural skill, though the domes are smaller,
being about 41 feet in diameter, or 9 feet less than that of the
other building. The beautiful stucco work of the entrance
doorways is shown in PL XXVII. The plan and section drawn
by Mr. Cousens (figs. 28 and 29) will explain the construction of
the domes. At a height of about 23 feet from the floor, says Dr.

FIG. 28.— Dholka. the Khan's Masjid : Plan of One of
the Compartments of the Liwan (drawn by the Ar-
chaeological Survey of India).

GUJERAT DOMES

Burgess, a plain string-course runs along the walls and is sur-
mounted by eight arches — four of them with groins across the
corners, so as to reduce the square to an octagon — the four on the
sides enclosing perforated windows through the outer walls and
plain openings through the inner ones. These arches, With

FIG. 29.— Dholka. The Khan's Masjid : Section of One of the Compartments
of the Livvan (drawn by the Archaeological Survey of India).

groined segments between their haunches, reduce the space, a-t
a height of 38 feet from the floor, to a sixteen-sided polygon,
with a plain stepped moulding laid over the cusps to form the
base of the dome, which rises to a height of 63 feet from the

floor inside.

Now let us compare these two buildings with the Uvo
much greater and more famous buildings at Bijapur, the Jami'

I 12

MAHMUD'S TOMB

Masjid, begun in the latter half of the sixteenth century, and
Mahmud's tomb, nearly a century later. Fergusson's descrip-
tion of the great dome of the latter, which will serve to explain
both, is as follows :

" As will be seen from the plan (fig. 30), it is internally a
square apartment 135 ft. 5 in. each way ; its area consequently
is 18,337 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 a 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 at a height of 109 ft. 6 in., the

dome is erected 124 ft. 5 in. in
diameter, thus leaving a gallery
more than 12 ft. wide all round
the interior. Internally, the dome
is 178 ft. above the floor, and ex-
ternally 198 ft. from the outside
platform ; its thickness at the
springing is about 10 ft., and at
the crown 9 ft.

" The most ingenious and novel
part of this dome is the mode in
which the lateral or outward thrust
is counteracted. This was accom-
plished by forming the pendentives
so that they not only cut off the angles, but that, as shown in the
plan, their arches intersect each other, and form a very consider-
able 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

FIG. 30. — Plan of Mahmud's Tomb
(from Fergusson's " History ").

MAHMUD'S TOMB x,3

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."

If Fergusson had not been obsessed with the idea that
the greatness of Indo-Muhammadan architecture was due to
Saracenic inspiration, he would have seen that though much
grander on account of their colossal dimensions and finer in
architectural treatment, the Bijapur domes of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries established no new principle in
engineering, but with a single modification followed exactly
that on which the two Gujerat buildings had been constructed
in the fifteenth century. In both of the latter the weight of
the pendentives at the base of the dome acts as an internal
tie, the mechanical principles being similar to that which was
used by the early Buddhist builders, though the lateral thrust
of these smaller domes would be insignificant compared with
that of Mahmud's colossal tomb. The only difference, from
an engineering point of view, was that on account of the
lateral thrust being so much greater, the inner circular string-
course, or cornice, at the springing of the dome had to be
much heavier and thrown more inwards.

The way the Bijapur builders effected this was as in-
genious as it was beautiful ; but the idea was Indian, not
Saracenic. Indian builders in the sixteenth century had
become familiar with the Persian pendentive, formed by
9

n4 MAHMUD'S TOMB

intersecting brick arches. The light Persian pendentive, how-
ever, would not have served their purpose, so, like good crafts-
men, they invented a new way of using it — a combination of
the Hindu and Saracenic methods with Hindu idealism
behind them.

In the tomb of Darya Khan, though arches are used in

FIG. 31.— Section of Mahmud's Tomb (from Fergusson's "History").

the pendentives, the pendentives themselves are arranged on
the Hindu bracket system— i.e. the square base of the dome is
converted into a circle gradually by tier upon tier of bracket
pendentives placed in horizontal and vertical planes only. In
the Dholka mosque the principle is the same, but the upper
tier of brackets below the springing of the dome combines with

MAHMUD'S TOMB II5

the arches of the lower ones in forming a decorative scheme
like the petals of a half-opened lotus flower — a device character-
istically Hindu. The Jami' Masjid and Mahmud's tomb at
Bijapur show a variation of the same treatment, in which the
resemblance to lotus petals is made more complete by the in-
tersection of the arches. This produced not only the mechanical
result which was aimed
at — that of a sufficient
centra-weight to the
lateral thrust .of the dome
—but it achieved also the
artistic ideal which the
Indian builders had in
their mind, to support
the dome on the symbolic
lotus flower, the eight-
pet a 1 1 e d Maha-padma
formed by the groining of
the pendentives, which
repeats internally the
Maha-padma on which
the finial of the dome is
placed .

Thus we find both the artistic idealism and the practical
craftsmanship of the Hindu and Buddhist building traditions
inspiring the Muhammadan builders in all their greatest works.
Unless the archaeologist relies upon examples in which Indian
inspiration is conspicuous, he will search in vain in Central
Asia, Persia, Arabia, Egypt, or in Europefor Saracenic buildings
which explain either thesymbolism or theconstructive principles
of the great Muhammadan buildings in India. The true history
of Indian architecture, Buddhist, Hindu, and Muhammadan, is
written in the monuments which exist only in India itself.

FIG. 32. — Pendentives of Mahmfid's Tomb, looking
upwards (from Fergusson's "History")-

CHAPTER VII

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY IN BENGAL

HUSAIN SHAH AND THE CULT OF SATYA PIR THE INFLUENCE

OF BENGALI CRAFTSMANSHIP UPON INDO-MUHAMMADAN
ARCHITECTURE — THE BUILDINGS AT GAUR I THE QADAM-I-
RASUL MASJID ; THE SONA MASJID ; THE CHOTA SONA
MASJID ; THE JAMl' MASJID OF AKHI SERAJ-UD-DIN.

THE detailed analysis of structure given in the last chapter
will, I hope, enable the reader to follow more closely the history
of the Indian building craft from the sixteenth century down
to modern times. It will enable him to see that the principal
structural forms of Indian architecture, in the Mogul period
and all other periods of Indian history, as well as the creative
inspiration which lay behind these forms, were essentially
Indian ; that Indian architecture, like Indian sculpture, paint-
ing, and music, forms a great original school which worked out
its own ideals, borrowing from foreign sources less than any
of the great European schools have done. " Indo-Saracenic "
as applied to Muhammadan architecture in India is an un-
scientific classification, based on the fundamental error which
vitiates the work of most European historians of Indian civili-
sation. It is as if a Muhammadan historian of European
architecture would describe French Gothic as " Franco-Ara-
bian." With equal justice Italy might claim Shakespeare as
an Anglo-Italian poet because the plots of his dramas are

116

HINDU AND SARACENIC CULTURE n7

frequently based on Italian stories. The cultural basis of Mu-
hammadan architecture in India was essentially Indian, not
Saracenic — the buildings which may be regarded as an excep-
tion to this rule are few and unimportant as regards their in-
fluence on the history of Indian architecture. Indian crafts-
men, like those of all other countries, learnt other languages
besides their own, but they remained always true to Indian
ideals, whether they were Buddhists, Hindus, or Muhamma-
dans. Persian, Arabian, Central Asian, and Chinese craftsmen
came into India in the Mogul period, as Byzantine and other
craftsmen came into Italy for the building of St. Mark's at
Venice ; but there is no epoch-making Muhammadan monu-
ments in India entirely inspired by Saracenic culture in the
same way as the Duomo of Venice was entirely inspired by
Byzantium.

It is a travesty of Indian history to represent Arabian
culture as a great creative force which transformed the ideals
of Indian art and taught Indian builders the true principles of
architecture. Muhammadanism in India, even as a religion,
is essentially different to the creed professed by the Western
school of Islam : as art it belongs almost entirely to Hinduism.
The mainspring of the great development of Muhammadan
architecture in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in India
is really to be found in the eagerness with which cultured
Muhammadans of Arabian, Persian, Turkish, or Mongolian
race, when the passion of warfare and the heat of religious
hatred had subsided, applied themselves to the study of the
art, literature, and religion of the land of their adoption, estab-
lishing a neutral ground on which Hindu and Musulman
might meet fraternally. Though Persian and Arabic were
ceremonial languages at the Imperial Court of the Moguls, so
that even Hindu rajahs and pandits often found it expedient
to become proficient in them, the study of Sanskrit by Mu-

n8 CULT OF SATYA PIR

hammadan scholars and poets gave a great impetus to indigen-
ous literature also. Mr. Dinesh Chandra Sen, in his very
valuable " History of Bengali Language and Literature," l tells
us how a great Sanskritic revival in Bengal in the seventeenth
century was heralded by a Muhammadan writer, Syed Alaol,
" with a mastery of the Sanskrit tongue, the like of which we
rarely find among Hindu poets in the Bengali literature."
The rapprochement between Hindus and Muhammadans on a
religious ground was even more remarkable. Akbar was not
the only Musulman monarch who endeavoured to found a
religious cult to which both Hindus and Muhammadans could
subscribe. Nearly a century before the promulgation of the
" Divine Faith " at Fatehpur-Sikri, Husain Shah of Gaur had
either originated or given imperial sanction to the worship of
Satya Pir — a name compounded of a Sanskrit and an Arabic
word — as the common God of both communities/ The fact
mentioned by Mr. Sen that there are many poems in old Ben-
gali in honour of Satya Pir, both by Muhammadan and Hindu
poets, proves that the cult at one time had a strong hold on
popular imagination.

The common religious sentiment and ties of nationality
which brought the two creeds together manifested their influ-
ence in many ways. " Many a Mahomedan offered puja at
Hindu temples, as the Hindus offered sinni at Mahomedan
mosques. In the North-West Provinces the Hindus cele-
brated the Mahorum festivities with as great enthusiasm as
the Mahomedans. Mirza Hosen Ali, a native of the Tippera
district who lived a hundred years ago, not only composed
songs in praise of the goddess Kali, but worshipped her at
his house with great dclat. . . . Hindus have borne Mahomedan
names and the Mahomedans are often called by Hindu names,
and such instances are very common in this country even now.

1 P. 622. 2 " History of Bengali Language and Literature," pp. 796-7.

MUSULMAN ADAPTABILITY ,i9

. . . The Indian Musalman goes through a long series of fes-
tivities and ceremonies, most of which are bodily importations
from the Hindus, while others are adapted with slight modifi-
cations to give them the colour of Mahomedanism. From
birth to death, at every stage of life, says Mr. Mazhal-ul-
Haque, the Mahomedans in India perform ceremonies which
are of purely Hindu origin."

Nothing is more clear to the student of Indian archi-
tecture who can read the language of the Indian craftsman,
that it was the willingness of the Musulman rulers to adopt
the art and culture of Hindustan — their genius for learning
rather than for teaching, which made Indo-Muhammadan
architecture great. The willingness to learn may in itself be
regarded as a proof of high intelligence and an innate artistic
instinct, and undoubtedly many of the Muhammadan sovereigns
had great artistic gifts, like many exalted patrons of art in
medieval Europe ; but the great architects of India were
Indians by birth and instinct.

When the subject is rightly understood, I have no doubt
that the sixteenth century, rather than the seventeenth, will be
appreciated as the classic epoch of Muhammadan architecture
in India. The Taj Mahall, the Moti Masjid at Agra, and a
few other buildings of Shah Jahan's time are unique in them-
selves and surrounded by a halo of romance which appeals
strongly to popular imagination. But exquisite as these are
both in art and craftsmanship, they belong to the lyric rather
than the epic school of architecture, and many of the buildings
contemporary with them betray a weakness of design— a
prettiness approaching insipidity — which was a faithful reflec-
tion of the approaching decadence of the Mogul Empire. It
is unfortunate for Indian art that nearly all Western historians
have seized upon this later school, tinged with the voluptuous-

1 " History of Bengali Language and Literature," pp. 793'4-

120 GAUR AND GUJERAT

ness and extravagance of a dissolute Court life, as the truest
and most characteristic expression of Muhammadan art in
India, while the robust and virile art of the early pre-Mogul
period, which bears the same relation to the later phases as a
Sanskrit epic does to a Persian sonnet, is relegated to an
inferior place as belonging to a Hindu or " mixed " style.

In the beginning of the sixteenth century Gaur and
Gujerat, the former chiefly in brick and the latter mostly in
stone, were the great creative centres of the architecture of
Northern India ; for in the north the Muhammadans had
acquired such a firm hold upon the country that there was
little activity in Hindu temple-building or in secular public
works. Moreover, the Muhammadan rulers showed such a
tolerant spirit towards the religious feelings of their Hindu
subjects that to assist in the building of a Muhammadan
mosque might well have been regarded by the latter as an act
of devotion equal to a gift to a Hindu shrine. Husain Shah,
the reputed author of the Satya Pir cult in Bengal, was
•emperor at Gaur, and Musulman sovereigns of Rajput descent
ruled in Gujerat.

These two localities, far more than any beyond the Indus,
were the true formative centres of the early and later Muham-
madan styles in India, and of the modern Indian building
tradition in the north. Just as the temples of Hindu Gaur
had carried on the traditions of early Magadhan architecture,
with modifications adapted to the Hindu ritual and symbolism,
so the mosques of Musulman Gaur were modifications of
Hindu temples adapted to the ritual of Islam. And just as a
Hindu pandit at the Musulman Courts became a good
Persian and Arabic scholar without ceasing to be a Hindu, so
the Indian craftsmen who built Muhammadan mosques, tombs,
palaces, and public works acquired the artistic culture of Persia
.and Arabia as a second language, without becoming Indo-

• Jf mr

X
w

mi,. I

GAUR AND GUJERAT 121

Persians or Indo-Arabs. The Arabian and Persian element
was, as in other parts of India, decorative rather than con-
structive, for the Arabian and Persian craftsmen who came
into India were mostly calligraphists, painters, decorators, and
upholsterers — not builders. It was thus that the constructive
forms used at Gaur and in Gujerat by Indian builders came
to predominate in the Mogul architecture of Fatehpur-Sikri,
Agra, and Delhi. The cusped arches of the early sixteenth-
century buildings at Gaur (Plate XXXI) are of the same type as
those of Shah Jahan's palace at Delhi and many other of his
buildings — both derived from Buddhist-Hindu prototypes.
The bent cornices and curvilinear roofs of Gaur, derived from
the bambu construction of the Buddhists of Bengal, are found in
many of the buildings of the Moguls and belong to the build-
ing tradition of modern Rajputana. The history of Indian
craftsmanship thus repeated itself, for many centuries pre-
viously similar features in the early Magadhan style had been
carried by the Buddhist craftsmen throughout the greater part
of Asoka's empire. The style of the roofs and gables sculp-
tured at Bharhut and Sanchi and painted at Ajanta must
have been formed originally on the bambu construction of
Bengal.

Some day, possibly, when official architects in India
throw aside the narrow professional prejudices which are their
stumbling-block, both in an engineering and artistic sense,
they may realise that in picking up the threads of this great
tradition which survives to this day, they may find many sug-
gestions for the use of modern European building material.
Even in the primitive bambu construction, adapted by Buddhist
and Hindu builders to wood and stone, which the European
expert affects to despise as primitive and unscientific, there
is the same principle as in the construction of most modern
and up-to-date European building; for the elasticity of the

122 GAUR

bambu has its modern analogue in the elasticity of steel-
a material in the use of which the Hindu craftsman had no
rival until quite modern times.1

Though there are no ancient Hindu temples now existing
at Gaur itself, there is ample evidence that Husain Shah
(1493-1519), and his son Nasrat Shah (1519-32), in whose
reigns the finest buildings now remaining at Gaur were erected,
employed the local Hindu builders to design their architectural
works, and that the development of style which took place
there was the natural outcome of the practical requirements of
Muhammadan ritual, rather than an improvement in taste or
advance in architectural skill due to the importation of foreign
builders.

Externally the general characteristics of the Gaur mosques
of the sixteenth century, when the style was fully formed, are
shown in the facade of the Qadam-i-Rasul Masjid (PL XVI).
It is only necessary to compare this with a typical Bengali
temple (PI. XLI)2 to see that the design of the Muhammadan
building is identical with the local Hindu style, which in itself
is founded upon the earlier Buddhist tradition. There is not
the slightest trace of Saracenic influence in the design of the
Hindu temple : the arches are Buddhist-Hindu arches, and
technically seem to be as natural to the brick construction of
Bengal as the horizontal beam and bracket were to the purely
lithic construction of Gujerat. They are, in fact, a Hindu
modification of the lotus-leaf arches of the Buddhists, which
in the lithic Hindu styles were reduced to an ornament on the

1 For interesting notes on the use of wrought-iron girders in Orissan temples, see
" Orissa and her Remains: Ancient and Mediseval," by Manumohan Ganguly, B.E.,
M.R.A.S. (Thacker & Co.).

2 The temple here illustrated is actually a century later in date than the mosque
at Gaur, but there is no doubt that it represents a very much older type. It belongs
to the old Buddhist panch-ratna type of temple, like the Javanese shrine of Chandi
Sewa of the eleventh century (Plate V), which was the prototype of the Taj Mahall.

GAUR I23

great curved cornices or dripstones, as the Hindu stonemasons
.had no structural use for the arch. In Bengal the arch of the
Buddhist builders remained in structural use because brick
was the material instead of stone. The size of the arches
diminished because Hindu worship was individualistic, not
communal, and, except when a large crowd of pilgrims congre-
gated at some specially venerated shrine, did not require the
same floor-space as the religious services of the Buddhist
Sangha demanded.

The same practical reason operated in the interior of
Muhammadan mosques at Gaur, as in other places in India,
in the contrary direction. The congregation of the faithful,
like the Buddhists, required a wide open floor-space in their
places of worship, and their Indian builders provided this for
them by widening the space between columns and piers and
walls, and thereby increased the size and number of the arches
and vaults required ; but the essential characteristics of the
architectural style remained Indian throughout.

It is difficult to realise from the comparatively few ruined
buildings which now remain of the once great city of Gaur
that its influence upon the building craft of Northern and
Western India, both before and after the Muhammadan con-
quest, must have been far greater than that of any city of
Persia, Arabia, or Mesopotamia. Under the name of Laksh-
manavati, or Lakhnauti, it had long been the Hindu capital of
Bengal with a tradition going back many centuries before
Christ.

In the sixteenth century it was known to the Portuguese
as one of the greatest cities of India, the population being
estimated at over a million. The ruins of it now existing cover
an extent of country over ten miles in length and between two
and three in breadth. Situated, as it was originally, on the
banks of the Ganges, it was in easy communication with the

GAUR

greater part of Northern and Western India ; and as it was one
of the two first centres of Muhammadan rule in India, the
permanent school of craftsmen established there must have
greatly influenced the building of later Muhammadan cities in
India. In studying the development of Muhammadan archi-
tecture in Gujerat, Malwa, and in the Dekhan, it will always
be more profitable to look to Gaur rather than to Persia for
the origin of forms, especially those in brick, which are not
accounted for by the local Hindu craft tradition.

The Sona Masjid, or the Golden Mosque — so called from
the gilding of its domes — was commenced by the Emperor
Husain Shah and completed by Nasrat Shah in the early part
of the sixteenth century. It is one of the largest buildings
now remaining at Gaur. The plan of it resembled that of the
older Adinah mosque (fig. 7), but little now remains of the
courtyard. The liwan, mainly built of brick, was faced in front
with a nearly black hornblende stone, finely sculptured in low
relief with designs adapted from the local Hindu terra-cotta
work. Traces of gilding still remain. The facade, a corner of
which is shown in PI. XLII, has eleven doorways, each 14 feet
high and 8J feet wide, which have cusped Hindu arches and
are framed with carved architraves adapted in design from the
doorways of Hindu shrines. Eleven corresponding brick
arches inside the liwan form an aisle covered by the same num-
ber of domes, and behind this aisle three others are formed by
twenty stone pillars of Hindu design (PL XLII I, B), connected
with brick arches and dividing the remaining area of the liwan
into thirty-three compartments also covered by domes. The
upper part of the minarets at the four corners of the liwan
have fallen. Their appearance when complete can be seen in
Plate XLV.

The curved cornices of the exterior and the vaulting of
part of the side aisles with its beautiful stucco decoration

GAUR I25

shown in PL XLIII, A, are reminiscences of the ancient bambu
roofing still used in the cottages of Bengal. " To understand
this," says Fergusson, " it may be as well to explain that the
roofs of the huts in Bengal are formed of two rectangular
frames of bambus, perfectly flat and rectangular when formed,
but when lifted from the ground and fitted to the substructure
they are bent so that the elasticity of the bambu, resisting
the flexure, keeps all the fastenings in a state of tension, which
makes a singularly firm roof out of very frail materials. It is
the only instance I know of elasticity being employed in build-
ing, but is so singularly successful in attaining the desired
end, and is so common, that we can hardly wonder when the
Bengalis turned their attention to more permanent modes of
building they should have copied this one."

The details of the Chota Sona Masjid, a smaller version
ofthe Sona Masjid, have been described in the previous chapter.
PI. XLIV shows the usual method of building the brick domes
of Gaur.

The beautiful moulded brickwork which until recent times
was one ofthe indigenous crafts of Bengal can be seen in Plate
XLV, the Jami' Masjid of Akhi Seraj-ud-Din, one of the latest
buildings at Gaur, and one of the most complete, for the
minarets remain intact and the domes retain their Hindu
finials. It will be useful to compare this building with Alif
Khan's Masjid at Dholka (Plate XXVII).

Though the motifs of the decoration in Muhammadan
buildings at Gaur are, as I have shown, all of Buddhist-Hindu
origin and similar to the indigenous terra-cotta work of Bengal,
it has a distinction of its own for which due credit must be
given to the exquisite taste of the Arabian and Persian calh-
graphists, who must have directed some at least of the decora-
tion of the early Muhammadan buildings at Gaur. But the

1 "History of Indian Architecture," vol. ii. pp. I59'60-

126 GAUR

fact that Indian craftsmen widened the basis of their art
tradition by adding to it the culture of Persia and Arabia
proves the greatness of their artistic capacity, but does not
reduce Indo-Muhammadan art to a provincial form of Sara-
cenic.

In 1537 Gaur was sacked by the Afghan ruler of Bihar,
Sher Khan, and in 1576 became part of the empire of the
Moguls. About the same time a great plague ravaged the city,
so that it was gradually deserted, and its splendid buildings
were buried in the jungle. Gaur is important in the history
of Indian architecture not so much for the monuments it be-
queathed to posterity as for its influence on the living tradition
of Indian architecture. It was one of the great brick-building
centres of Northern India which carried on the traditions of the
Buddhist builders, both under Indian and Musulman rulers.
Such a great local school of craftsmanship would be the natural
centre for supplying the demands of other city builders. A
country so rich in architectural resources as India was in
medieval times had no need to import foreign builders, neither
is there any historical evidence that she ever did so to the same
extent as Italy imported from Byzantium, England from France,
or the Saracens in Egypt from all sides.

When Gaur was absorbed into Akbar's empire, its crafts-
men were dispersed and many, no doubt, migrated to the
Mogul capitals, where, in conjunction with the builders of
Gujerat, Rajputana, and other Indian craft centres, they assisted
in forming the new Indian style adapted to the habits and
tastes of their Mogul masters — a style with which certain
structural and decorative elements from Persia and Arabia were
combined, but yet remained essentially Indian. The argument
that there is a common craft tradition, embodying a creative
impulse which is wholly Indian, underlying not only Buddhist,
Jain, and Hindu architecture, but also the thirteen styles of

GAUR I2?

Muhammadan building classified by Fergusson as " Indo-
Saracenic," each having a marked individuality of its own, may
seem absurd to those who regard architectural history merely
as a classification of " styles " according to a scheme in which
the superiority of West to East is the starting-point. It may
be less incomprehensible when it is considered that though
India contains a congeries of diverse races speaking several
hundred distinct dialects, the whole of its literature and folk-
lore belong to a synthesis of thought which can only be de-
scribed as Indian. The contribution of Islam to this synthesis
made no exception to the rule ; it was a contribution which
gave a new impulse to Indian creative imagination without
changing the spirit of it or imposing upon it another craft
tradition.

The effect of Islam upon Indian craftsmanship was this :
it detached a great number of craftsmen from the service of
orthodox Hinduism, and thus set them free from the strict ob-
servance of the religious artistic canons— the Silpa-sastras—
which under the domination of a priestly literary caste had
become too meticulous and inelastic, invaluable though they
were as embodying the practice of a great craft tradition.
Islam preserved the principles of this great tradition for its
I own purposes, and, except for the restriction regarding anthro-
pomorphic symbolism, allowed free play to Indian creative
imagination in the many different centres of Muhammadan rule
in India. Each group of city builders made use of the local
craft tradition for developing its architectural ideas, creating a
true Indian Renaissance on this foundation. There was at the
same time an interchange of ideas between the different local
centres, and, as in all great art movements in all countries, an
inflow of ideas from outside which compensated to some extent
for the narrow restriction which the law of Islam placed upon
the sculptor's art. Thus the first three and a half centuries of

128 "STYLE"

Muhammadan domination, subject to this important limitation,
became a period of wonderful creative activity in Indian art
and architecture, but the impulse was always from within.

Though, as I have said, there was an interchange of ideas
between these different local centres, we must not expect to
find the manifestation of it in the direct imitation of "style"
which, most disastrously for art and craft, belongs to modern
architectural practice in Europe. Such imitation did not exist
in Europe until the sixteenth century, when the dilettante
architect began to usurp the functions of the master-builder,
and never existed in India before the days of the Public Works
" expert." We shall not be able to find in the buildings of
the Moguls any attempt to reproduce those of Gaur or of
Gujerat, but we shall see the survival of the Gaur craft tradition
in the bent roof of the Golden Pavilion in Shah Jahan's palace
at Delhi (PL CI) and in the planning of the mausoleum of the
Taj Mahall, which reproduces the panch-ratna grouping of
the domes of a contemporary Bengali temple (PI. XLI). The
craftsmanship of brick-built mosques and tombs in India owed
far more to Bengal than to Persia.

CHAPTER VIII

GUJERAT ARCHITECTURE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

THE CHAMPANIR MOSQUES — BUILDINGS IN AHMADABAD : RANI
RUPAVATI'S MASJID ;. SIDI SAYYIo's MASJID ; MOSQUE AND
TOMB OF RANI SIPARI ; DADA HARIR's WELL — HINDU
BUILDINGS IN RAJPUTANA — THE PALACE OF MAN SINGH
OF GWALIOR

" As the style progressed," says Fergusson, of the architecture
of Gujerat, " it became more and more Indian." Not only
this, but it produced some of the most stately and beautiful
buildings ever consecrated to Muhammadan worship. The
fifteenth century in Gujerat had been a time of fierce struggle
between the Musulman sovereigns and the rulers of the neigh-
bouring Hindu states. Ahmad Shah (1441-42), the founder
of Ahmadabad, and his immediate successors were too busy
in destroying Hindu temples and in propagating the faith of
Islam by the sword to become great builders. But in the early
part of the sixteenth century, under the most powerful of the
Muhammadan rulers of Gujerat, Mahmtid Shah Begarah (1459-
1511), Ahmadabad had become on the whole, says Ferishta,
" the handsomest city in Hindustan, and perhaps in the whole
world." '

Champanir, a hill-fortress about seventy-eight miles south-
east from Ahmadabad, was taken by Mahmud in 1484 after a
heroic defence of eight and a half months by the Hindu

1 Briggs's translation, vol. iv. p. 14.
10 "9

1 30 CHAMPANIR

chieftain, Jay Singh Patai Rawal, who when wounded and
taken prisoner preferred death to acceptance of the dogmas of
Islam.1 Mahmud made Champanir his capital, and before
his death in 1511 had built there many splendid buildings,
including a Jami' Masjid which should be regarded not only as
the finest in Gujerat, but as one of the noblest buildings of
its class anywhere, for in many ways it is far superior to other
architectural monuments of the Muhammadans which are
better known to the European student.

It has a better architectural ensemble i\\a.n Akbar's mosque
at the Fatehpur-Sikri, which is overpowered by its magnificent
portal, the Buland Darwaza. In dimensions it is little inferior
to the great mosques of Ahmadabad and Delhi ; in certain
qualities of design it surpasses them both. The Jami' Masjid
at Delhi has the advantage in the skill with which it is planned
for external effect. It may be more imposing as a silhouette
against a glowing sunset, but that borrowed glory disappears
on closer approach, for the interior is as cold and expressionless
as a modern Renaissance church. The Champanir mosque
needs no help from its surroundings, beautiful as they are ; for
every stone of it glows with the warmth of its own expression.
It combines consummate craftsmanship with lofty religious
idealism ; the exquisite rhythm of Greek construction with the
sumptuous richness of Byzantine decoration, though it lacks
the human interest of Christian idealistic art.

The designing of the Champanir mosque shows a great
advance from Ahmadabad buildings of the preceding century,
but no signs whatever of Persian or Arabian suggestion, except
in some of the decorative details. The Gujerat builders, after
a century of experimenting at Ahmadabad and elsewhere, had
acquired as much skill in the structural use of the pointed arch
as they had in their own traditional style of building, and from

1 Dr. Burgess, "Archaeological Survey of Western India," vol. vi. p. 39.

CHAMPANIR

the habit of thought formed by the religious teaching of Islam
had adopted a mode of artistic expression more in harmony
with that religion than with the pantheistic philosophy of
Hinduism. But the artistic principles and the craft tradition
were not otherwise changed : they were only being adapted
to the ideals of a
particular school
of religious
thought.

The orienta-
tion of the mosque
is the same as that
which was used
for a Hindu
temple — i.e. the
four walls of the
enclosure face the
four cardinal
points, the prin- [
cipal entrance J
being towards the
rising sun. The
planning of it is
more compact
than that of the
Jami' Masjid at
Ahmadabad, the
courtyard being
smaller in propor-
tion to the size of the liwan. In this and in the emphasising
of the pyramidal lines of the whole structure it resembles even
more closely the Hindu prototype of the Gujerat mosques — the
Chaumukh temple at Ranpur (Plate XXVI).

FIG. 33.— Plan of Jami' Masjid, Champanir (drawn by the
Archaeological Survey of India).

i32 CHAMPANIR

The enclosing walls of the mosque measure 216 feet from
east to west, and 178 feet from north to south. The courtyard
is 115 feet from east to west, and is surrounded on three sides
by corridors with arcades open to the court, the outer walls being
pierced by elegant windows of purely Hindu design, filled with
perforated stone lattices (PL XLVI). The main entrance on
the east is through a noble domed portico (PL XLVI I). The
carving on it betrays the influence of the Arabic calligraphist,
but the whole structural basis of it is Hindu. The pilasters on
the sides of the doorway repeat those of a Hindu temple ; the
arches are constructed experimentally in Hindu fashion, some-
times like brackets, sometimes with keystones and irregular
voussoirs.

The facade of the liwan, the centre of which is showrn in
PL XLVI 1 1,1 proves how completely the Gujerat builders of
the sixteenth century had overcome the difficulties of harmonis-
ing the arched screen in front of the liwan with the purely Hindu
structure of the interior. There is nothing of the awkward-
ness which is seen in the arrangement of the facades of the
earlier Gujerat mosques. The spacing out is finely balanced
and the proportions carefully adjusted as in the best Re-
naissance buildings of Europe, while there is a subtlety in
the rhythm and a fertility of imagination in the co-ordination
and design of the detail which only the best Gothic craftsmen
have equalled.

There are five entrances to the liwan — a central doorway,
15 feet in width, and two on either side of it of half that size.
The main entrance is flanked by two stately minarets, 100 feet
in height, of perfect proportions, which are echoed by four
others, 50 feet in height, at the outer corners of the liwan

1 The illustration does not do justice to the beauty of the fagade on account of the
trees which obstruct the full view of it. A better impression of the whole design will
be obtained from the illustration of the Nagina Masjid (Plate LI I).

PLATE XLVIII

JAMl' MASJID, CHAMPANlR : FACADE OF

CHAMPANIR

'33

(Plate LI). The proportion of a double square is also observed
in the ground-plan of the liwan. The central part of the
facade is a square of 51 feet, or, if the height of the minarets
is included, very nearly a double square. The side-wings, the
plainness of which contrasts well with the richness of the
centre, are also of the same proportion ; the height of each
being 28 feet and the width 56 feet. The frequent occurrence of
the double square, a favourite canon of proportion with the
Renaissance architects of Italy, will probably tempt some
Western writer to suggest that Mahmud of Gujerat imported
Italians to teach his master-builders the " true principles " of
architecture !

The base of the two central minarets, which contain spiral
staircases leading up to the upper galleries of the liwan and
to a door at the top of each, are richly carved, in the style of
the Rajput Towers of Victory (PI. XXIII), up to the level of the
crown of the central doorway. Above this they are ornamented
at intervals proportioned with unerring skill and taste with
a series of exquisitely carved string-courses and bracketed
cornices, each one of different design. At a height of about
two-thirds from the base, the section of the minarets changes
from an octagon to a sixteen-sided polygon, and finally to a
circle, as usual in Hindu temple pillars. The summit of each
is crowned like the mandapa of a Hindu temple.

The plan and section (PL XLIX) will show the arrange-
ment of the interior of the liwan, which measures 169^ feet by 81
feet, and is also an adaptation of the design of contemporary
Hindu temples in Rajputana. Like the exterior it is simpler
than that of the Jami' Masjid at Ahmadabad, and finer in pro-
portion. There are eleven domes of about 20 feet in diameter —
four along the front and back and three along the central line
from north to south — which are linked together by a flat roof
and ten smaller domes. The general level of the roof is only
10*

i34 GHAMPANIR

lyj feet in height, but the central part of it, corresponding to
the transept of a Christian church, is carried up to three
stories, the roof of it being brought forward to the facade wall
so as to form a lofty entrance porch. Though this transept
with its dome (Plate L) is of insignificant size compared with
many other buildings in Europe and in India, in nobility of
conception, justness of proportion, and in the virile strength of
its flawless masonic craftsmanship it can hold its own with
any. Shah Jahan ransacked Asia for the most precious
materials so that the tomb of his beloved queen might surpass
all others in beauty. His craftsmen, indeed, made full use of
them ; but the Jami' Masjid of Champanir proves that great
architecture can dispense with marble and precious stones.
Here the mason's chisel suggests the glow of colour, gold and
inlay before they were added to the building.

The central dome is of the same diameter as the ten large
domes of the adjacent aisles, but it is several feet higher from
the springing to the crown. The desire for a greater height
was no doubt the reason for its being constructed with sixteen
stone ribs, instead of by concentric horizontal courses of stone
like the other domes. In the previous chapter I have shown
the error of Fergusson's assumption that the ribbed dome was
introduced into India by Saracenic builders from the West.
It is significant that the Champanir dome in which this prin-
ciple is employed occupies an analogous position in the mosque
to the spire of the vimana in a Rajputana temple. The latter
being always constructed with stone ribs, it was natural for the
Indian craftsman to apply the same principle to the central
dome of a mosque, and to build the subordinate ones in the
same way as the domes of a Hindu temple porch, i.e. with
horizontal courses of stone. That is exactly what they did at
Champanir.

The exterior of the other domes, which, if the line of the

PLATE L

JAMI MASJID, CHAMPANIR : INTERIOR OF CENTRAL DOME

134'']

CHAMPANIR

interior structure had been followed, would have had an ugly
conical shape like the makeshift domes of early Muhammadan
buildings in India, is brought to an approximately semi-
circular section by a casing of brickwork, with a final coating
of plaster. All the domes are surmounted by the Hindu
emblems, the water-pot and the amalaka,

Along the west wall of the liwan are placed seven beauti-
fully sculptured mihrabs, three large ones in
the centre with two smaller ones on each
side of them. With the omission of anthro-
pomorphic symbolism they are exact repro-
ductions of Hindu temple shrines, and are
precisely similar in style to the beautiful
mihrab of the Junagarh mosque shown in PL
XXXII. The spaces between the mihrabs
and the two end spaces are filled by sixteen
windows with perforated stone lattices, like
those in the corridors of the courtyard.

The south wall is pierced by three win-
dows with very elegant bracketed balconies
similar in design to those of the facade.
Plate LI. shows the whole exterior or back
view of the liwan as seen from the south-
west. The seven buttresses in the west wall
are variations of the designs of the sculp-
tured bases of the minarets.

There can be no dispute that the Champanir mosque, like
those of Jaunpur, Mandu, and elsewhere in the preceding
century, will convey to the European observer a first impres-
sion of belonging to a building tradition very different to that
of Hindu temples. He will convince himself that he can trace
in the gradual development of Indo-Muhammadan architec-
ture a growing sense of structural rhythm, a fine feeling for

FIG. 34.— Section of
Mihrab, Champanir.

I36 CHAMPANIR

proportion and for the just co-ordination of plain and
decorated surfaces which he fails to perceive in the Hindu
buildings with which he is acquainted.

But that is chiefly because few trained European critics

have as yet thought
it worth while to
apply themselves to a
careful study of Hin-
du art and architec-
ture. In Europe
there are no opportu-
nities for doing" so.

FIG. 35.— Plan of Mihrab, Champanir. o

and the usual itin-
erary of a tourist in India only enables him to compare some
of the finest Muhammadan buildings with the most decadent
of Hindu architecture. A closer investigation, guided by a true
sense of historical analysis, will enable him to see that the
difference between the mosque and the temple — when a just
comparison is made between them — is only a difference of
artistic mood, controlled by ritualistic and practical considera-
tions, not a difference of artistic tradition, knowledge, or skill.
The science of Muhammadan art in India, as well as the in-
spiration of it, came from the Hindu Silpa-sastras. The out-
standing fact in the history of Muhammadan architecture in
India is that until the beginning of the seventeenth century,
when its decadence was approaching, the development of it
was entirely from within. Though they looked to Baghdad
and Mecca as their spiritual centres, neither the political nor
religious leaders of Islam showed any bias towards foreign
architectural fashions.

Champanir, says Dr. Burgess, remained the political
capital of Gujerat until 1536. Among the ruins of this splen-
did city there are still many buildings which deserve detailed

(J
w

PLATE LIII

NAGINA MASJID, CHAMPANJR : DETAIL OF MINARET

1366]

RANI RUPAVATI'S MASJID 137

description, but I must content myself with a passing reference
to the Nagina Masjid, a beautiful little building very similar
to the Jami' Masjid, though much smaller. It is evidently
of the same period. The fa9ade of the liwan is shown in
Plate LI I.

The perforated stone windows sculptured in the bases of
the minarets (PL LI II) show the progressive development of
those surpassingly beautiful foliated trellises for which the
mosques at Ahmadabad are famous. Professor Lethaby is

FIG. 36. — Rani Rupavati's Masjid : Plan of Liwan (drawn by the
Archaeological Survey of India).

wrong in saying that " all the lattices of the East, Indian and
Chinese, must derive from the Arab lattice." The stone lattices
in Muhammadan buildings in Gujerat are, like other details,
derived directly from the Hindu temples of Western India and
Rajputana. Muhammadan social customs made lattices more
necessary in the mosque than they were in the temple. The
Indian craftsman, following his own tradition, supplied the
demand for both.

After the removal of the Court to Champanir there was
still great building activity in the old capital and throughout
the kingdom of Gujerat. The Rani Rupavati Masjid, or the

138

TOMB OF RANI RUPAVATI

Queen's Mosque, in the Mirzapur quarter of the city, is typical
of the style of the early sixteenth century. Making allowances
for the stunted appearance of the facade of the liwan, due to
the loss of the upper half of the minarets, it is one of the most
successful of the Ahmadabad mosques, though by no means so
finely balanced in design as the two mosques at Champanir,
It is much smaller than the Jami' Masjid, and only the liwan
remains intact. The outside dimensions of the latter are 103
feet by 46 feet. It is covered by three domes about 19 feet in
diameter linked together by a flat roof and smaller domes, the
central dome being raised upon a clerestory to admit light and
air according to the usual arrangement of Gujerat mosques.

The details of the Mirzapur mosque — the bases of the
minarets, the balcony windows, and the perforated stone

lattices — are as exuberantly rich as
the sculpture of the Hindu temples
from which they are derived.

The tomb of the Rani, said to
be one of the ladies of the Royal
household, from whom the mosque
is named, is in an adjacent court-
yard. Like all the early Muham-
madan tombs in India, it shows a
great contrast to the mosque in its
classic severity of design and so-
briety of decoration ; but it is never-
theless purely Hindu in general conception and in detail.

Starting from a square or octagonal ground-plan with a
single dome supported on columns like the porch of a Hindu
temple, the roof-plan of the Muhammadan tomb gradually de-
veloped into the pane h-ratna or " four-jewelled " type of Buddh-
ist and Hindu temple, by the addition of four smaller domes
or kiosks at the corner of the square, or into the nava-ratna or

It--

li-

FIG. 37.— Plan of Tomb, Rani
Rupavati's Masjid.

W
H

SIDI SAYYID'S MOSQUE 139

" nine-jewelled " type when the ground-plan was octagonal. In
the former case four minarets or octagonal buttresses sometimes
took the place of the smaller domes. In the Taj Mahall the
four detached minarets echo the small kiosks over the four
side-chapels of the mausoleum. The great majority of Mu-
hammadan tombs in India are planned upon this scheme, or
some slight variation of it.

Another of the most beautiful of the mosques of Ahmada-
bad — the so-called mosque of Sidi Sayyid, built within the
enclosure of the royal palace — belongs to the early part of the
sixteenth century. It has, however, suffered much from van-
dalism, first from the Marathas who desecrated it, and after-
wards under British rule when it was converted into an office
for the revenue collection of the district. Its restoration and
conservation were part of the splendid work done by the
Archaeological Survey of India under Lord Curzon's Govern-
ment.

It is a small mosque, and only the liwan, measuring 68 feet
by 36 feet, now remains ; the upper part of the minarets at the
two front corners have fallen. Structurally it is interesting as
showing one of the first attempts of the Gujerat builders to use
the arch in the interior of the liwan for the support of the roof.
Here, as elsewhere, it is quite evident that the Indian did
it tentatively but quite spontaneously, without any instruction
or suggestion from foreign craftsmen, to whom the arch was
familiar as a structural expedient. The pipal leaf is carefully
carved on the keystone of the arches (PL LVI 1 1). No Saracenic
craftsman would have done this. Neither would a Saracenic
builder skilled in arch construction have experimented with
Hindu methods of construction as these builders did. It was
just because the Indian builders of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries could and did experiment so freely that they produced
such great results. Three different devices, Dr. Burgess points

1 40 SIDI SAYYID'S MOSQUE

out, were employed in roofing the fifteen compartments into
which the plan of the liwan is divided by its pillars. " Some are
contracted in the usual Hindu method by cutting off the corners
by three courses of lintels, reducing the square to a thirty-two-
sided polygon ; in others pendentive arches are thrown across
the corners in the style so common in Northern India; in others
again a Hindu system of brackets support the base of the
covering dome." l The domes being of small dimensions, they
are contained within the thickness of the roof, which is flat
outside.

Though skilfully planned and elegant in proportions, as
are all the Gujerat buildings of this period, Sidi Sayyid's
mosque in its mutilated condition would not be specially re-
markable except for the glorious stone tracery of the arched
windows in the back of the liwan, which besides ventilating the
interior give it almost as much warmth of colour as the jewelled
windows of Western cathedrals. From the outside it is equally
beautiful (PI. LVIII). In this class of window tracery India
stands alone : it is a purely Indian development of the sculp-
tor's craft having its origin in the Hindu temple tradition. It
owed nothing to Persian art : the best Ahmadabad tracery
shows no Persian influence. It is stronger in design and
better suited for its purpose than most of the work of the
Mogul period, when the Indian craftsmen adopted the Persian
fashions of the court. Persian influence generally was very
far from being the great inspiring force in Mogul art which
it is commonly assumed to be by Western critics. The court
fashions of the later Mogul Emperors had, on the whole, a
decidedly weakening effect on the native vigour of Indian
architecture, as they certainly had upon the morale of Indian
social life. Professor Lethaby's oft-quoted characterisation of
Indo-Muhammadan architecture as " elasticity, intricacy, and

1 "Archaeological Survey of Western India," vol. vii. p. 41.

RANI SIPARI'S MOSQUE AND TOMB 141

glitter — suggestive of fountain spray and singing birds," is
only just if applied to the later decadent phases of it, when
Persian influence was strongest and when the demoralising
influences of a dissolute court were faithfully reflected in court
architecture. Applied to the virile and intensely practical art and
architecture of the sixteenth century it is meaningless, as Pro-
fessor Lethaby himself would, I am sure, be the first to admit.

Perso-Saracenic art on its own soil was superbly great ;
but Persian influence brought into India from time to time by
courtiers and casual craftsmen could not inspire Indian art
with qualities it did not itself possess. The suggestions given
to India in this way did not alter Indian art, but were turned
by Indian artists and craftsmen in the direction they chose.
The inspiration remained Indian always, just as Shakespeare
drew his inspiration from his native heath even when he
borrowed an idea from Scotland or from Italy.

The mosque and tomb of Rani Sipari are among the
most elegant of the Ahmadabad buildings of this period ; the
date of their completion, according to an inscription over
the central mihrab of the mosque, was 1514 — three years after
the death of Sultan Mahmud Shah Begarah. They were
built by one of his queens in memory of her son, Abu Khan,
the heir-apparent, who was put to death by the Sultan's order
for misbehaviour. " He had got into someone's house, who
found him there and thrashed him" The report of the
prince's disgrace reached the Sultan's ear, who ordered that
poison should be put in his wine.1 Apparently it was not
until after the Sultan's death that the unhappy mother was
allowed to consecrate her grief for the loss of her son by
building the mosque and tomb.

The mosque is of small size, the liwan measuring only
48 feet by 194 feet, but it is interesting architecturally as being

1 Bayley's " Gujerat," p. 239.

142 RANI SIPARI'S MOSQUE AND TOMB

one of the later Gujerat mosques which dispense with arched
construction entirely, and revert to the pure Hindu tradition
of building. In this respect it is a contrast to the contem-
porary mosque of Siddi Sayyid just described. Dr. Burgess
has observed that, the tomb and mosque being planned and
built together, they show the proper co-ordination of the
structural arrangements of the two buildings according to the
Indian tradition ; that is, the spacing between the pillars of
the tomb and its outer screen-wall are controlled by the
arrangement of the pillars of the mosque. The mosque
is praised by Fergusson as being " the most exquisite gem
of Ahmadabad, both in plan and detail." He admired parti-
cularly the minarets, as being more beautiful than those of
Muhafiz Khan's mosque, and as " surpassing in beauty of
outline and richness of detail those of Cairo." For such com-
parison it would be wiser to take the minarets of the two
Champanir mosques, which in structural design are much
better. The minarets of Rani Sipari's mosque are structurally
the least satisfactory part of the building, the excessive thin-
ness of the upper part giving them an unpleasant appearance
of instability — a grave architectural error. The mosque is
very skilfully planned, and the detail deserves all Fergusson's
commendation ; but on the whole the architectural ensemble
of the tomb is better than that of the mosque.

Mosques, tombs, and palaces are by no means the only
architectural monuments of the sixteenth century in India.
Domestic architecture would demand a separate volume ; the
Muhammadan sovereigns of the time rivalled the fame of
their Hindu predecessors for military works and for magnifi-
cent irrigation works, bathing-places, and public wells, with
spacious subterranean chambers which provided a cool retreat
in the hot season.

Gujerat is specially famous for its public wells, many of

PLATE LIX

RANl SlPARi'S MOSQUE, AHMADAHAD

1426!

DADA HARIR'S WELL ,43

them being built at the expense of pious Hindus and dedicated
to the public service. One of the finest is that known as Dada
Harir's Wav, at Asarwa, near Ahmadabad, which, according
to a Sanskrit inscription placed in one of the galleries, was
constructed in the first year of the sixteenth century by Bai
Sri Harira, one of the ladies of the Mahmud Shah Begarah's
court. It is designed strictly on the lines of the older Hindu
step-wells, which supplied water both for irrigation and for
domestic use. It was originally surrounded by a public
orchard, irrigated from the well by the help of bullocks. The
well supplied a reservoir connected with it, from which water-
pots for drinking and domestic purposes can be filled. A fine
domed pavilion covers the approach to the shaft of the reser-
voir, the descent to which is made by flights of steps, i8| feet
in width, connected with a series of pillared platforms, the
roofs of which serve to strengthen the stone-faced sides of the
excavation. The central shaft of the reservoir, which is 24 feet
square, has two spiral staircases on the sides of it, to make
access easier. Here there are four tiers of pillared galleries
supporting the sides of the shaft, and providing cool resting-
places for the people using the well. The water, says Dr.
Burgess, is usually high up in the third gallery, the fourth
being always submerged. " After the third gallery is reached
and the depth exceeds 30 feet, the side walls require more sup-
port, and the builders, well aware of this, divided the next
opening, over the stair leading down from the third gallery,
into two, by lintels 4 feet broad in each storey, supported by
two pairs of coupled shafts ; and again, after another roof of
about 19 feet in length, standing on eight pillars, a second shaft
follows, similarly divided by lintels in each storey. By this
structural arrangement the side thrusts of the walls were
effectively met and overcome."

1 " Archzeological Survey of Western India," vol. viii. p. 5.

i44 DADA HARIR'S WELL

The plan and sections drawn by Mr. Cousens (Pll. LX-LXI)
will give some idea of the fine design of these pillared plat-
forms and galleries, as truly " classic " in feeling as the
palaces of the Medici at Florence. The loving labour and
skill lavished on the decoration of the parapet walls of the
central galleries, only lacking the human interest of the best
Hindu architectural sculpture, can be seen in the illustration
(Plate LXII). One can easily realise that the builders of this
well built it in exactly the same spirit as they built the noble
transept of the Champanir mosque. To the Indian craftsman
the construction of a well was as much a religious work as
the building of a mosque or temple. What a treasure-house
of fine culture for the people who come daily to draw water
from this well ! What profanity and impertinence for Euro-
peans to transport their modern secular vulgarity to India,
under the pretence of teaching principles of design to a school
of craftsmanship inheriting such traditions !

In a work of this kind, covering so wide a field, I can-
not attempt to give any idea of the extraordinary fertility of
invention of Indian builders, both Hindu and Musulman, in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. So far from following a
strict architectural formulary, indigenous or foreign, it would
seem as if the builders of every mosque and tomb were inspired
by the ambition to use the old traditions for creating something
new. The results were not, as might be expected, equally
successful in every case ; but the new stimulus to creative
effort led up to some of the noblest achievements in Indian
architecture. It was just this relaxation of pedantic rules,
allowing free play to the Indian craftsman's inventive genius,
which accounts for the imaginative richness of Muhammadan
architecture in India, shown not only in the creation within a
few centuries of so many different local schools of architecture,
but in the variety of types in each local style.

W
H

*-4

.Pn

PLATE LXII

HARIR'S WELL, NEAR AHMADABAD : CENTRAL SHAFT

HINDU BUILDINGS ,45

Until the seventeenth century there was no official archi-
tectural formulary, like our modern dilettante " style," imposed
upon the Indian builders by the Muhammadan courts; except,
perhaps, in the reigns of Babar and Humayun, which were too
brief and stormy to make any permanent impression upon the
Indian craft tradition. Herein lies the whole secret of the
great architectural achievements of the Muhammadan period.
The spirit of Islam was not in itself a great creative force in
art, but it served practically to stir up the intellectual waters
in India by giving to Indian craftsmen the finest creative
opportunities.

It is important to bear in mind that though Gujerat in the
fifteenth and early part of the sixteenth centuries was, owing
to the ferment of the new structural ideas, the most important
creative centre in India, it was architecturally only a province
of Rajputana, and for a complete sketch of the history of the
period it would be necessary to review all the magnificent
buildings erected at Chitor and elsewhere by the great champion
of Hinduism, Kumbha Rana of Mewar (1418-68), and
other Rajput chiefs, who resisted all the assaults of Islam in
that part of India until the middle of the sixteenth century,
when they became Akbar's staunchest and most powerful allies.
But even if the material for such a review were available, it
would not throw more light upon the development of Indian
architecture at this period than is given by the Hindu build-
ings of an earlier date illustrated in this volume, which were
the original types from which both Hindu and Musulman in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries derived most of their struc-
tural and decorative ideas.

The temple of Ranpur, built by Kumbha Rana, which
was the prototype of many of the Gujerat mosques, has been
already referred to. The most remarkable of the Rana's build-
ings, however, was the splendid nine-storied tower at Chitor

146 PALACE AT GWALIOR

(Plate XXIII), raised to commemorate his victory over the
Musulmans of Malwa in 1440 ; an almost unique monument of
the genius of the Hindu master-builder, for the only one now
existing comparable with it is a somewhat smaller but equally
fine Tower of Victory of an earlier date, built by another
Hindu rajah.1 It stands upon a basement 47 feet square ;
the total height is 1 22 feet ; and the greatest width of the tower
at the base is 30 feet. It is a fine example of the skill with
which the Hindu craftsman, in the great creative epochs of
Indian art, could combine the most extraordinary richness of
decoration with a wonderful largeness of architectural concep-
tion ; for though the whole surface of the tower above the
basement is covered with the most elaborate sculpture, the
various planes of plastic relief are most skilfully co-ordinated
and kept in their right places by the bold design of the
cornices, pilasters, and other details of the structural design.
The sculpture generally shows the decadence of the art which
began to set in after the tenth century A.D., but as architecture
the tower ranks among the finest of its class anywhere.

Another remarkable Hindu building of the early sixteenth
century is the palace of Man Singh of Gwalior (1486-1518)—
a contemporary of Mahmud Shah Begarah of Gujerat — though,
unfortunately, it is one of those which has suffered most from
subsequent maltreatment. It was added to by his successor,
Vikrama Shahi, in 1518, and both Jahangir and Shah Jahan
in the seventeenth century built palaces for themselves there.
Pll. LXIII-LXV show part of the facade and two of the most
interesting parts of the interior of Man Singh's palace. Fergus-
son's comments on this building betray his characteristic error
in dealing with the history of the Muhammadan period.
"•Among the apartments of the palace was one called the
Baradari, supported on twelve columns, and 45 feet square, with

1 See Fergusson, vol. ii. plate 295 (edit. 1910).

w
-

PALACE AT GWALIOR I47

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 Moslims.
They had not then learned to copy them, as they did at the
end of that century, at Brindaban and elsewhere, under the
guidance of the tolerant Akbar." 1

The reader will have already understood that from the
time they entered India nearly all Muhammadan rulers, with
the exception of Aurangzib, were the patrons of Hindu master-
builders, for the very practical reason that they had no better
ones to employ. The knowledge gained by the Indian builder
in the service of his Musulman employer was not due to the
guidance of Akbar or any other of his patrons, but to the
exercise of his own intelligence.

1 Vol. ii. p. 176 (edit. 1910).

CHAPTER IX

THE ADVENT OF THE MOGULS
SHER SHAH'S MOSQUE AND TOMB — HUMAYUN'S TOMB

A FEW years after Man Singh of Gwalior completed his palace,
yet another Musulman invader, Babar, the illustrious founder
of the Mogul dynasty in India, came to contest the sovereignty
of Hindustan with the Afghan rulers of Delhi and Bengal.
In 1526, on the field of Panipat with only 10,000 men, he
defeated and slew Ibrahim Lodi ; the next year he overcame
the Rajput Rana Sanga of Chitor, near Fatehpur-Sikri ; and
in 1529 the Afghans in Bengal. But in 1531 the meteoric
career of one of the most romantic figures in history was cut
short by death.

Babar inherited the nature-loving traditions of his race :

he was strongly imbued with the Persian culture of his time,
which had borrowed much from China as well as from India
and the West. His wine-bibbing habits were redeemed by a
passionate joie de mvre and love of music and poetry. He
was no philosopher, like his grandson Akbar ; the wisdom of
India's sages had no attractions for him. In his delightful
memoirs he expresses forcibly his contempt for all things
Indian, and according to Montani, quoted by M. Saladin,1
directly he had established himself at Agra, he sent to Con-
stantinople for several of the pupils of the celebrated architect

1 "Manuel de 1'art Musulman," p. 509.
148

BABAR

Sinan, to superintend the building of the new city he laid out
there. If this is true, the fact is interesting as being the first
definite record of the importation of foreign architects by the
Musulman rulers of India. Architecturally it is of no im-
portance and gives no support to Fergusson's theory of the
foreign origin of the Mogul style, for the simple reason that
there is no trace of any Byzantine influence in any of the
Mogul buildings, or in any Indo-Muhammadan buildings
before Babar's time.

If Sinan's pupils did come to Agra, the new methods of
building they introduced seem to have been no more success-
ful than those of the modern Western teacher, for of all Babar's
buildings only two now exist, and these are quite insignifi-
cant : whereas many of the great Indo-Muhammadan monu-
ments of a much earlier date, built without Western supervision,
are still intact.

Objectively, it may be truly said that Babar left no impres-
sion whatever on the Indian building tradition ; yet as the
beginning of a new epoch when the Persian fashions of the
Mogul court were reflected in court architecture, Babar's
reign is a landmark in Indian history.

The student of Indian art is, of course, aware that from
time immemorial India had close commercial and political
relations with Persia and Mesopotamia, that constant streams
of immigrants had continually poured into Hindustan from
these and adjacent countries, and that the arts of all of them
had had their influence upon the art of India. But the Western
observer is too ready to forget that India, even before the time
of Buddha, had a civilisation which was peculiarly her ovyn,
and that the philosophy and religion contained in that civilisa-
tion had a potent influence not only in absorbing the artistic
elements derived from the culture of other countries, but in re-
shaping and transforming them according to her own ideals,
n*

I5o ARABIAN AND PERSIAN INFLUENCES

The imported material enriched the stock of Indian art and
added to its strength, but did not create it or profoundly
modify its ideals. We may agree that " English Gothic is only
an off-shoot from the parent stock of France," l but we must
never say that Indian sculpture is derived from Graeco- Roman,
Indian painting from Persian, or that Muhammadan art in
India is " a form of the Arabic modified by local influences " 2 ;
for in India the local influences were the predominating crea-
tive forces. Persian art, derived originally from Mesopotamia,
had an individuality of its own but never strong enough at any
time to overrule the artistic convictions of India. Asoka
brought craftsmen from Persepolis to help his Indian builders,
but while Indian art grew less Persian, Persian art became
more Indian. Kanishka brought Graeco- Roman craftsmen into
India, but Buddhism transformed this Hellenic art and made
it Indian. Babar, Humayun, and Akbar brought Arabian,
Persian, and Chinese artists and craftsmen with them, but
" Mogul " art in India, until Aurangzib destroyed it, remained
always Indian.

The Arabian and Persian influences in Mogul times un-
doubtedly did, to a certain extent, modify Indian architecture
externally — in particular instances and within limited areas,
which always seem larger than they really are, because they are
areas which come most under British influence and within the
cognisance of Anglo-Indian historians. Before the time of
Babar, Persia had little influence on Indo-Muhammadan archi-
tecture. Few, if any, of the previous Musulman rulers had
had direct relations with Persia : Baghdad and Mecca were the
spiritual centres for the Muhammadan world ; and it was the
Arabic calligraphist — not necessarily Arabian by birth — who
had most influence upon the Indian craft tradition. But after
Babar's time the Musulman courts had many close family

1 Lethaby, "Architecture," p. 211. 2 Ibid. p. 163.

PERSIAN INFLUENCE i5I

connections with Persia, and in the seventeenth century Persian
fashions were as much in vogue with the Mogul aristocracy
as Italian fashions were in France and in England.

In many respects the Persian influence in Indian archi-
tecture resembled that of the Italian Renaissance in the latter
countries — it was " an art of scholars, courtiers, and the connois-
seurship of middlemen." It was not a strong national impulse
from within, as the Renaissance was in Italy itself, but an
affectation of the "grand style" of court ceremonial. Struc-
turally, however, it had nothing like the same effect upon Indian
building as the Renaissance fashions had upon the building
craft of France and England : neither was the Persian tradition
either structurally or decoratively so remote from the native
tradition of India as Renaissance fashions were foreign to
Western Europe. It was rather a return wave of the outflow
of India's own artistic culture which had been poured out over
Central and Western Asia in the days of Buddhism, mingled
with the other currents from China and from Europe which
had joined each other there. Except upon certain branches of
the sumptuary crafts, like fine weaving and decorative pottery,
Persian influence upon Indian art in the Mogul times was
more subjective than objective. Indian thought, under the
domination of the intellectual Brahman priesthood, had lost
much of the simple joy of living of the earlier Buddhist times.
No doubt it derived much needed refreshment from the robust
and healthy outlook of Babar's hardy mountaineers — his
" Mongol rascals " as he called them. Babar's own keen artistic
temperament, which was inherited by many of his descendants,
showed itself in the intense delight he took in laying out his
gardens, with their fountains and gurgling water-courses, their
marble platforms and pavilions, their spreading plane-trees,
stately cypresses and lovely flowering trees and grassy slopes,
where he and his boon companions revelled to their hearts"

152 MOGUL GARDENS

content, making merry with music and improvised Persian
verses and with

The Grape that can with Logic absolute
The Two and Seventy jarring sects compute :
The Subtle Alchemist that in a trice
Life's leaden Metal into Gold transmute.

In his Kabul gardens, when the arghwan flowers began
to blow, " the yellow arghwan mingling with the red," or when
the pomegranates " hung red upon the trees," Babar could
find no place in the world to compare with it.

The greatest contribution of the Moguls to Indian art was
the spacious formal garden, laid out by Persian or Central
Asian gardeners,1 which must have added a rare charm to the
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century monuments and palaces,
hardly to be realised now that the old art of the formal garden
as a branch of architectural design is practically dead in India.
The richness and beauty of Persian floral design in the decora-
tive crafts was some compensation for the injury done to
Indian art by the exclusion of human interest from its
sculpture.

It was not, however, the love of nature or of art, but the
doctrine of art for art's sake, which was new to India. The
spirit of Indian poetry and painting for ages before the
Muhammadan invasion breathed a love of flowers and trees
and all animate things as passionate as Babar s or any Persian
poet's. But to the Buddhist and Hindu artist and poet the
beauty of nature had something of greater significance hidden
within it — the divine thought which created it. The realisation

1 The symbolism of the Persian and Central Asian gardens with their " four-fold field-
plots," planned like miniature Indian villages, was no doubt a part of the old Indian Buddhist
tradition ; but the Moguls made a fine art of the laying-out of the flower-beds, paved
walks, sculptured stone water-channels, and fountains, co-ordinating them with the build-
ings into a great artistic unity, the scheme of which has been completely ignored in
modern " restorations."

COURT FASHIONS

153

of this rather than the sensual enjoyment of beauty itself was
the whole aim of their contemplation and artistic effort, as it
has been in all the highest art.

Just as the Byzantine and Gothic craft tradition gave
Renaissance architecture in Europe its pristine vigour and
splendour, so Hindu art and craft gave Mogul architecture its
vitality and strength, until the time of Aurangzib. When
the Court fashion detached itself from the native traditions
of building, and architecture became not a question of sound
craftsmanship and scientific structure but of puritanical preju-
dice and correctness of style, Mogul building became con-
temptible ; but Indian architecture survived, and the Indian
builder continued down to the middle of the nineteenth century
to construct buildings which, as Fergusson said, "will bear
comparison, with the best erected in Europe in the Middle
Ages." 1 Like that of the Moguls, the fashionable architecture
of Europe became for the most part contemptible when
another formula, archaeological rather than religious — the
dogma of a correct classic taste — was imposed upon the
Western builder. Nothing is more likely to restore its vitality,
both in the West and East, than giving back to Indian builders
those opportunities for experimenting with modern materials
and adapting their traditions to modern requirements which
have been taken from them by the present departmental system.

Since nothing of importance now remains of Babar's
buildings, we must continue the review of sixteenth-century
buildings with the mosque and tomb of Sher Shah, an Afghan
noble who had submitted to Babar, but revolted against his
weak son Humayun and drove himjnto exile in Persia. Sher
Shah ruled with great success at Agra from 1539 until his
death in 1545. The mosque in the Purana Kila at Delhi is

1 "Indian Architecture," vol. ii. p. 185 (edit. 1910).

i54 SHER SHAH'S MOSQUE

said to have been built by him in 1541. When the facade of
the liwan (PI. LXVI) is compared with that of the Jami'
Masjid at Champanir, the effect of Babar's and Humayun's
Persian predilections upon the ideas of Indian builders can be
clearly seen.

There is no trace of Persian craftsmanship, but the Indian
builders had evidently been studying pictures by the Persian
court painters and taken from them architectural suggestions
which pleased them. For the first time in an Indian mosque
the Persian recessed portal is used ; it is not a copy, but an
Indian adaptation. The wall of the central bay of the liwan is
reduced in height, so that the dome, as in the great mosque of
Baghdad, becomes the important feature in the sky-line of
the facade, instead of the minarets and the front wall of the
building. The diminutive minarets which surround the base
of the central dome are also a suggestion from Persian build-
ings, but the dome itself is an Indian one, surmounted by the
Hindu Maha-padma and the water-pot. The difference be-
tween Persian and Indian craftsmanship can be seen in the
fine masonry of the whole facade and its carefully studied
proportions : the Perso-Saracenic builders were generally
studiously careless with regard to proportions, for they aimed
chiefly at the effect of colour produced by the casing of glazed
terra-cotta or tiles with which the crude or half-baked bricks
used for the core of their buildings were protected. The
Indian builder used comparatively little colour, but relied upon
beauty of line, fine masonry, and exquisite carving. On the
whole, it cannot be said that Babar's Persian taste improved
the design of Indian buildings. The Jimi' Masjid of Cham-
panir is certainly a greater architectural achievement than the
semi-Persianised mosque of Sher Shah. The interior of the
latter building is as purely Hindu in design and craftsman-
ship as any of the mosques of Gujerat.

.Hi

SHER SHAH'S TOMB 155

The tomb of Sher Shah, which Fergusson, with his usual
bewildering classification, labels as " late Pathan," separating
it from the mosque, which he places under " early Mogul," is
one of the most stately buildings in India, and important as
being a half-way house between the Taj Mahall built about a
century later, and its early Buddhist prototypes.

Mr. Vincent Smith, following Fergusson's lead in attri-
buting everything unusual in Indian architecture to a foreign
source, classifies it as " Indo-Persian," and not only asserts
that " both the octagonal form and the coloured glazed tiles
were importations from Persia," l but rashly suggests that the
model of it- was the early fourteenth-century Saracenic tomb
at Sultanieh.2 Seeing that the domes of Sher Shah's tomb
are purely Hindu in form and construction, and that nearly all
Hindu domes are octagonal at the springing, it would be
almost as justifiable to refer to the octagonal baptistery of San
Giovanni at Florence as its prototype, and to classify it accord-
ingly as " Indo-Italian." It is true that the ground-plan of
the sanctuary of Muhammadan tombs, according to the strict
Indian tradition, was usually square, the square being changed
into an octagon to form the base of the dome. It is true also
that Perso-Saracenic tomb-builders of the fourteenth century
generally made the plan of the sanctuary octagonal through-
out ; but before we assume that Indian buildings of a later
date are " Indo-Persian," it is necessary to be sure that the
Persian buildings are not in some respects " Perso-Indian,"
i.e. derived from earlier Indian prototypes. It is, I think,

1 " History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon," p. 406. With regard to the tiles, Mr.
Vincent Smith himself notices Mr. Marshall's account of the tile-work recently discovered
.at Kanishka's stupa at Peshawar, which points to the existence of enamelled pottery as a
localised industry in India as early as the second century A.D. He also admits that the
process " might have been invented independently in India " and may have been known to
the Hindus of Bengal before the Muhammadan conquest.

2 Illustrated by M. Saladin, " Manuel de 1'art Musulman," figs. 266 and 267.

156 SHER SHAH'S TOMB

quite certain that the Persian or Tartar " bulbous " dome
derives from the Indian Buddhist domed canopy and shrine.
The octagonal Mongolian tombs in Persia may also be derived,
through Turkestan, from the early Buddhist prototypes of the
octagonal towers in Bengali temples, and of the vimana of
Jugal Kishore's temple at Brindaban. Buddhist communities
existed in Western Persia in the seventh century ; and pro-
bably the Mongolian invaders of the thirteenth century contri-
buted Indian elements to the Persian building tradition which
they had received through Turkestan. But, in any case, an
Indian building should not be classed as " Indo-Persian "
because Indian builders, in an age of constant experiment,
made such a slight concession to the Persian fashions of their
patrons as to convert a square plan into an octagon.

Sh£r Shah's tomb is, in fact, less Persianised than the
fifteenth-century octagonal tombs at Old Delhi described by
Fergusson as " late Pathan." * The square form is here re-
sumed in the outer enclosure. The usual grouping of the
domes according to the Buddhist-Hindu tradition of the " five
jewels " (panck-mtna) is slightly modified on account of the
octagonal form of the sanctuary, i.e. the four minor domes are
placed at the angles of the square enclosure, eight smaller
cupolas being grouped round the central dome and similar
ones are placed on the roof of the corridors which surround the
sanctuary of the tomb. There is nothing analogous to this
arrangement in any Persian tombs.

Both Fergusson and Mr. Vincent Smith mislead their
readers by showing the absurd little kiosk, or cupola, placed on
the top of the central dome. This was a grotesque modern
restoration, very rightly removed by the Archaeological Survey
of India under Mr. Marshall's scholarly direction, and replaced
by the original Buddhist-Hindu emblems by which all the

1 " History of Indian Architecture," vol. ii. fig. 379 (edit. 1910).

SHER SHAH'S TOMB ,57

smaller domes are surmounted. Almost the only Persian or
quasi-Persian elements in the whole structure are the eight
small finials on the parapets of the cupolas at the angles of the
square enclosure. I have already explained that pointed arches
are as much Indian as Saracenic : in the sixteenth century all
builders in the north of India, both Hindu and Musulman,
used them.

SheY Shah's tomb is as purely Indian in conception as
any Buddhist or Hindu temple. It must not, however, be
compared with either of them, but with similar buildings of its
own class. It was a fortress-tomb, adapted in sentiment and
structure for. such a purpose by Indian builders. The term
" Pathan " can only be applied to it as a dynastic distinction.
As builders or designers the Pathans had no more hand in
it than the , Goths had in the building of English Gothic
cathedrals.

It is grandly situated in the middle of a large artificial
lake, and in dimensions it is one of the most important build-
ings of its class in India. The terrace on which it is built,
formerly connected with the mainland by a bridge, is about
300 feet square. The sanctuary is 135 feet in diameter on the
ground, the diameter of the dome being 71 feet, or 13 feet more
than the dome of the Taj. The corridors which surround the
sanctuary have a width of 10 feet 2 inches.

The next in chronological order of the great Musulman
tombs of India is the mausoleum of Sher Shah's Mogul
antagonist, Humayun, who in 1555 wrested the throne of
Delhi from Sher Shah's son and successor, Sultan Islam, with
the help of a Persian army, but died the following year from
the effects of a fall from the staircase of his palace.

The presence of this Persian army, with the Persian
craftsmen who accompanied it, on Indian soil, was the deter-

i58 HUMAYUN'S TOMB

mining factor in the design of Humayun's tomb, which is
perhaps more Persian in character than any other important
building in India, though it has an individuality of its own and
is not a direct imitation of a Persian building. It might be
described as a Persianised version of Sh£r Shah's tomb. It
stands in a walled enclosure, originally laid out as a formal
garden in the usual Mogul style. Little is known of the
character of Indian formal gardens before the time of the
Moguls ; but the innovation here seems to have been more
the association of a garden with a tomb than the style of the
garden itself. The mausoleum, like that of Sher Shah, is
raised on a large square terrace, 22 feet in height, surrounded by
an arcade, Persian in design, but built of red sandstone with
white marble inlay. There is little doubt that the masonry of
the building was done by Indian craftsmen, and we have here
one of the first indications of the development of the art of
stone inlay which culminated nearly a century later in the
exquisite decoration of the Taj. All the arches of the tomb
are Persian in form, without the characteristic lotus-bud en-
richment of the soffits or the pipal-leaf keystone which show
the Hindu designer. At the same time the careful study of
proportion throughout the building shows the feeling of the
Indian mason. The brick construction of the central dome,
which has an outer casing of white marble, was probably the
work of a Persian dome builder ; for this is one of the very
rare instances in which the Hindu symbols are omitted from
the finial of the dome. The metal kalasha is of the usual
Saracenic form.

With all the Persian elements in the details the plan of
the whole building is characteristically Indian ; the symbolism
of the " five jewels " is here carried further than the roof — it is
embodied in the whole structure, as it is in the Taj. The
mausoleum itself, an octagonal apartment 47 feet 4 inches in

HUMAYU-N'S TOMB 159

diameter, is surrounded by four other octagonal chapels 23 feet
in diameter, the latter being surmounted by four cupolas which
are crowned by the Hindu Maha-padma and the water-pot.

Humayun's tomb is an eclectic composition of the " grand
style," or of what Professor Lethaby characterises as the " big-
wiggy" school. It certainly cannot be cited to support Fer-
gusson's theory that the greatness of Mogul architecture was
due to foreign inspiration. Fergusson himself, while praising
it as "a noble tomb," is constrained to admit that there is a
certain coldness and poverty in the design. It has some of the
characteristics of modern architectural eclecticism in Europe.
In the effort- to be "grand" its builders have left a painful
impression of pomposity and self-consciousness. The qualities
of massive strength and unaffected regal dignity which compel
admiration in Sh£r Shah's stately tomb at Sahsaram are only
seen in Indian monuments when the native master-builders
were not under the control of Persian courtiers.

CHAPTER X

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

AKBAR — THE BUILDINGS AT FATEHPUR-SIKRI — AKBAR's PALACE

AT AGRA

HUMAYUN'S tomb was an episode in Indian architectural
history which, but for the great dimensions of the building
and for its interest as one of the connecting-links in the evolu-
tion of the Taj Mahall, might well be passed over. It left no
more permanent impression upon Indian architecture as a
whole than did the smaller Persianised tombs which are scat-
tered over the north of India. The Indian master-builders
naturally added the structural elements contained in all of them
to their own stock-in-trade, but they did not during the rest
of Akbar's long reign remain subject to the dictation of Persian
court fashions.

The whole architecture of India in all its wonderful variety
is more original and self-contained than any of the great
Western schools, except Egyptian. The architecture of medie-
val Europe owed an immense debt to the Oriental tradition.
English architecture was to a great extent created by the Gothic
tradition. But there were no buildings placed on Indian soil
which were so entirely foreign to India as Byzantine buildings
were foreign to Italy, or as Gothic buildings were foreign to
England. Under Akbar's beneficent rule Indian builders were
free to build for their Mogul patrons according to their own

160

AKBAR

ideas, just as they had been under the Musulman sovereigns
of Bengal and Gujerat.

Humayun died in 1556, leaving to his son, a boy of thir-
teen, a legacy of difficulties even greater than those which he
himself had inherited from Babar. But before he was thirty,
Akbar (1556-1605) was undisputed master of an empire much
greater than his grandfather's, and had done more to consolidate
all the heterogeneous racial and religious components of Hin-
dustan than any other ruler since the days of Asoka.

His greatest building activities began in 1569, when he laid
the foundation of Fatehpur-Sikri, near Agra, now a deserted city,
but still a wonderful memorial of his genius as a statesman.
There is, however, as little warrant for Fergusson's presump-
tion that Abkar played the part of an amateur architect as for
his theory that the style of the buildings of Sher Shah and his
Afghan predecessors had been " invented by the Pathans."
Abul Fazl, Akbar s biographer, makes quite clear the personal
predilections of his royal master. He was deeply interested in
philosophy and religion, and, being illiterate himself, had books
read to him every day. For the same reason he was especially
fond of pictures, looking upon the art "as a means both of
study and amusement." He personally supervised the work
of the court painters every week. Abul Fazl has much to say
about calligraphists and painters, and gives a short biographical
sketch of the most celebrated of them. But, whereas Shah
Jahan's chroniclers record the name of all the chief builders of
the Taj, Abul Fazl does not mention one of those who built
Fatehpur-Sikri and Akbar's palace at Agra. Neither does
he give any hint that Akbar concerned himself intimately with
the art of building. A few short paragraphs in the Ain-i-
Akbari refer to " the splendid edifices which His Majesty
plans " ; " the mighty fortresses which protect the timid, frighten
the rebellious and please the obedient." Also " the delightful

1 62 AKBAR

villas and imposing towers, which afford excellent protection
against cold and rain, provide for the comforts of the prin-
cesses of the Harem, and are conducive to that dignity which
is so necessary for worldly power." Sarais were built for the
comfort of travellers, and many tombs and wells dug " for the
benefit of men and the improvement of the soil." Schools and
places of worship were founded, " so that the triumphal arch
of knowledge is newly adorned."

Akbar's personal interest in building was in its economic,
not in its artistic, aspect. " His Majesty," says Abul Fazl, " is
a great friend of good order and propriety in business " ; and
just as he kept strict control over the pin-money of the ladies
of the Imperial zanana, so he regulated the price of building
materials, the wages of craftsmen, and collected data for fram-
ing proper estimates. The minute particulars given under
these heads in the Ain-i-Akbari * are evidence of the efficient
organisation of his Public Works administration, and show
what little justification there is for the popular belief that the
Moguls were always extravagant builders.

Indirectly Akbar's influence upon the architecture of his
time was very great ; for whereas both his father and grand-
father were Persian in their habits and tastes, Akbar was an
Indian of the Indians, and disgusted his orthodox Musulman
courtiers by the enthusiasm with which he entered into the
study of Hindu philosophy and religious teaching. He allied
himself by marriage with the royal families of Rajputana.
Many of his chief ministers and intimate friends were Hindus.
There was consequently throughout Akbar's reign or during
the last half of the sixteenth century a great reaction against
the tendency of the Mogul court to adopt purely Persian

1 See Blockmann's translation, vol. i. pp. 222-9. Sections 86 to 90 of the Ain
fix the prices of building material, the wages of artisans, give data for building estimates,
and particulars regarding the weight of different kinds of wood.

PLATE LXIX

162]

JAMl' MASJID, FATEHPUR slKRl = INTERIOR OF CHAPEL

AKBAR ,63

fashions in building. Akbar's palace at Agra and the build-
ings of Fatehpur-Sikri are essentially a new development of the
same Buddhist-Hindu craft tradition which had created the
architecture of the preceding Musulman dynasties in India.
The term Mogul as applied to them is useful for the purpose
of classification, but it becomes very misleading if it lends
itself to the assumption that the Moguls were the master-
builders, or that Mogul genius was the creative force behind
them. Akbar's buildings, strictly speaking, are Rajput rather
than Mogul.

Naturally the fame of Akbar's court attracted to it master-
craftsmen from all parts of his dominions, and even from out-
side ; but it is clear that Akbar, so far from showing a prefer-
ence for foreigners, was a great admirer of Hindu art and craft.
It is equally obvious that Akbar, like any other ruler of his
stamp, consulted his master-builders and gave general direc-
tions for the arrangement and accommodation he required,
but otherwise his interest in building was, as I have said,
mostly shown in a careful control of the expenditure.

Fatehpur-Sikri, nevertheless, in its great mosque — which
was also a university — its palaces, assembly-halls, and public
offices, its schools and hospitals, baths, water-works, and its
spacious caravanserais for travellers, most of which are still
intact, bears witness to Akbar's splendid capacity as an
organiser and ruler of men.

Town-planning, as Ram Raz has shownn was a science
recognised in the Hindu Silpa-sastras for centuries before
Musulman rule in India ; and there are some indications that

1 Essay on the Architecture of the Hindus, pp. 41-?- R*m Raz describes eight
different schemes of planning, which admitted of forty varieties, according to the
the town or village. Those he gives are all oblong in shape, with two man
crossing the centre at right angles to each other, and parallel to two sides o
the longer street running generally from east to west and the shorter one north t<

1 64 FATEHPUR-SIKRI

the Hindu canons were partially observed in the laying out of
Fatehpur-Sikri. The city, which was an irregular oblong in
shape, about six miles in circuit, lay open on the north-west to
a large artificial lake, now dry, which mitigated the dust and
stifling heat of an Indian summer and afforded all the ameni-
ties of a water-frontage. The other three sides were enclosed
by fortified walls, which had nine gateways.

The great mosque, placed on high ground in the centre of
the city, is oriented auspiciously like a Hindu temple, with the
four walls facing the cardinal points and the entrance on the
east. The palace buildings have the same aspect, and Akbar's
throne in his private audience-chamber, the Diwan-i-Khas,
was raised upon a single pillar in the centre of it, with a
colossal bracketed capital, symbolising the throne of Vishnu,
the Upholder of the Universe — the ideal Hindu ruler being
regarded as Vishnu's Vicegerent on earth. The five-storied
pavilion known as the Panch Mahall, adjoining the Mahall-i-
Khas, is planned after the monastic assembly-halls, or colleges,
of pre-Muhammadan times in India.

The buildings of Fatehpur-Sikri belong almost exclusively
to the Buddhist-Hindu tradition ; the admixture of Persian
and Arabian elements is much less than might have been
expected from the precedent set by Akbar's father and grand-
father. Generally speaking, these elements are confined to
surface decoration, sculpture, and painting ; for many of Akbar's
court painters belonged to the Persian school. But in the
great mosque the Persian semi-domed portal is introduced
both in the structure of the facade of the liwan and in the
gateways of the quadrangle. Indian builders had been made
familiar with this form of construction by the building of SheY
Shah's mosque and Humayun's tomb, so its appearance in
later buildings is no proof that foreign craftsmen were still
taking a part in the construction of them. Every living school

THE jAMI' MASJID ,65

of art and craft borrows freely from its neighbours when the
opportunity offers, without servile archaeological imitation.

The great mosque, from the pulpit of which Akbar pro-
mulgated his doctrine of the " Divine Faith " in the endeavour
to reconcile the conflicting creeds of all his subjects, is an
interesting example of this. Looking at the plan of the liwan
(fig. 38), which is quite different from other Indian mosques

U- J.4.J. J.4.4. J. 44.4.4. JWIJ
N4 ••••••••• *****4^

• * * * *

*TTTTTTTTTf<"f

FIG. 38.— Plan of Jami' Masjid, Fatehpur-Sikri (from Fergusson's " History").

and obviously based upon a Persian or Arabian model, one
might easily conclude that the building belonged to the
Saracenic tradition. An inscription on the mosque itself to
the effect that " this is a duplicate of the Holy Place " (Mecca
or Baghdad) would seem to make this a certainty. Yet in the
structure itself the evidence of the Indian master-builders'
handiwork and controlling mind gives overwhelming proof to

i66

THE JAM!' MASJID

the contrary. It is a purely Indian building, in spite of the
eclecticism of its details. Probably one of Akbar's Persian
painters drew a rough sketch of one of the famous mosques at
Ispahan or Baghdad, and the Emperor showed it to his Indian
master-builders and said, " Build me a mosque like this."
The result was an entirely original Indian building, as original
as it would have been had Akbar been Christian and com-
manded them to build him a cathedral like Canterbury or
Notre Dame de Paris.

There is very little exact reproduction of Persian structural

forms, as there is in
Humayun's tomb,
but only adaptation.
The pillars and
whole structure of
the roof are strictly
Hindu. In Huma-
ytin's tomb the dome
is obviously Persian ;
here the ribbed

doiTlCS of the llWan
^ constructed On

the same principle as the central dome of the Jami' Masjid
at Champanir. All the domes have Hindu pinnacles. There
seems to be Persian handiwork in some of the decoration
and minor structural details, but it is by no means better than
the Indian work and not always in tune with it.

The liwan measures 288 feet by 65 feet. The principal
chapel in the centre is covered by a dome, 41 feet in diameter,
of the usual Indian form and construction, but stilted at the
base in Arab fashion. The two side-chapels have similar
domes 25 feet in diameter. The rest of the liwan has a flat
roof supported on pillars and brackets of pure Hindu design.

FIG. 39.-

-Plan of Buland Darw^za (drawn by the Archaeological
Survey of India).

PLATE LXXI

THE BULAND DARWAZA, FATEHPUR-Sf KRt

t661

THE JAM!' MASJID l6;

The quadrangle measures 359 feet 10 inches from north tosouth,
and 438 feet 9 inches from east to west. It contains the tomb of
Shaikh Salim Chishti, the saint of Fatehpur-Sikri, who was
Akbar's spiritual adviser ; it is built in white marble in a very
ornate style. Adjacent to it is another mausoleum for his
grandson, the Nawab Islam Khan, who was made Governor of
Bengal by Jahangir, and his male descendants. A separate
vault, called the Zanana Rauza, was for the Shaikh's female
relatives. These buildings, of course, do not belong to the
original design of the mosque. The numerous chambers,
usually about 10 feet square and covered by domes, which sur-
round the open quadrangle were intended for the maulvis and
their pupils. These, together with the noble cloisters in front
of them, formed the University buildings of Fatehpur.

The liwan, though grandly planned and in some respects
one of the finest in India, falls behind the great mosque at
Champanir in that perfect co-ordination between its structural
and decorative elements, which, as Professor Lethaby justly
observes, is necessary for a great school of architecture. The
new elements of the style, brought in by Babar's and Humayun's
Persian craftsmen and by Akbar's court painters, are not so
perfectly blended with the old ones as they are at Cham-
panir. A great deal of the Persian decorative detail was added
perfunctorily, so that Professor Lethaby's observations in some
of the later Roman buildings might well be applied to it. ' The
elements of sculpture and painting were merely formal, and in
no way epic ; they were added to a building as adornments,
and were not the very soul of its life. The times in history
when building, sculpture, painting, and other arts have been
perfectly co-ordinated into a higher unity have, indeed, been
very few ; but if we are to distinguish between fine building
and noble architecture this organic unity must be the test.

1 " Medieval Art," pp. 12-13.

168 THE BULAND DARWAZA

Later in Akbar's reign we shall find that the Indian master-
craftsmen had made the Persian tradition their own, so that
the structural and decorative elements were once more brought
together into that higher unity. One of the most striking ex-
amples of this is the famous Buland Darwaza, or High Gate
of the mosque, which has been recognised by all authorities as
one of the great buildings of the world. An inscription on it
shows that it was built towards the close of Akbar's reign to
commemorate his conquests in the Dekhan. It will be seen
from the plan (fig. 39) that it is a complete structure in itself,
containing large halls and a number of smaller chambers,
through which entrance is gained to the inner quadrangle of
the mosque. It is raised on a platform 42 feet in height above
the road ; across the main front it measures 130 feet. From
the pavement in front of the entrance to the top of the finials
surmounting the gate the height is 134 feet.

Like most of the other buildings at Fatehpur-Sikri it is
built of red sandstone, and as there is no painted decoration
on it, but only carving and discreet inlaying of white marble,
we may conclude that the design of the whole structure and the
decoration of it was in the hands of Akbar's Indian master- «,
builders.1 The character of the design supports this conclusion.
It is Persian in general form, but the architectural treatment
of it is unlike any Persian building and distinctively Indian ;
though it may be observed that Persian pendentives with
intersecting arches are used in the semi-dome. I have already
explained how ingeniously the Indian buildings afterwards
combined this structural principle with their own methods in
the wonderful domes of Bijapur.

Persian builders had seized upon this structural use of
the mihrab not so much for its architectural effect as for the

1 The Arabic inscriptions would be drawn by expert Muhammadan calligraphists and
carved by Indian masons.

H
<
J
PH

AKBAR'S OFFICE AND AUDIENCE-HALL 169

splendid glow of iridescent colour which the reflections of its
concave surface gave to their encaustic decoration. It was
left to the Indian master-builders to show its architectural
possibilities in fine masonry. The fact that Persian motifs are
freely used in the carving is no evidence of Persian craftsman-
ship. It will be remembered that the exquisite floral inlaid
decoration of the Taj, which seems to be purely Persian, was
Hindu work. In carpet weaving and other textiles, in painting
and in pottery, the Moguls indented largely upon Persia ; but
masonry was not a Persian craft, and in all Indian buildings
stone construction and decoration, whether it be carving or
inlay, almost invariably connote Indian design and craftsman-
ship.

The most characteristic of the Fatehpur buildings, apart
from the mosque, are not generally imposing in size, but are
wonderfully interesting as types of the public offices and
domestic buildings of the period. These include Akbar's office
(PL LXXII), and the Diwan-i-Khas with Akbar's throne, which
has been already mentioned. The former, if it had been built in
Europe, would have ranked as a fine example of "classic"
taste ; the latter would be admired as an excellent specimen of
the Renaissance style. Both are of Hindu design and con-
struction, with the admixture of Saracenic decorative details
which the court fashions of the time dictated ; just as the Hindu
craftsman now borrows freely from European trade catalogues
to please Anglicised Indians.

The Diwan-i-Khas is a square building, about 43 feet on
the outside, containing a single vaulted chamber, 28feet 8 inches
square, in the centre of which is Vishnu's symbolic Pillar .or
Tree of the Universe, on the top of which Akbar sat enthroned.
Surrounding this chamber are corridors containing the stair-
cases which lead to the galleries above ; the latter run round
the building at the height of the top of the pillar, which is

170

THE DIWAN-I-KHAS

connected with them by passages along the diagonals. The
vaulted roof, constructed with stone ribs — the interspaces
being filled with slabs of stone — took the place of the customary
dome so as to provide for a terraced promenade over it. Accord-

FIG. 40.— Section of the Diwan-i-Khas, Fatehpur-Sikri (drawn by the Archaeological

Survey of India).

ing to the strict Hindu tradition, the roof should have had its
"five-jewel" domes ; the absence of the central dome in this
instance makes the four kiosks at the corners seem too large
for the building. But, in domestic architecture especially,

I— <

PLATE LXXIV

Photo by,
ijfb

PILLAR SUPPORTING AKBAR'S THRONE, FATEHPUR-SJKRi

[Johns'.on & Hoffman

STYLE AT FATEHPUR-SIKRI 171

when there is a living building tradition, practical requirements
always overrule purely academic considerations. The builders
of Akbar's audience-halls and royal villas, though they
adopted many structural forms which were used in temples
and mosques, made no attempt to work strictly according to
" style," and hence were not troubled by those archaeological
qualms which afflict the modern dilettante and paper architect
so grievously.

The leading characteristics of the " style" of these buildings

FIG. 41. — Ground Plan of Rajah Birbal's House.

— the planning ; the wide projecting dripstones and their sup-
porting brackets, for shade and protection from rain ; the double
roofs, domed or vaulted for coolness — are all dictated by con-
siderations of comfort and convenience rather than imitation
of other buildings. Centuries of honest building had created
a tradition which produced good architectural design without
any conscious effort.

The building known as Rajah Birbal's house (PL LXXV),

172 JODH BAl'S PALACE

within the precincts of the imperial zanana, was probably
occupied by one of Akbar's sultanas. It was built in 1572,
three years after the commencement of the city. It is a two-
storied building raised on a plinth, with entrance porches on
the north and south which have double-vaulted roofs ; small
steep staircases to the first floor are contained in the thickness
of the outer walls. The ground-floor contains a suite of four
rooms, each 16 feet 10 inches square; the walls being treated
in a similar way to the exterior with stone pilasters, dados, and
arched niches, but very richly carved. These rooms are ceiled
with flat slabs of stone extending from wall to wall in single
pieces, laid on a carved cornice and supported by carved
brackets. The first floor contains two rooms of similar size,
opening on to two terraces which were originally enclosed by
stone screens. These rooms are covered by double domes of
the usual Hindu type built with stone ribs.

The palace of Fatehpur known as Jodh Bai's Mahall —
probably occupied by Akbar's Rajput wife, Mariam Zamani,
the mother of Jahangir — is a stately building of much larger
size. In its classic simplicity it presents a great contrast to
the exuberant richness of the other sultanas' residences, and
because it was built for a Rajput princess the decoration does
not show so much partiality for Persian and Arabian motifs.
The plan (fig. 42) will be interesting for showing the interior
arrangements of a typical Indian palace.

The Panch Mahall is another of the many fine buildings
at Fatehpur. It is a stone-built pavilion of five stories, the
ground-floor containing eighty-four pillars (a Hindu symbolic
number, connoting the perfect life of man), each storey above
diminishing proportionately up to the top, which is crowned
by a domed canopy supported on four pillars. It is planned
after the old Indian assembly-halls frequently alluded to in
Buddhist literature, an example of which exists within the fort

•4

THE PANCH MAHALL

175

at Bijapur.1 PI. LXXVII, which shows a corner of the first
floor, will give some idea of the dignified design of this pavilion.
The pillars of each storey conform to a general scheme/but
instead of the dry uniformity of a Greek or Roman " order,"

FlG. 42.— Ground Plan of Jodh Bai's Palace.

every one is varied in the ornament of its cap and base, as well
as in its mouldings or other enrichments, so that the eye finds
infinite variety of interest in observing the details without any

1 See Plate III, "Bijapfir," by Fergusson and Meadows Taylor, 1866.

174 THE JAHANGIRI MAHALL

disturbance of the general effect of classic dignity and repose.
To realise the inexhaustible invention of the Indian craftsman
the reader must consult Edmund Smith's monumental work
on Fatehpur-Sikri, in which full details of the Panch Mahall
and other buildings are given.

From 1585 to 1598 Akbar removed his court to Lahore,
and in the latter part of his reign to Agra. The fort at Agra,
which is a fine example of his military works, had been com-
menced in 1566 on the site of an older one built by Salim
Shah, the son of Sh£r Shah. The part of the palace inside the
fort known as the Jahangiri Mahall was no doubt commenced
by Akbar, though it was probably completed by his son and
successor, after whom it was named. The Persianised exterior
is uninteresting — another illustration of the fact that, on the
whole, Persian influence was an element of weakness in Mogul
architecture, and not, as is generally assumed, the source of its
creative energy. The interior, which is for the most part
purely Rajput, or Hindu, exhibits all the virile imagination
and constructive skill of the Indian builder.

The principal apartments are ranged round a quadrangle,
71 feet by 72 feet, which is one of the finest architectural works
of Akbar's time. PL LXXVIII shows a corner of it after the
very careful restoration carried out by the Archaeological Survey
in Lord Curzon's Viceroyalty. It is only in India, where a
living craft tradition exists, that any restoration of this kind can
be safely carried out, for the craftsmen employed were probably
descendants of those who built the palace.

In PI. LXXIX, which shows the ruinous state of the
building before restoration, the details of the construction can
be better understood. It will be noticed that the small pointed
arches under the cornice are constructed in Hindu fashion in
single blocks of stone, like woodwork, without voussoirs or key-
stones. Immediately under these arches the brick core of the

INDIAN TECHNIQUE 175

main walls of the building can be seen exposed in place where
the stone facing has worn away.1 The dripstone which the
massive brackets were intended to support has entirely gone.

There is an outer courtyard on the river side of the palace
in which Persian structural details are used freely, but the
design of it, like that of the exterior of the palace, is tame and
uninteresting. The construction of the massive stone ceiling
of one of the principal apartments is shown in PL LXXX. It
is sometimes assumed by European critics who do not under-
stand Indian conditions, that Indian craftsmen in using stone
in this manner were blindly imitating wooden construction, not
having sufficient intelligence to adapt their methods to the
materials they used. This is an entire misapprehension of the
case. Indian builders appreciated quite as well as their craft
brethren in Europe the character of the materials they were
working with. Methods of lithic construction in Europe have
been determined by the difficulty of obtaining good building
stone of large dimensions and in sufficient quantities near the
sites of buildings. The buildings of Fatehpur-Sikri, Agra,,
and many other places in Northern India were close to
quarries of sandstone which provided building stone, in un-
limited quantities and of almost any dimensions, of such fine
quality that it could be worked almost as easily as wood.
Under such conditions no intelligent craftsman would limit
himself to methods of construction which prevail in other
places where good building stone is scarce.

The methods which are called lithic in Europe are, in fact,
used by Indian builders where conditions analogous to those of
Europe obtain. It has been a fatal mistake of the Anglo-
Indian architect to impose upon the Indian builder uniform
pseudo-scientific methods of construction derived from his own

1 The architect will, of course, understand that, in India as in Europe, most of the
buildings popularly described as of stone or marble have a core of brickwork or concrete.

i;6 AKBAR'S TOMB

narrow experience, quite regardless of local circumstances
which have governed the craft traditions of India.

The last important building in which Akbar was person-
ally concerned was his own tomb at Sikandara, near Agra,
which was commenced by himself and completed by his son
Jahangir in 1613. As Fergusson has pointed out, it was, like
the Panch Mahall at Fatehpur-Sikri, designed after the model
of a Buddhist-Hindu many-storied vihara, or monastery, but
the traditional domed canopy on the top storey was either
omitted by Jahangir,1 who was not pleased with the original
design, or it has fallen into ruin. Though the absence of the
dome gives to the whole pyramidal structure a curious trun-
cated appearance, Akbar's tomb is a worthy monument of one
of the greatest of Indian rulers.

1 Compare the omission of the central dome on the Diwan-i-Khas at Fatehpur
already noticed, p. 170. Mr. Vincent Smith's idea ("History of Fine Art in India and
Ceylon," p. 411) that the design was suggested by craftsmen from Cambodia seems to me
very far-fetched. There is not the least reason to suppose that Akbar's builders had not
seen Hindu structures of this type, like that at Bijapur, and their Silpa-sastras would
•certainly have preserved the traditional design and rules for the construction of them.

VIJAYANAGAR AND BIJAPUR

THE ARCHITECTURAL RELATIONSHIP OF VIJAYANAGAR AND
BIJAPUR — THE VITTHALASWAMI TEMPLE AND OTHER BUILD-
INGS AT VIJAYANAGAR — THE JAMI MASJID, BIjAPUR — IBRA-
HiM's MOSQUE AND TOMB — THE MEHTAR MAHALL—
MAHMUD'S TOMB — INDIAN STUCCO

I HAVE already mentioned the fact that about 1576 Bengal
became a province of Akbar's empire, and that Gaur ceased
about the same time to be a great Muhammadan building
centre. It was not, however, until the beginning of the seven-
teenth century that the bent roofs and cornices characteristic of
Bengali architecture began to appear in the buildings of Delhi
and in Rajputana. In Akbar's buildings, so far as I have
observed, there are no indications of the Bengali craftsman's
handiwork. The building craft of Rajputana was the creative
force in Mogul architecture of Akbar's reign.

But about the time of Akbar's accession in 1556 a new
Muhammadan building centre developed in the south of the
Dekhan, at Bijapur, close to the old one at Kulbarga, and in a
country in which for many centuries previously, under Hindu
rulers, Indian builders had raised many famous shrines and
carried out great works of public utility similar to those in the
north of India which had extorted admiration from Alberuni
and Mahmud of Ghazni.

The dynasty of Bijapur had been founded in 1490 by a
13 177

i;8 THE BIjAPUR DYNASTY

Turk, Yusuf 'Adil Shah, born in Constantinople. But he and
his two successors had followed the usual practice of Musul-
man conquerors in India in using Hindu craftsmen and in
building mosques and tombs with the materials of the Hindu
temples they desecrated or destroyed. It was not until the
more tranquil times of 'Ali Adil Shah I. (1557-80) that Bijapur
developed a characteristic building tradition of its own, which
was, like all other Indo-Muhammadan architecture, grafted
upon the older Buddhist-Hindu traditions but adapted to
Muhammadan ritual.

The dynasty lasted until Aurangzib overthrew it in the
middle of the seventeenth century, and during the hundred
years dating from 'Ali Adil Shah's accession, the capital of the
kingdom was, as Fergusson observes, " adorned with a series
of buildings as remarkable as those of any of the Muhamma-
dan capitals of India, hardly excepting even Agra and Delhi,
and showing a wonderful originality of design not surpassed
by those of such capitals as Jaunpur or Ahmadabad, though
differing from them in a most marked degree.1 He then, as
usual, goes on to account for " the largeness and grandeur
which characterised the Bijapur style " by the Turkish descent
of the dynasty and the employment of Persian officers at the
Bijapur court.

Neither the history of the time nor the buildings them-
selves, even when examined academically from the Western
standpoint, on a basis of "style," gives any substantial support
to this vague hypothesis. The latter differ very widely in
external character and construction from buildings in Turkey
or in Persia. From a craftsman's point of view they are, as
regards structure and symbolism, as purely Indian as any
buildings of the same class in Gujerat or at Fatehpur-Sikri.
When the gradual evolution of Indian architecture in the pre-

1 " History of Indian Architecture," vol. ii. p. 269.

BIjAPUR ARCHITECTURE 179

ceding centuries is taken into account, it is wholly unnecessary
to go to Persia or Turkey to explain the distinctive character-
istics of the Bijapur school.

We have already seen that in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries at Kulbarga, close to Bijapur and their capital of the
Deccan, and farther north at Mandu, the capital of Malvva, the
local Indian builders, who had been familiar for long centuries
with the so-called " Saracenic" arch as a decorative feature, had,
after many experiments, made the free use of it a part of their
structural tradition. We have also seen that at Delhi, Agra,
and Fatehpur-Sikri, in the first half of the sixteenth century,
Indian builders had likewise made their own some Persian
structural elements, such as the semi-domed portal with its
characteristic pendentives. Bijapur architecture is the logical
development of this new school of Indian builders, placed in a
new environment and adapting itself to the South Indian craft
tradition. There is not the slightest evidence at Bijapur of
any new importation of foreign builders or craftsmen, but very
strong evidence of the Hindu tradition of Southern India.

Constantinople was of course famous throughout the Mu-
hammadan world for the grandeur of its domes, and it is quite
conceivable that Mahmud of Bijapur, mindful of his Turkish
ancestry, called upon his Indian builders to emulate the glories
of St. Sophia, just as Akbar required his mosque at
"Fatehpur to be "a duplicate of the Holy Place," and as Shah
Jahan desired that the tomb of Mumtaz Mahall should be with-
out a rival in the world. But the impartial historian should
not for such reasons be so ready to bring in foreign creative
inspiration on every occasion when Indian builders thus proved
their capacity to satisfy the ambition of their rulers. There is
not a detail in the buildings of Bijapur, structural or decorative,
which cannot be explained as the logical sequence of the pre-
vious history of a living building craft, born in India, continu-

i8o VIJAYANAGAR

ally accumulating fresh experience by the free exercise of the
craftsman's faculties, and continually adapting itself to changing
conditions, social, political, and religious.

It is a most significant fact that every one of the great
Muhammadan building centres in India was in close proximity
to, or on the very site of, ancient Hindu cities famous for its
craftsmen. Muhammadan Delhi and Agra rose upon the
ruins of ancient Hindu capitals, and their first Musulman
sovereigns drew builders from the Hindu cities of Mathura and
Kanauj. Ahmadabad lies close to Mudhera and Dabhoi, and
all the famous ancient shrines of Rajputana. Gaur was the
historic capital of Bengal before it was captured by the Afghans
—a fighting but not a building race. And at every one of
these places it will be found that the distinctive characteristics
of Muhammadan buildings were mainly determined by the
building tradition of the local Hindu or Buddhist craftsmen.
Bijapur is no exception to the rule.

To understand the buildings of Muhammadan Bijapur,
the student must first turn to the ruins of Hindu Vijayanagar
and realise the political and craft relationship which existed be-
tween the two states during the long period when Bijapur was
only a fortified outpost of no architectural importance. Early
in the fourteenth century the rapid advance of the Musulman
power southwards had forced the Hindu dynasties of the
Dekhan and Southern India to forget their ancient rivalries and
combine against the common foe. The kings of Vijayanagar,
then a small principality on the banks of the Tungabhadra
river, a branch of the Krishna, kept the Musulman armies at
bay, and for two centuries afterwards the boundaries of the
empire of Vijayanagar, formed by the coalition of the Hindu
kingdoms — stretching right across Southern India and joining
with those of Orissa on the east coast — presented an impass-
able barrier to the further progress of Islam.

ISLAM AND HINDUISM 181

But during these two centuries the mutual relationship
between Hindu and Musulman was by no means invariably
hostile. The Sultans of Bijapur were willing to accept the aid
of a Hindu army in waging war against the rival Musulman
dynasty of Ahmadnagar ; disgusted though they were when
the Hindu soldiers seized the opportunity to pay off old scores
by all manner of excesses, " burning and razing buildings,
putting their horses in the mosques, and performing their
idolatrous worship in the holy places " (Ferishta). On the
other hand, before these events, Deva Raja II. of Vijayanagar
(1419-44), finding that his own army was deficient in
cavalry and arches, had taken many Musulmans into his
service, allotted to them jaghirs or grants of land, erected a
mosque for their use in his own city, and commanded that
no one should molest them in the exercise of their religion.1

A century later this tolerant spirit was emulated by the
Muhammadan ruler of Bijapur, Ibrahim Adil Shah I. (1534-
57), who, like Akbar and most of the great Muhammadan rulers
of India, had decided leanings towards Hinduism. He
admitted Brahmans into his service, and substituted Mahratti
for Persian as the official language of accounts. The foreigners
whom he dismissed from his army found service under Ram
Raja, the last of the Vijayanagar dynasty, who, like his pre-
decessor, built a mosque for them and ordered the Quran to
' be placed before him when the officers came to swear fealty.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century Vijayanagar
was at the height of its prosperity, and one of the most splendid
cities of the East. It was the great craft centre of the South
and the Dekhan, as Gaur and Ahmadabad were for Northern
and Western India. Paes, the Portuguese traveller, has given
a graphic description of it. Climbing a hill from whence he
could see a great part of it, the city seemed to him " as large

1 "A Forgotten Empire," Robert Sewell, I.C.S., p. 72.
13*

182 VIJAYANAGAR

as Rome, and very beautiful to the sight ; there are many
groves of trees within it, and many conduits of water which flow
into the midst of it, and in places there are lakes ; and the
king has close to his palace a palm-grove and other rich-bearing
fruit trees. Below the Moorish quarter is a little river, and
on this side are many orchards and gardens with many fruit
trees, for the most part mangoes and areca-palms and jack-
trees, and also many lime and orange trees, growing so
closely to one another that it appears like a thick forest ; and
there are also white grapes." i

The people in the city, he said, were countless in number
— no troops, horse or foot, could break their way through
them, so great was the number of people and elephants. It
was the best provided city in the world ; stocked with provisions
of every kind. At the irrigation works, which supplied the city
with water, Paes saw a vast crowd, which he estimated at
fifteen to twenty thousand men, " looking like ants," employed
in carrying out extensions or repairs. The palace of the king
enclosed a ''greater space than all the castle of Lisbon."
There were broad and beautiful streets full of fine houses, in
which lived many merchants and craftsmen, with many things
to sell; and in the "Moorish" quarter at the end of the city
there were many "Moors," mostly natives of the country,
serving in the royal body-guard.

The great temple of Vitthalaswami (PL LXXXI), one of
the most splendid of Hindu shrines, was commenced about the
beginning of the sixteenth century, and work on it was appar-
ently continued until the fall of the city in 1565, after the
disaster of Talikota. To the Western architectural student
the main interest of the vast ruins of this once famous city,
stretching over ten square miles, lies in the clear evidence they
afford of the craft process by which the Hindu temple became

1 For the full account see Sewell's " Forgotten Empire," pp. 236-90.

X
X
X

H
<

4-]

HINDU ARCHES 183

the Muhammadan mosque and Buddhist-Hindu architecture
became " Indo-Saracenic." In the ruins of Hindu Vijayanagar
will be found not only the prototypes of Muhammadan Bijapur,
but illustrations of the process by which the Arab architecture
of the seventh, eighth, and following centuries gradually be-
came the style of the pointed arch.

The history of the mutual relations between Hindu and
Musulman is plainly told in the remains of the buildings of
the " Moorish " quarter of Vijayanagar. The history of the
evolution of the " pointed style " can be traced in the empty
niches on the roofs of Hindu temple-pavilions. PI. LXXXII
shows a part of the roof of a pavilion adjoining the Vitthala-
swami temple, built strictly according to the South Indian-
Hindu tradition, which can be traced right back to early Buddh-
ist times, before the Muhammadans came in contact with it.
The three larger niches — the shrines from which the images
have been removed — give typical examples of the Buddhist-
Hindu foliated arch, derived from the conventionalised aura
of a Buddhist image. If the elaborate carved scrolls in front
of them were broken by a Musulman iconoclast, or reduced to
their simplest form by a Musulman craftsman, the arches
would become the foliated "Saracenic" arches of Mogul
buildings at Delhi and Agra, and of Moorish architecture in
Africa and Spain.

By a similar process of adaptation the smaller niches would
become what Western classifiers have labelled as "stilted Arab"
arches, though the type belonged to the craft tradition of India
centuries before the advent of the Prophet of Mecca. Again, if
the ornamental finials — which are Dravidian or South Indian
domes and vaulted roofs in miniature — behind the desecrated
shrines are examined critically, it will be seen that the smaller
ones are the " bulbous " or lotus domes which first appear in a
simplified " Saracenic " form in the minarets of the Jami' Masjid

1 84

HINDU ARCHES

of Bijapur, built by 'Alt Adil Shah I. after the fall of Vijayana-
gar ; they were used afterwards on a much larger scale in the
central domes of mosques and tombs.

In the ruined fa$ade of the building known as Ram Raja's

FIG. 43. — Arcade of Ram Raja's Treasury, Vijayanagar.

Treasury (fig. 43) the foliated arch of the Hindu shrine is applied
by Hindu craftsmen to purely structural purposes. This is
the complete structural basis of the doorways of the mosque

X
X
X

H-1

EVOLUTION OF THE BIjAPUR "STYLE" 185

at Bijapur, the 'All Shahi-Plr-ki-Masjid (Plate XXXV), and of
many other Muhammadan buildings.

Another very interesting building at Vijayanagar is that
now known as "the Elephant Stables" (PL LXXXIII), which
I take to be the mosque built by Deva Raja II. for his Muham-
madan troops. When or why it was converted into stables for
elephants is a matter of minor interest. It was most evidently
built by South Indian craftsmen, adapting their own temple
tradition to the ritual of Islam. The seven larger domes are
the prototypes of the domes of the Jami' Masjid at Bijapur,
being themselves only modifications of the Buddhist-Hindu
types which are seen in their original form in the four inter-
mediate domes. The decoration of the central doorway is
precisely similar to that of the later mosque of 'Ali Adil Shah.

There are many other buildings at Vijayanagar which
show that the Hindu craftsmen, having first adapted their own
structural traditions for Muhammadan purposes, proceeded to
apply the experience gained in doing so to their own buildings,
both secular and religious. Some illustrations of these will
be found in Mr. Sewell's valuable work on the history of the
city. The further development of the pointed style in the south
of India was taken up by the builders of Bijapur.

Nearly all of the characteristics which distinguish the
buildings of Bijapur from the earlier Hindu-Musulman schools
of Malwa and Kulbarga were derived from the Hindu tradition
of Southern India. Those which belong exclusively to Bijapur
were the result of further experiment after the fall of Vija-
yanagar. The South Indian builders as soon as they had
adopted the arch as a structural expedient began to experiment
with it even more boldly than their craft brethren in the north
had done. The novelty of it appealed to their craft instinct ;
they played with it as children play with a new toy. The
" largeness and grandeur" of the Bijapur style came from this

i86

indigenous creative impulse, not from Persia or from Turkey.

It is necessary to bear in mind that in the sixteenth century it

becomes impossible to draw distinctions between Muhamma-

* dan and Hindu buildings

on account of the struc-
tural use of the arch, or
from the use of penden-
tives or domes of the puri-
tanised types which had
been evolved by Indian
craftsmen working for
Musulman employers : all
of them were
used freely in
Hindu temples
and other build-
ings which lay
within the radius
of Muhammadan political
influence.

It was not until the
overthrow of Vijayanagar
in the great battle of Tali-
kota in 1565 that the real
architectural history of
Bijapur begins. Imme-
diately after that event,
'Ali Adil Shah I. with his
building resources vastly
augmented by the spoils of war — which must have included
thousands of skilled Hindu craftsmen — set to work to enclose
his own capital with fortified walls, and to celebrate his triumph
over the infidel by building a Jami' Masjid on a grand scale,

FIG. 44. — Plan of Jami' Masjid, Bijapur (from Fergusson's
"History").

^JSf^yJ ^am\

So_

.^-^5^>i ^

IBRAHIM'S MOSQUE AND TOMB 187

in some respects like that of the great mosque at Kulbarga,
but with many details repeating those of the great range of
buildings at Vijayanagar described above. Nearly all the
arches have the Hindu symbolism of the pipal leaf at the
crown. The " bulbous" dome, which appears for the first
time on the minarets of an Indian mosque, was also, as I have
said, an adaptation of the South Indian Hindu type.

The principal dome, which is 57 feet in diameter, covers the
central compartment of the liwan, a square of 70 feet, and is
raised up on a clerestory, which corresponds to the griva or neck
of a Dravidian dome, like the domes of Gujerat mosques which
are likewise "derived from Hindu prototypes. Though the
Turkish crescent crowns the finial, the Hindu symbolism
expressed both in the latter and in the lotus-flower arrangement
of the pendentives proves that Indian builders were the real
creators of the mosque. The rest of the liwan is divided into
square compartments in the usual Indian style, and is covered
by a terraced roof supported in the same manner as Sidi
Sayyid's mosque at Ahmadabad with small domes concealed in
the thickness of the roof.

Ibrahim II. (1580-1626), the successor of 'Ali Adil Shah,
was a liberal patron of Hindu culture, especially of music, and
fell under a suspicion of taking part in Hindu religious rites.
Most of the finest buildings at Bijapur belong to his reign.
Among the most remarkable are the mausoleum and mosque
which bear his name. They were commenced under similar
circumstances to the Taj Mahall at Agra, as a memorial of his
favourite daughter Zohra Sultana and of his Queen Taj Sult-
ana. Architecturally there is a close connection between the
two groups of buildings, for Ibrahim's mosque and tomb were
the first Muhammadan buildings in which the " bulbous" or
lotus-leaf type of dome is used on a large scale, as it is in the
Taj Mahall, and as they were nearly contemporaneous they

<88 THE LOTUS-LEAF DOME

must have been among " the famous buildings of the world "
which were discussed by Shah Jahan's master-builders before
the general scheme of Mumtaz Mahall's tomb was decided.

In the seventeenth century this " bulbous " dome became
the characteristic form for mosques and tombs in Northern
India ; and its first appearance so far south as Bijapur is most
significant. In the north it was sculptured in the chapter-
houses of Ajanta, but since the eighth or ninth century it had
gradually been transformed into the bell-shaped sikhara of
Buddhist and Hindu temples. In the temples of the south,
however, it had retained its earlier lotus-leaf form, as it does
in the present day, only rather obscured by the exuberant
sculpture added to it.

We have already seen that in the north the dome of the
Hindu stone-built porch, stripped of its symbolic sculpture,
became the so-called Pathan dome of Fergusson's classification.
Precisely the same process of adaptation took place at Bijapur
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The lotus-leaf dome
of the Hindu vimana was transformed into the "bulbous"
dome of the Muhammadan mosque and tomb. All the main
"orders" of the Hindu canon were retained : the kalasha and
the Maha-padma beneath it, and the lotus petals at the spring-
ing of the dome. But the rather redundant ornaments were
omitted, and attention was concentrated on elegance of contour
rather than on richness of sculptured decoration. To this end
the lotus petals at the base were emphasised ; in the later
examples at Golconda and elsewhere the incurving at the base
is greatly exaggerated.

The new structural idea in the Bijapur domes was the
adaptation of the Persian pendentives for repeating internally
the Hindu symbolism of the Maha-padma under the finial.
The development of the Bijapur style thus followed the natural
course of architectural progress all over the world. The style

ire*

QC
•O

» I

S <x

« "i

<< i

PLATE LXXXVII

PUNoCUUNC

— B-

' ^- * V

!V^

S .<'

a. i.c,<^::

188.-]

CEILING OF IBRAHIM S TOMB, BIJAPUR
(From Fergusson's " B:ejapoor")

IBRAHIM'S TOMB 189

did not spring ready-made from the brain of a single architect
or school of architects, nor was it, like Renaissance architecture
in Europe, the conscious imitation of an historic style, but the
natural growth of a living building tradition adapting itself to
its own environment.

Except for its dome, Ibrahim's mausoleum does not differ
much from the usual design of contemporary Muhammadan
tombs in Gujerat. The sanctuary is a square of 40 feet,
covered by a remarkable coved ceiling,1 constructed with stone
ribs and slabs set edge to edge, only supported by iron clamp-
ing and the strength of the excellent Indian mortar. Though
the flat surface in the centre is a square of 24 feet, the ceiling
shows no signs of sagging three centuries after its construc-
tion. Above this the walls of the sanctuary are carried up
another storey, the lotus-petal pendentives changing the square
into a circle to form the base of the dome, as in the Jami'
Masjid. A flat roof of purely Hindu construction, supported
by a row of massive piers and an external arcade, surround the
sanctuary. The four small domes, which, according to the
usual Hindu symbolism, should appear in the corners of
the roof, are here relegated to the top of the minarets.

The corridor surrounding the sanctuary is illustrated in
PI. LXXXVIII, which will explain better than any verbal des-
cription the essentially Hindu character of the wholemausoleum.
It will be noticed that the arches between the piers with pipal-
leaf crowns are not Saracenic either in form or construction,
but are simply Hindu brackets pieced together, as in many of
the buildings at Fatehpur-Sikri, or sometimes cut out of single
blocks of stone. Externally the Hindu characteristics are
shown prominently in the heavy bracketed cornice and in the
design of the minarets and domes.

The mausoleum of Ibrahim includes a fine mosque of

1 The Hindu prototype is shown in fig. 40 (Diwan-i-Khas, Fatehpur-Sikri).

190 THE MEHTAR MAHALL

similar character. Both buildings are placed in a splendid
enclosed garden, laid out with fountains and water-courses in
Mogul fashion, like the enclosure of the Taj Mahall.

The Ibrahim Rauza was not entirely completed until 1626,
and several other important buildings at Bijapur belong to the
seventeenth century ; but it will be more convenient to treat
the Bijapur school as belonging to the previous century, which
really determined its character.

One of the most delightful buildings of the Muhammadan
period in India is that known as the Mehtar Mahall, the
Sweeper's Hall. Fergusson, in his erratic way, distinguishing
it from the other Bijapur buildings which he calls pure " Indo-
Saracenic," describes it as belonging to a " mixed Hindu and
Muhammadan style." It is not in any way more " mixed "
than the Taj Mahall, but is a perfectly harmonious blend of all
the structural and decorative elements which South Indian
builders of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were using.

The legend which accounts for its name declares that
Ibrahim Shah I., being afflicted by a dreadful malady which
his physicians were unable to cure, took the advice of an
astrologer, who, hoping to profit by the occasion, told him that
on the morning of a certain day he should give a great sum of
money to the first person he saw. Unfortunately for the canny
soothsayer, the king on the appointed day rose at an unusually
early hour, and the expected fortune fell to a sweeper in the
palace courtyard, who piously devoted it to building the finest
mosque which money could build. Most of it was lavished
on this beautiful entrance gateway. The tradition is wrong in
its date, for the building is certainly one of the later ones of
the Bijapur school — it probably belongs to the latter part of the
reign of the second Ibrahim, or the early seventeenth century.

It contains three stories, the floors of the first and second
being constructed in the same way as the roof of the sanctuary

MAHMUD'S TOMB T9i

in Ibrahim's tomb. In plan it is a square of 24 feet, and the
height to the top of the minarets is 66 feet.

The reign of Ibrahim II.'s son and successor Mahmud
'Adil Shah (1626-56) brought Bijapur first into alliance and
later on into conflict with the Moguls. Shah Jahan's troops
ravaged the kingdom up to the gates of Bijapur, and Mahmud
only obtained peace by paying an annual tribute to Delhi.
These circumstances account for the close connection between
the design of the Taj Mahall and that of Ibrahim's Rauza,
which was completed about the same time as the foundations
of the former were laid.

The chiefbuilding of Mahmud's reign was his mausoleum,
the famous Gol Gumbaz, which was commenced, according to
custom, in the lifetime of the monarch whose memorial it was
to be. Ibrahim had surpassed his predecessors in the lavish
decoration he had bestowed upon his monument. Mahmud
determined to perpetuate his own name by building the greatest
dome in the world, and his master-builders gratified his desire ;
for though in diameter it is exceeded by the Pantheon at Rome,
the dome of Mahmud's tomb, as Fergusson states, " covers
more ground clear of support than any dome or vaulted roof
in the world," while it is of more difficult construction, being
placed upon a square hall instead of on a circular drum."

Theprinciple of construction employed in the Bijapur domes
has been already explained. The vast hall which the dome
covers is 135 feet 5 inches square at the floor level ; the dome
itself has an internal diameter of 124 feet 5 inches, and was
originally gilt outside. The traditional Hindu symbolism of the
panch-ratna, as in Ibrahim's tomb, is maintained by the five
domes — i.e. the colossal central one, and the four in miniature
on the corner towers which serve as buttresses. The finials
of all of them and the pipal-leaf arches are evidence of the
Indian master-builders' handiwork and inspiration.

i9'2 INDIAN STUCCO

Taking Mahmud's tomb by itself as a specimen of archaeo-
logical " style," it is easy to mistake it for a Saracenic building
belonging to the Arabian or Persian tradition. But consider-
ing it in due relation to its own historical context and local
environment, it is evidently as much Indian as the stupas of
Asoka or the temples of Vijayanagar.

Most of the buildings of Bijapur are faced by and largely
constructed of stone — a local basaltic trap which takes a high
polish. But, as in other parts of India, there are many equally
beautiful buildings in which the brickwork is only covered with
an exceedingly fine white plaster, the working of which has
developed into a fine art in India. On account of the heavy
monsoon rains and the luxuriant growth of parasitic vegetation,
it is generally necessary in India to protect brickwork with
some kind of facing. In Bengal terra-cotta, glazed or unglazed,
was largely used. In Rajputana and other provinces in the
north the abundant supply of sandstone, which could easily be
cut into slabs, provided an admirable facing material. When
stone or terra-cotta was too expensive, an excellent substitute
was found in this white plaster. A fine white sand or pow-
dered limestone was used with it ; the lime was made in some
places from the chips left by the stone-cutters, in others from
sea-shells.

The practical uses of this plaster were manifold. It pre-
vented the rain from soaking into the brickwork in the wet
season, and in the hot weather it kept the house cool by refract-
ing the sun's rays. It was so hard and tenacious that it could
be used for floors as well as for walls and roofs ; the high
polish which could be given to it prevented the accumulation
of dust.

Plates XXVII and XLV show fine examples of brick and
plaster-work. For decorative purposes it could be used as a
ground for fresco painting (fresco-buono), gilding, or painted

PLATE LXXXIX

MEHTAR MAHALL, IJIJAPUR

INDIAN STUCCO 193

gesso work, or for plain cut and modelled ornament. For these
purposes it was frequently applied to buildings faced with
stone, and even statuary commonly received a fine coating of
it, like the wax finishing which was considered so important
by the famous Greek sculptors.

This art of fine plaster-work is still alive in India ; but
Anglo-Indian architects have brought with them the modern
European prejudice against stucco, and a partiality for plain
red brickwork without the necessary protection which keeps it
dry in the monsoon and cool in the hot season. For interior
decoration European fashion demands wall papers and hang-
ings, ten times more insanitary in the tropics than they are
in a temperate climate. They are really poor and vulgar sub-
stitutes for the exquisite Indian polished plaster, which with
discreet fresco or gesso enrichment provides a most elegant
and distinguished form of decoration, manifestly superior on
sanitary as well as artistic grounds, for it is easily cleaned,
repaired, and renewed. In ordinary circumstances it is almost
as durable as the building itself.

CHAPTER XII

HINDU BUILDINGS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

GOVIND DEVA'S TEMPLE AT BRINDABAN — HINDUISM AND
IDOLATRY — JAINA TEMPLES — MAN SINGH'S OBSERVATORY,

BENARES

IT would be impossible, without extending the scope of this
work very largely, to attempt to give a summary of the many
important buildings of the sixteenth century belonging to
independent or semi-independent Hindu kingdoms. I must
confine myself to a few typical ones illustrating the growth of
Indian architecture of the period, which will show that Hindu
builders, while providing for the architectural needs of the
dominant political power, were not slow to use the experience
they gained thereby for their own purposes. I have already
noticed some of the important buildings of Vijayanagar, with
which the Bijapur school was so closely connected.

In the north the most remarkable was the temple of Govind
Deva, built at Brindaban, the chief centre of the Vaishnavaite
sect, near Mathura, by the Maharajah Man Singh of Amber
—one of Akbar's trusty Hindu allies — in the last decade of the
sixteenth century. It has suffered greatly from the systematic
vandalism of Aurangzib's fanatic followers, who threw down
the superstructure of the great porch and razed the sacrarium,
or garbha griha, containing the image, together with its lofty
gandki, or spire, to the ground. Aurangzib is said to have
placed on the top of the existing building a mosque wall, where

194

W
H
•<

GOVIND DEVA'S TEMPLE

195

he offered up prayers.1 This accounts for the present stunted
appearance of the exterior.

In plan the temple as it now stands is cruciform, and its
prototype can be seen in another ruined Vaishnavaite shrine,
known as the Sas Bahu temple (PL XXI) at Gwalior, which is
five centuries earlier. A comparison of the two temples will
show how the religious sentiment of Islam and the practical
experience gained by Hindu builders in the service of Muham-
madan rulers had influenced their own craft
traditions. First there is a complete absence
of figure sculpture in the decorative treat-
ment of the building. It was quite easy for
Brahman priests to make such a concession
to orthodox Musulman feeling, and even to
join the Muhammadan mullahs in a crusade
against idolatry, for anthropomorphic sym-
bolism had only been used by them as a
means of popularising the philosophic teach-
ing of Hinduism, and never had been re-
garded as essential to Hindu religion.

Those prophets of Anglo-India who try
to conjure up the bogey of Brahman perfidy
whenever the wheels of official machinery get out of gear
would do well to note that the most faithful and trusted
advisers of the great Muhammadan rulers of India were
Brahmans, and that orthodox Hinduism, so far from main-
taining an implacable hostility, on religious grounds, to rulers
of an alien race and creed, has always been anxious to restate
its own dogmatic teaching so as to avoid offence to the re-
ligious feelings of the ruling powers of the State. No sooner
were the Muhammadans firmly established in India in the
thirteenth century than a Hindu teacher, Jaidev, arose to de-

1 Growse's " Mathura," pp. 243-4, note.

FIG. 45. — Plan of Govind
Deva's Temple, Brinda-
ban (from Fergusson's
"History'').

i96 GOVIND DEVA'S TEMPLE

nounce idolatry. He was followed by Ramanand and Kabir
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and by Nanak the
Guru of the Sikhs. The Sikh religion was the outcome of
the impact of Islam upon Hindu thought, just as the teaching
of the Brahma-Samaj of the present day represents the ad-
justment of Brahmanical religious ideas in the direction of
Christianity.

This crusade against anthropomorphic symbolism has had
a marked effect upon Hindu architecture from the thirteenth
century to the present day. If the Muhammadan conquest
gave a great stimulus to the structural development of the
Indian building craft, and kept alive the traditions of Indian
painting, it almost entirely suppressed the splendid schools of
Buddhist and Hindu sculpture which, at the time of Mahmud
of Ghazni's invasion, had reached their culminating point at
Elephanta and Ellora in the north, and at Tanjore in the south.
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Jain builders of
Western India followed Muhammadan custom in omitting
sculptured decoration from the exterior of domes (PI. XCI); and
the Saiva sect in the north, wherever Muhammadan influence
extended, substituted for anthropomorphic images of the Deity
the aniconic symbol of the lingam.

Except for the absence of figure sculpture and the oc-
casional introduction of the pointed arch, built in Hindu fashion,
there is not any striking difference externally between the Sas
Bahu temple of Gwalior and Govind Deva's temple at Brin-
daban ; but in the interior of the latter the very original use
of vaulting with radiating arches, in combination with pillars,
brackets, and lintels, gives a fine illustration of the inventive
genius of the Hindu craftsman and his capacity for assimilating
new ideas. As an architectural achievement it must be said,
even in its present condition, to rank higher than Akbar's great
mosque at Fatehpur-Sikri, which was built about the same

I'l All M IV

i .11 I-K.I (}\f (IHVINI) I'l.w':. I I'.MI-I.I-., IIUINhAllAN

GOVIND DEVA'S TEMPLE 197

time. Only a few fragments of the painted decoration now
remain, but sufficient to suggest that before the desecration
of the temple there must have been few buildings in Asia to
rival it.

The craftsmanship is that of Fatehpur-Sikri, but the
Hindu builders working on their own ground could deal with
structural problems more freely and confidently than they were
able to do under the restrictions of Musulman ritual and cus-
tom, with the result that they achieved a structural harmony
and decorative unity which are not always felt in the Jami'
Masjid at Fatehpur.

The building as it now stands represents only the nave
or approach to the holy of holies, the garbha griha. The
intention of the original design, externally, may be gathered
from the earlier Rajput temples, such as the Kandariya Maha-
deva (PI. XCII,) which remain intact ; but probably the domes
which covered the porch, or nave, were of the puritanised Hindu
type, which Fergusson calls " Pathan," for this was the type
which was commonly adopted by the Hindu temple builders of
the time. Under Akbar's tolerant rule there was a renaissance
of Jaina architecture at the sacred hill of Palitana in Gujerat,
and the sixteenth-century Jaina temples with " Pathan " domes
and foliated arches (PL XCI) can only be distinguished from
I contemporary Muhammadan tombs of the same province by
the spire, or sikhara, over the sacrarium.

Plate XCIV shows part of the interior of the Brindaban
temple, but like most Hindu temples it has never been ade-
quately photographed. The characteristic columns which
support the roof of the cross aisles (Plate XCV) are of the
same type as the symbolic Pillar or Tree of the Universe on
which Akbar sat enthroned at Fatehpur-Sikri.

Fergusson says of this temple that it is " the only one,
perhaps, from which a European architect might borrow a few

14*

I98 PALACE AT BENARES

hints." If architecture in Europe is always to be regarded
from the archaeological standpoint as a problem of " style," or
the adaptation of ancient buildings to modern purposes, this
narrow appreciation of Hindu craftsmanship might be accepted.
But the architect-craftsman who believes in the possibility of
a real revival of the art of building, and understands that
the history of Indian architecture is the history of Indian
craftsmanship, will find that the Hindu temple-craft was the
main source from which all Muhammadan ideas of building in
India were derived. If Anglo-Indian architects would avail
themselves of their opportunities, as the Muhammadans did,
all the conditions necessary fora true architectural renaissance,
now wanting in Europe, are present in India in the twentieth
century, as they were in the time of Mahmud of Ghazni.

Besides this temple Man Singh also built a palace in the
Ghats at Benares, to which his famous descendant, Raja Jai
Singh,1 a century later added an astronomical observatory. The
facade of it fell into ruin and was badly restored in the middle of
the nineteenth century. PI. XCVI shows one of the beautiful
stone balconies which belonged to the original building. An-
other palaceatGovardhan, near Mathura, which has also suffered
from modern restoration, is attributed to Man Singh 2 ; but most
of the finest Hindu palaces now existing belong to the latter
half of the seventeenth or to the eighteenth century.

1 Jai Singh was employed by the Mogul Emperor, Muhammad Shah, to revise the
calendar, which had become very confusing owing to the inaccuracy of the then existing
tables. He built four other observatories — at Delhi, Mathura, Ujjain, and at Jaipur.

2 For illustration see Growse's " Mathura," p. 303.

PLATE XCVi

198]

BALCONY OF MAN SINGH'S PALACE, BKNARES

CHAPTER XIII

BIR SINGH DEVAS PALACE, DATIYA — PALACES AT JODHPUR —
MOGUL BUILDINGS AT AGRA AND DELHI — TIRUMALAI NAY-
YAK'S PALACE AND CHAULTRI, MADURA — CHANDRAGIRI
PALACE

AKBAR died in 1605, but the architectural history of the seven-
teenth century practically begins with the later buildings of
Jahangir's reign (1605-28), though the most characteristic of
the period belong to Shah Jahan's time. Popular opinion in
Europe connects the greatest monuments of the Muhammadan
supremacy in India with the two last-named Mogul emperors,
but a critical historian will certainly judge the sixteenth century
to have been, on the whole, far richer in architectural achieve-
ment.

Excluding the Taj Mahall — which stands apart by itself—
Mogul buildings, after the first two decades of the seventeenth
century, begin to show a weakening in architectonic design
which was the presage of its complete decadence in the reign
of Aurangzib. The sixteenth century all over India was a
period distinguished by strong creative energy and constant
experiment in building. Neither Jahangir nor Shah Jahan
had Akbar's genius for constructive statesmanship, and so far
as their personal influence went they only helped Indian
craftsmen to clothe in more costly materials the creative ideas
of the preceding century. Sumptuous decoration and lavish

199

200 JAHANGIR AND SHAH JAHAN

expenditure in material rather than intellectuality in design
were the characteristics of the later period of Mogul architecture.
The tendency towards over-refinement in structural design
and a dilettante prettiness in decoration seen in Jahangir's
and Shah Jahan's buildings was a faithful reflection of the
change which took place in the atmosphere of the Mogul court
when Akbar's strong mind ceased to govern Hindustan.

Jahangir inherited the artistic temperament as well as the
vices of Babar, but, except for his courage, possessed little of
his ancestor's redeeming virtues. His court was crowded with
adventurers of all nationalities, who were freely admitted to
share in the Emperor's drunken carouses. For the three-
and-twenty years of his reign the control of State affairs was
practically left in the hands of the beautiful and accomplished
Empress Nur Jahan, " the Light of the World," whose name
appeared on the imperial coinage. She used her opportunities
in bestowing high offices of State upon her Persian or Mogul
relations, and indulged her artistic taste in extravagantly
ornate buildings. Shah Jahan, the Magnificent, was a just
and impartial ruler, beloved by all his subjects ; but he had
none of Akbar's force of character, and his palace at Delhi
with its effeminate forms and precious inlay belong rather to
the category of exquisite bijouterie than architecture.

The part which the buildings of Jahangir and Shah Jahan
have played in the history of British India, and the attention
bestowed upon them by Anglo-Indian writers, have given to
the later phase of Mogul architecture an importance wholly
disproportionate to its merits, and has made some of the best
European authorities take a completely distorted view of the
general character of Muhammadan architecture in India. Thus
even Professor Lethaby, who has done so much to promote
the intelligent study of Western architecture, would apparently
include all Muhammadan buildings in the sweeping generalisa-

PLATE XCVII

B!R SINGH DEVA'S PALACE, DATIYA : WATER FRONT

o
X

RAJPUT PALACES 201

tion of " elasticity, intricacy, and glitter — suggestion of fountain
spray and singing birds," which may aptly describe the Diwan-
i-Khas at Delhi or Nur Jahan's apartments in the Agra palace,
but it has no true application to any architecture for which
Akbar or any of the great Muhammadan empire-builders in
India were responsible. Nor can it be applied to Indian archi-
tecture of the seventeenth century generally.

To judge the latter fairly and see later Mogul architecture
in true perspective it is necessary to get away from the effeminate
and luxurious atmosphere of the Delhi court into the more
stimulating air of Rajputana. The virile architecture of Fateh-
pur-Sikri and of Akbar's fort at Agra was essentially Rajput,
and it was the work of the master-builders at the courts of
the semi-independent Princes of Rajputana which maintained
throughout the seventeenth century the native vigour of Indian
architecture, while the craftsmen of the Delhi court indulged
the Padshah's taste for Persianised decoration and sumptuous
materials — for " glitter, and suggestion of fountain spray and
singing birds."

Perhaps the best example of Rajput architecture of the
seventeenth century is the noble fortress-palace of Datiya, built
in the first decade of it by Bir Singh Deva, the Bundela chief
of Urcha,1 and well worthy to rank beside any of the royal
palaces of the West. Obviously this stately pile, with its sug-
gestion of the Doge's Palace, belongs to the same building
traditions as Jodh Bai's palace at Fatehpur-Sikri and Akbar's
palace at Agra ; but in Fergusson's disjointed and confusing
classification, according to creed and dynasty, the palace • of
the Hindu prince is styled " Indo-Aryan," while the other two
— the work of craftsmen of the same race and building tradi-
tion— are treated in a separate compartment as " Mogul."

Fergusson himself called attention to the necessity of a

1 Fergusson, vol. ii. p. 175.

202

PALACE AT DATIYA

proper survey of the palaces of Rajputana to enable the archi-
tectural student to appreciate them properly, but unfortunately
nothing seems to have been done in the last fifty years to pro-
vide the necessary material for a closer study of them. No
doubt Fergusson himself is largely responsible for the absurd
notion that Hindu craftsmen were lacking in creative capacity,
which has not only made Indian architecture a sealed book to
competent Western critics, but has diverted architectural study
in India into an historical cul-de-sac.

Pll. XCVII-XCVIII will, however, give a good idea of the
exterior of Bir Singh's palace at Datiya.1 It is a massive pile of
granite, over 300 feet square in plan and raised upon a vaulted
basement about 40 feet high. Above this it is built in four
stories ; the two upper ones are ranged round an inner court-
yard, like most Indian palaces. In the centre of this courtyard
the private apartments of the palace form another square block,
also four stories in height. The two lower stories of the main
building contain the great public reception-rooms which extend
over the whole area of it, the upper ones forming the enclosure
of the inner quadrangle. The larger apartments of these upper
stories, placed at the four corners and in the middle of each of
the four sides of the main building, are crowned with domes,
four kiosks with cupolas being grouped round them according
to the usual Hindu symbolism. The similar panch-ratna group
of domes of the private apartments, rising in the centre of the
quadrangle to about 140 feet above the basement, combines
with the others to make a singularly pleasing skyline.

The skill with which the outer walls are treated archi-
tecturally, without the self-conscious striving after u effect" which
is characteristic of the creations of the modern architectural
stylist, and the harmonious grouping of the buildings collected
at the foot of the palace walls — contributing to the impression

1 See also frontispiece.

h- 1

o
X

RAJPUT PALACES 203

of a spontaneous organic growth rather than conscious mental
effort on the part of the designer — are among the aesthetic
factors which make up the romantic charm of this Rajput
fortress-palace and distinguish the art of a great living tradition
from the " designing" of modern Western architecture.

This so-called " Indo-Aryan style" has exactly the same
characteristics, structural and decorative, as the " Indo-Sara-
cenic" of Fatehpur-Sikri and Agra. From the builder's point
of view the distinction is entirely fallacious. The illustrations
will show the Persianised entrance gateway and the " Saracenic "
arches of the windows behind the balconies : they are forms
which the seventeenth-century Rajput builder had made his
own and used indiscriminately, whether his employer were
Hindu or Musulman.

Bir Singh built another great palace at Urcha(Pl. XGIX),
hardly less interesting architecturally than the other, and cer-
tainly ranking higher than most of the effeminate palatial
structures of Jahangir and Shah Jahan, which owe their charm
not to greatness of architectonic conception but to consummate
craftsmanship and exquisiteness of decorative detail.

The same might be said of most of the Hindu fortress-
palaces of Rajputana. They form a unique chapter in Indian
architectural history — as yet unwritten. If our poets had sung
them, our painters had pictured them, our heroes and famous
men had lived in them, their romantic beauty would be on
every man's lips in Europe. Libraries of architectural treatises
would have been written on them. The degradation of artistic
culture in India, propagated and encouraged by Western ad-
ministrative methods in the name of progress, is only too clearly
evidenced in the taste of the " progressive" prince of the present
day, who substitutes the pinchbeck "styles "of modern European
paper architecture for the magnificent building art of his own
master-craftsmen — artists who faithfully and honestly, century

2O4

after century even to the present day, have adapted their great
traditions to the needs of the age in which they lived.

Jodhpur, still the centre of a fine living building craft,
was founded in 1498. The fort and palace (Plate C) belong to
different periods of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Grandly massed upon a rocky height overlooking the city and
an endless expanse of plain — only dotted with other solitary
crags rising up like islands in a sea — this splendid pile seen
from a distance is one of the most striking in India ; and the
beautiful details of it seen closely are not less interesting to the
architectural student.

Udaipur with its lovely lake and island palaces is another
Rajput city as yet unspoilt architecturally by the modern vandal.
Chitor, the historic citadel of Ranas of Mewar, was its parent.
The palaces were built at different times, but mostly in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The fine palace of
Amber, the parent of the modern Jaipur, was built between
1625 and 1666.

There are, as Fergusson states, twenty or thirty royal
palaces in Rajputana and Central India, every one of which
would require a volume to describe in detail. For the present
I must limit myself to showing a few types and to pointing
out the position they take in the history of Indian architecture
— a much more important one than is generally recognised.

The buildings of the seventeenth century which can be
classified as Mogul have been so often illustrated that it is
almost superfluous to describe them in detail again. It will
be more instructive to group them together and point out some
of the structural characteristics which differentiate them from
the buildings of the preceding century. Fergusson's statement
that "there is no trace of Hinduism in the works of Jahangir
and Shah Jahan " l is altogether erroneous and misleading.

1 " Indian Architecture," vol. ii. p. 288 (edit. 1910).

MOGUL ARCHITECTURE 205

Neither of these Mogul sovereigns had any anti-Hindu pre-
judices : the joint partnership of Hindu and Musulman crafts-
men in Mogul buildings which Akbar had established remained
unbroken until the reign of Aurangzib. It was only the spirit
which animated Mogul art that changed.

Akbar exercised an efficient economical control over his
public works expenditure. His personal example and strict
supervision of State affairs maintained a high standard of ad-
ministrative honesty and efficiency throughout his empire — as
the monuments of his reign testify. Jahangirand Shah Jahan
were magnificently extravagant and held the reins of State
loosely. The court officials placed in charge of the construction
of Government buildings used their opportunities to spend
lavishly and to fleece unmercifully the unfortunate artisans under
their control. During the building of the Taj (which lasted
twenty-two years), many of them, it is said, died of starvation.
It must not be assumed that these rapacious Mogul paymasters
were the artists who inspired Mogul architecture.

From the structural point of view the influences which
account for the differences between Akbar's buildings and the
Mogul buildings of the seventeenth century came mostly from
Gaur and from Bijapur. The break-up of the great Bengal
building centre towards the end of the sixteenth century sent
many craftsmen of that school to the imperial Mogul court,
whence they migrated later on into Rajputana. Their in-
fluence became apparent in the bent roof of the Golden Pavi-
lion in the Agra palace, the bent cornice of the Moti Masjid at
Delhi, and in the cusped Hindu arches which are characteristic
of most of the later Mogul buildings. We have already seen
the process of their formation from the arches of Buddhist-
Hindu shrines both at Gaur in the fifteenth century and at
Bijapur in the sixteenth century.

When Aurangzib's fanaticism drove all but the orthodox

206 ITMAD-UD-DAULAH'S TOMB

Musulman craftsmen from the Mogul court, the Bengalis and
others entered the service of Hindu princes in Rajputana, and
from the beginning of the eighteenth century many of the
characteristic features of the Bengali tradition appear in Rajput
buildings. It is this migration of craftsmen, either voluntary
or compulsory, which so long as architecture continued to be
the art of building gave the true key to its historical develop-
ment in all countries.

The striking divergence between the architecture of the
later Moguls and the robust local styles of Rajputana which
formed the character of Akbar's buildings became more and
more apparent as the seventeenth century advanced. It was no
doubt due to the same influence which was making itself felt
in Europe at this time — the growth of dilettantism in archi-
tecture. It is easy to trace Nur Jahan's feminine" taste in her
elegant apartments in the Agra palace (Plate CII) known as
the Samman Burj ; and especially in the magnificent tomb which
she built for her father, Mirza Ghias Beg, Jahangir's Prime
Minister.

This is one of the most eclectic of the Mogul buildings.
The general planning is in strict accordance with the Indian
tradition, but the usual panch-ratna grouping of domes is
varied by the substitution of a Hindu vaulted roof, like that over
the porch of Rajah Birbal's palace at Fatehpur (Pl.-LXXV), for
the central dome over the sanctuary of the tomb. The towers,
or stunted minarets, at the four corners of the building follow
the precedent of Ibrahim's Rauza at Bijapur ; but the cupolas
surmounting them are of the usual North Indian type.

It is inaccurate to apply the term " Indo-Persian " to
Itmad-ud-daulah's tomb and other of Jahangir's and Shah
Jahan's buildings. The structural design of the tomb belongs
to the Hindu tradition, upon which all Mogul architecture is
based; and even the inlaid decoration was in all probability

PLATE Cl

GOLDEN PAVILION, AGRA PALACE

MOTf MASJID, DELHI

BENGALI ROOFS AND CORNICES

JAHANGIR'S GARDENS 207

entirely designed and carried out by the same Hindu crafts-
men who afterwards executed that of the Taj Mahall. Nur
Jahan's intention was to reproduce in marble and precious
inlay the enamelled tile mosaic of Persian tombs ; but Persian
craftsmen who were not skilled in fine masonry could not do
this for her. The Indian masons, therefore, with their usual
versatility adapted their craft to the Empress's taste.1

Jahangir left no marked personal impression upon his
palace in the Lahore Fort, where he resided for the greater part
of his reign. None of his buildings there can compare with
the contemporary princely palaces of Rajputana, nor is his
tomb at Shahdara of any great architectural distinction. His
idiosyncrasies were more strongly shown in the delightful
pleasure-gardens he laid out in Kashmir, near Srinagar,
where he with his beloved consort whiled away the tedium of
the hot season in airy pavilions with splashing fountains, or
under the shade of the stately avenues of plane trees which
lined the water-courses of the gardens. Here, indeed, is the
suggestion of " fountain spray and singing birds" which
Western imagination applies to the whole area of Indian life.

The beginning of the reign of Shah Jahan brings us back to
the point in Mogul architecture from which we started in the
second chapter — the building of the Taj Mahall. If the reader
has followed closely the sketch I have given of the gradual
development of the Indian building craft from the time of
Mahmud of Ghazni, it will be clear that the Taj, like all the
other great buildings of the world, is not an isolated pheno-
menon, the creation of a single master-mind, but the glorious

1 Even in Wazir Khan's mosque at Lahore, built in the beginning of Shahjahan's reign,
where tile mosaic borrowed from Persia is largely used, it is not applied in the Persian
way as a protection to the brickwork, but is panelled out for purely decorative purposes
in a manner characteristically Indian. The domes of the mosque and general structural
arrangements also maintain an Indian character, though Fergusson labels the building
as " Persian."

208 THE TAj

consummation of a great epoch of art. He will recognise in the
"five-jewel" grouping of domes and in the structural design
of .the whole mausoleum the continuity of the old Buddhist-
Hindu building tradition, and the influence of its idealism in
the symbols of the five elements into which human clay is
dissolved after death. And from the political history of the
time he will be able to trace the derivation of the " lotus-leaf"
central dome back to its early Buddhist prototype through the
domes of Ibrahim's tomb at Bijapur and the Hindu domes of
Southern India, instead of pursuing an archaeological will-o'-
the-wisp in remote corners of Central Asia. The niches and
semi-domed portal will recall the desecrated shrines of Buddh-
ism which the Arabs dedicated to the ritual of Islam.

The splendour of Shah Jahan's architectural undertakings
attracted, as we have seen, master-craftsmen from all parts of
the Mogul empire ; but the explanation of the lotus dome of
the Taj and other of Shah Jahan's buildings is to be found in
the influence of the rival Muhammadan power in the Dekhan
upon the craftsmanship of the imperial Mogul court at Agra
and Delhi. Probably, also, the wonderful marble trellis-work
which surrounds the cenotaph of Mumtaz Mahall must be
attributed mainly to Bijapur craftsmen, for it has closer affini-
ties to Bijapur work than to any other contemporary school of
Indian craftsmanship.

This is only one of the instances in which, when the true
history of Indian civilisation comes to be written, the highly
developed culture of Southern India will be shown to have
influenced the civilisation of the north. Western writers in
many cases have not only mistaken the sources of Indian in-
spiration, but have been unable to distinguish the direction in
which the various currents of Indian thought have run, and
thus have often missed many clues to the origins of the art
and civilisation of Europe.

2O9

In the Taj, the Moti Masjid at Agra, and in the palace at
Delhi, Shah Jahan's master-builders concentrated themselves
more upon the effort to produce a perfect refinement of contour
and decoration than upon new experiments in structural
design. They applied to building the fine art of line practised
by the Mogul court painters and calligraphists, in whose work
both Jahangir and Shah Jahan took a keen personal interest.
In this sense the later phase of Mogul building belongs, like
the contemporary Renaissance architecture of Europe, to the
category of picture architecture ; and is thereby widely differ-
entiated from the virile schools of Rajputana and other parts
of India which represent the national tradition of practical
building. The tomb of Mumtaz Mahall and the Moti Masjid
at Agra have all the delicate perfections of the rare and most
exquisite miniature pictures by the best artists of Jahangir's
and Shah Jahan's court. The inlaid decoration translates into
marble and precious stones the work of the great masters of
calligraphy and the loveliest floral devices which framed Mogul
pictures. The contours of the domes render architectonically
the marvellous subtlety of the painter's line.

Among the most perfect of Shah Jahan's buildings,
though the least known, are the marble pavilions on the em-
bankment of the lake at Ajmir which were rescued from
• departmental vandalism by Lord Curzon. They belong to
the same " classic " school of Indian building of which Gujerat
and Fatehpur-Sikri furnish many examples. In purity of
form and perfection of proportion the classic schools of Europe
can show nothing finer.

Shah Jahan's builders made one attempt to carry further
the great tradition of Akbar's mosque at Fatehpur-Sikri in the
Jami' Masjid at Delhi. It resembles its prototype in its
spacious planning and in the triple domes of the liwan, except
that the Bijapur type of dome is substituted for that of the

2IO

THE PALACE OF MADURA

northern tradition. One can see, not only in the symbolism
of the domes in detail but in the pyramidal piling up of the
masses of the whole liwan, an unconscious echo of the Hindu
temple vimana. Like the latter, Shah Jahan's mosque was
designed to be a striking landmark which should attract the
eye of the faithful from afar and proclaim the glory of Islam
over the whole surrounding country. From its largeness of
conception, pleasing proportions, and the architectonic unity
of the design, it must be considered one of the finest mosques
of the world ; but there is a coldness about the interior which
makes it less attractive than many others in India.

According to Fergusson, it was begun in 1644 and com-
pleted in 1658. The liwan is 201 feet in length by 120 feet
in width. The two minars at the corners of the facade are
130 feet high.

In Southern India the architectural development which
had begun at Vijayanagar in the sixteenth century continued
through the seventeenth under the Nayyak dynasty of
Madura, which after the catastrophe of Talikota succeeded the
kings of Vijayanagar in upholding the banner of Hinduism
against the assaults of Islam. The palace of Tirumalai
Nayyak is one of the finest examples of the skill of the Hindu
master-builder in adapting the Hindu arch to structural pur-
poses, in the same way as had been done in the previous
century at Vijayanagar and Bijapur. Fergusson rightly said
of the great audience-hall (PL CIV), now used as a court of
justice, that it possesses all the structural propriety and char-
acter of a Gothic building ; but he misunderstood the origin of
the great Hindu foliated arches, and made the usual mistake
of calling them " Saracenic."

Fergusson also overlooked the most significant point con-
cerning this last development of Hindu building in Southern
India, that it gives a striking indication of what the Indian

211

2i2 THE PALACE OF MADURA

master-builder might have done — and still might do — for
Anglo-Indian architecture if under the British Raj he were
given the same opportunities as he enjoyed under Musulman
rulers. For this great palace was the beginning of a new
" style," perfectly adapted to modern Anglo-Indian purposes,
and fusing into one artistic entity the individual characteristics
of the three different cults now prevailing in India — Hindu,
Muhammadan, and Christian. The arches are Hindu in form,
but Muhammadan in application ; the " classic " columns which
support them are Christian by adoption and the whole building
is thoroughly European in structural character. The his-
torical explanation of this remarkable amalgamation of archi-
tectural ideas is that Vijayanagar for a long time had intimate
commercial relations with the Portuguese settlement at Goa,
which in fact was almost entirely dependent upon its great
trade with the wealthy capital of the South Indian kingdom.
The fall of Vijayanagar was a great blow to the prosperity of
Goa, and in the latter half of the sixteenth century the tortures
of the Inquisition established by the Portuguese drove the
Hindu craftsmen who had built Christian cathedrals and
churches there — and even taken them as models for their own
temples — to seek refuge at the court of Madura.

The influence of the Hindu craftsman's association with
the European builder and his readiness to assimilate new ideas,
from whatever source they might come, can be seen not only
in the structure of Tirumalai's palace, but also in the marked
" classical " feeling of some of the figure-sculpture in that part
of the great temple of Madura which was built about the same
time.

Fergusson thought it a curious thing that the same king
who built this palace (PL CIV) built also the temple pavilion
(PL CV), which is so totally different in style. If he had re-
flected on the fact that the builders of the Gothic cathedrals in

PALACE OF CHANDRAGIRI

213

FIG. 47.— South Elevation.

Europe built also the baron's castle, the yeoman's house, and
the peasant's cottage, he would have found no reason for
surprise at the difference between a Hindu palace and a Hindu
temple. But Fergusson did not realise that all the great
architecture of India — Musulman, Hindu, and Buddhist — had
its root in temple
craftsmanship.

The palace
o f Chandragiri,
in the North Ar-
cot district- o f
Madras, the last
stronghold of the
Vij ay ana,gar
dynasty after the
battle of Taliko-
ta, is another
very interesting
seventeenth-
century example
of the same
South Indian
school of build-
ing, which, had
it been allowed
to develop, might have easily solved the problem which is now
puzzling the brains of British architects in Europe and in
India.

Mr. R. F. Chisholm, F.R.I.B.A., who has made an especial
study of these two buildings, has given plans and descriptions
of the palace of Madura in "The Transactions of Royal Institute
of British Architects" (vol. xxvi. 1875-6), and of the Chandra-
giri palace in " The Indian Antiquary" (vol. xii. 1883).

15*

FIG. 48. — Ground Plan.

Chandragiri Palace, drawn by R. F. Chisholm, F.R.I.B.A. (from
Fergusson's " History ").

CHAPTER XIV

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY

THE DECAY OF THE MOGUL EMPIRE — TOMB OF SAFDAR JANG,
DELHI — EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BUILDINGS AT LUCKNOW —
THE SIKANDARA BAGH, AGRA — MODERN RAJPUT ARCHITEC-
TURE : THE CITY OF JAIPUR ; PALACES AT DIG AND UDAIPUR ;
DOMESTIC BUILDINGS — ANGLO-INDIAN ARCHITECTURE —
INDIAN ARCHITECTURE IN THE VICTORIAN PERIOD — MODERN
BUILDINGS

WITH the usurpation of Aurangzibin 1658, Mogul architecture
practically ceased to exist as a separate school, though the
master-builders, whose occupation at the Delhi court was gone,
carried with them into Rajputana the influence of the later
Mogul style which was assimilated by the local Rajput schools,
not always to their benefit.

There could hardly be a stronger proof that the inspiration
of Muhammadan architecture in India came from the Buddhist-
Hindu building tradition, and not from any Saracenic sources,
than this, that immediately the co-partnership between the
Musulman and Hindu craftsmen — fruitful in great achieve-
ments and advantageous to both sides — was broken by the
bigot Aurangzib, so that the orthodox Musulman builders were
thrown upon their own artistic resources, there was not another
Musulman building in India rising above the level of medio-
crity. From that time to the present day the living architecture

214

THE EUROPEAN DILETTANTE 215

of India has been represented by the continuity of the indigen-
ous tradition, Buddhist-Hindu in its origin and development.

Aurangzib revived the iconoclastic orgies of the early
Muhammadan invaders, but did not imitate their wise example
in enlisting the Hindu builders into their own service. The
fine arts were banished from his court, and very few architec-
tural works were undertaken under his auspices which were not
tame imitations of earlier buildings. The tomb of his wife,
Rabia Daurani, which is a feeble copy of the Taj, has been
alluded to above.1

The tomb of Safdar Jang — one of the Nawab Vazirs of
Oudh — near Delhi, a pretentious, ungainly structure built about
1750, shows how mediocre Mogul architecture became as soon
as Muhammadan rulers allowed sectarian prejudices to dictate
the choice of architect-craftsmen for their buildings.

The stage architecture of the European dilettante began
to show itself in India about the end of the eighteenth century.
La Martiniere at Lucknow, a creation of General Claude
Martin, a Frenchman who rose to a high position in the ser-
vice of the Nawabs of Oudh, is a specimen of it, neither better
nor worse than the average in India. The Indian builder in
the service of the Nawabs began also to imitate this foreign
fashion, and though the immediate result, as shown in a
number of palaces at Lucknow, was sometimes bizarre enough,
there is no doubt that Indian craftsmanship, if it had been
allowed to experiment as freely with European fashions as it had
done with the fashions of Muhammadan rulers, would sooner
or later have evolved a new tradition of building practic-
ally and aesthetically more worthy of Anglo-India than that
which Anglo-India has made for itself. The palace of Madura
described in the last chapter illustrates one of the most success-
ful efforts of Indian builders in this direction on a large scale,

1 P. 37.

2l6

THE "CLASSIC" STYLE

but there are still to be found, all over India — even in the
suburbs of Anglo-Indian cities — many minor buildings in
which the Indian craftsman when left to follow his own instinct
has succeeded in putting life into the dead styles of Europe by
grafting them on to his own living tradition. An excellent
illustration of this is shown in PI. CVI, the entrance gateway
to the Sikandara Bagh at Agra, where the native craftsman,

FIG. 49 —Plan of the City of Jaipur.

with only the banalities of our public works "classic" for
models, has built in a classic style which has all the vitality
and freedom of a real Pompeian villa.

Outside the atmosphere of the Mogul court, and away
from the tutorship of the European dilettante, the indigenous
building tradition maintained its native vigour beyond the
middle of the nineteenth century, and even now is astonishingly

o
w

TOWN PLANNING 217

alive, in spite of all the depressing influences which have been
brought to bear upon it.

Modern Rajput architecture may be said to have begun
with the building of the city of Jaipur in 1728. The palace,
built at different periods in the eighteenth century, cannot be
compared architecturally with many others in Rajputana, but
excellent examples of the modern Indian master-builder's art
are found in the city, as in every part of Rajputana and the
neighbouring States.

The plan of the city of Jaipur (fig. 49) is especially inter-
esting at a time when town-planning is regarded as a recent
invention of European science, for this Indian city is one of
those which has not grown up irregularly by gradual accretion :
it was laid out at its foundation on a scientific plan according
to the traditions of Hindu city builders and the direction of
their canonical books called the Silpa-sastras.

The plan given by Ram Raz called prastara l is very
similar to that of Jaipur. The city leans upon the neighbour-
ing hill, defended by the Nahagarh Fort, its main streets
running approximately from east to west and north to south,
following the directions laid down in the Silpa-sastras.

The palace of Suraj Mall at Dig, the capital of the
Bharatpur State, was commenced by the chieftain of that name,
the founder of the dynasty, about 1725. It consists of a
number of detached palatial residences enclosed in a splendid
formal garden, with fountains and watercourses, which were
intended to rival in magnificence the imperial palace at Agra,
which was looted by the Jats in 1765 ; but the whole scheme
was left incomplete on the death of Suraj Mall two years earlier.

The principal block, the Gopal Bhawan, was finished about

1 "Essay on the Architecture of the Hindus," Plate XLV. The orientation marked
on the plates does not seem to correspond with the quotations from the Sastras given in
the text.

2I8 PALACE OF DIG

1750. It combines the elegance of Shah Jahan's palaces with
the more robust character of Rajput architecture, and being
better adapted to the amenities of modern life than the earlier
fortress-palaces of Rajputana, it is especially interesting to the
modern architect ; but few, I think, would agree with Fergus-
son's judgment that it surpasses other Rajput palaces " in
grandeur of conception and beauty of detail."

The Gopal Bhawan contains the great Diwan-i-am, or
public reception-hall, which faces the garden front in the south,
shown in PL CVII. The terraced roof is given more than its
usual importance as a place of promenade in the cool of the
evening by the omission of domes and cupolas and by being
extended on all four sides beyond the walls of the building by
a bracketed parapet of pierced stone-work. The combination
of this parapet with the usual wide dripstone beneath it, which
protects the walls from rain and sun, forms the strikingly
characteristic cornice of the whole building — more original
and beautiful in form than the useless " designed " cornices of
Italian Renaissance palaces, which only serve the purpose of
providing constant employment for the plumber, plasterer, and
paperhanger by diverting the flow of rain-water from the ex-
terior to the interior of the building.

The Gopal Bhawan is built of red sandstone, and the foli-
ated Hindu arches, hitherto rarely used in Rajput palaces, show
that Suraj Mall gave employment to the craftsmen who since
the time of Aurangzib had ceased to work at the Mogul court.
The construction of these wide openings on the bracket prin-
ciple, in two blocks of stone, instead of by radiating voussoirs,
is usually attributed by the Western critic to an obstinate
Hindu prejudice against the Western arch. Really it is the
simplest, most practical, and most artistic way of dealing with
such a form when good building stone of sufficient size is easily
procurable. No intelligent craftsman would go out of his way

PALACE OF DIG 219

to build up such a complicated arch in several dozen different
wedges when he had good stone at hand for making it in two
pieces. Only the European stylist, trained by books and paper
methods, who tries to teach the practical craftsman his own
business, would be so foolish.

The private apartments of the Gopal Bhawan occupy the
north, east, and west sides of the building. The north front
(PI. CVIII) faces a large bathing-tank, and is charmingly diver-
sified by a number of balconies and two large open pavilions
with typical Bengali roofs. Placed on the side of the Grand
Canal at Venice, it would be acclaimed as the most delightful
of Venetian palaces. We have already noticed how Bengali
craftsmen had left their mark upon the buildings of Shah Jahan
at Agra and Delhi. The Dig palace evidences their migration
into Rajputana, where the characteristic bent roofs and cornices
of Gaur were adopted by the Rajput builders and still belong
to the local craft tradition.

PI. CIX shows a representative palatial building in Udai-
pur belonging to the modern period, or the early part of the
eighteenth century. Modern architecture in Rajputana pre-
sents many varied local types, racy of the soil and of the sturdy
independence of the Rajput people, who, though steadfastly
loyal to the British Raj, are still proud of their past history and
attached to their own culture and living traditions. For
though a " progressive " Prince may assume the architectural
fashions of Stratford atte Bowe when he builds a new palace, so
that his master-craftsmen are employed for the time being in
copying the paper patterns prepared by the European "designer"
or by the Indian engineer who has learnt the regulation designs
by heart at a technical college or perhaps in a London archi-
tect's office — this is a mere episode in the life of the people,
like the occasional visit of a European burra-Sahib.

The domestic architecture of Rajputana remains, on the

220 MODERN DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE

whole, a strong, living craft. Not only in Rajputana and Cen-
tral India, but over the greater part of India, it is still true,
what Fergusson wrote thirty years ago, that if Indians of the
upper classes could be persuaded to take a pride in their own
art, their master-builders could even now rival the works of
their forefathers : for building is one of the master-crafts which
is most closely bound up with the real life of the people, and
consequently always retains its vitality longer than the sump-
tuary arts, which, being less essential to life, are more subject
to the caprices of fashion. PI. CX, a rich merchant's house
in Bikanir, is a superb example of the modern domestic archi-
tecture of Rajputana, which often shows a much finer architec-
tural quality than the palatial buildings of the ruling Princes.
This one, which probably belongs to the early part of the
nineteenth century, is truly as fine as any Mogul Emperor's
palace. The Rajput builder of the present day builds almost
as well when he is given similar opportunities.

Only within the last few years has it dawned upon the
more enlightened of the art critics of Europe that up to the
middle of the nineteenth century a great national tradition of
painting survived in Northern India. The existence of an even
stronger school of building craft in many parts of India is still
as much unknown to the Western architectural scholar and
practitioner as it is to Anglo-Indian departmentalism. Eor
over fifty years the Public Works Department has made an
official monopoly of State buildings in British India, applying
to them its own dryasdust formularies culled from Macaulay's
bookshelf, and the products of this system loom so large in the
life of Anglo-India' that the very existence of the Indian master-
builder is sometimes forgotten.1 But the life of the great

1 The Director of Industries in Madras, Mr. A. Chatterton, declared lately that the
Indian master-builder is a figment of my imagination ! I have reason to believe that many
Anglo-Indian officials are of the same opinion.

ANGLO-INDIA 221

caravanserais at Bombay and Calcutta and that of the smaller
camps scattered over British India is so remote from the real
life of the Indian people that these fashions of the West, though
generally adopted by " progressive " Princes and other English-
educated Indians, cannot affect Indian art and craft so as to
wholly destroy them until all India has become a suburb of
London and Paris ; and as that is never likely to happen, there
is no reason to expect that Indian civilisation will become ex-
tinct or cease to fulfil its great mission in the world.

But there is a real danger, that through ever-increasing
facilities for travelling and the over-centralisation of adminis-
trative methods, the present gulf between the rulers and the
ruled will continue imperceptibly to grow wider and wider.

The Indian craftsman is banished from the court, as he
was in the days of Aurangzib ; but it is the art of the court,
not the art of the people, that suffers most thereby. For archi-
tecture may be a profession, a business, an amusement, or a
fashion, but it can never be a living art unless it is deeply rooted
in the soil in which it grows. In this deeper sense there is no
architecture yet within the confines of Anglo-India, nor even
a promise of any development beyond parasitical growths
which are sapping the vitality of the real Indian art which lies
outside the camp life of the rulers of India. There is nothing
at all surprising in this fact. The Muhammadan rulers of India
had no architecture they could call their own until they had sat
at the feet of the Indian master-builder for several centuries.
We have not yet admitted him into the fellowship of art or
understood how to make use of the Indian craftsman except in
the relationship of master and servant.

That which is called architecture in the Anglo-Indian
caravanserais is merely a mechanical process, originally in-
vented by the dilettanti of the Renaissance in Europe, for trick-
ing out the business arrangements of the Anglo-Indian

222 "STYLES"

administration in tinsel adornments called " styles." The
official architect sits in his office at Simla, Calcutta, or Bombay,
surrounded by pattern-books of styles — Renaissance, Gothic,
Indo-Saracenic, and the like — and, having calculated precisely
the dimensions and arrangement of a building suited to de-
partmental requirements, offers for approval a choice of the
"styles" which please him or his superiors, for clothing the
structure with architectural garments in varying degrees of
smartness, according to the purpose for which it is intended,
at so much per square foot.

When these preliminaries are settled, a set of paper patterns
is prepared and contractors are invited to undertake to get these
patterns worked out to proper scale and in the regulation
materials. Then, at last, the Indian craftsman is called in to
assist in the operations, under the supervision of the contractor
and subordinate Public Works officials, who check any ten-
dency the craftsman may show to use his imagination or his
intelligence in anything beyond copying the departmental paper
patterns.

Inevitably under this system, the evils of which are now
clearly recognised by architects in Europe, a special type of
artisan is created — in India as in Europe — a mechanic who
works listlessly for the wages he earns and has no interest in
anything beyond his earnings. The craftsman inevitably be-
comes (as the Consulting Architect to the Government of India
recently declared) master of one art only — the art of scamping.
The same might be said of the ordinary artisan produced by
the same system in Europe. Inevitably, also, the system tends
to the gradual destruction of Indian industry in materials and
processes connected with building. Chained to an office at
Simla or Calcutta by the traditions of departmentalism which
he is powerless to alter, the architect can calculate the cost of
steel girders and framework, order them through an Anglo-

PLATE CX

A MERCHANT'S HOUSE, BIKANIR

PLATE CXI

2226]

BUILDINGS AT JODHPUR

THE INDIAN CRAFTSMAN 223

Indian agency, and get unskilled Indian labour to fit them in
position. But it is impossible for him to study thoroughly
Indian methods of construction in stone, brick, or wood, and to
co-operate with the intelligence and skill of the hereditary
Indian craftsman in applying them on the actual site of the
building. Similarly, it becomes more "progressive" —in the
departmental sense, but no other — to use European wall-
papers, Portland cement, and Messrs. Blank & Co.'s patent
paints in place of Indian fine polished chunam, stencilling, or
fresco painting.

The Indian craftsman known to Anglo-India belongs al-
most exclusively to the type of labourer created in the last fifty
or sixty years by this departmental system of making architec-
ture a by-study in mechanical engineering. From their ex-
perience of him and his work the characteristics of the Hindu
craftsman — his patient, plodding labour, his slovenliness, lack
of energy, imagination, and creative power — have been drawn
by Anglo-Indian critics. From the same narrow field of ob-
servation has been formulated the historical theory of Indian
art, formulated by Sir George Birdwood and other writers, that
it is a mixture of foreign ingredients — Turanian, Egyptian,
Chaldaean, Assyrian, Greek, and Saracenic — received by the
Hindu craftsmen and patiently compounded century by century
'with the same assiduous, unpractical, uninspired plodding,
under the direction of their foreign masters. The popular idea
that Indian architecture began with the Muhammadans and
died with the last of the Mogul dynasty comes from the same
source.

A practical illustration will make the working of this
system more clear than any general statements. The new
Military Secretariat offices in Calcutta was one of those build-
ings in which Lord Curzon took a keen personal interest.
The building of it was arranged departmentally in this wise :

224 RENAISSANCE "DESIGNING"

The plans were, as usual, drawn up by the Public Works
Department in consultation with the Military Department ;
but a new departure was made in this case, by means of a
public prize competition, to invoke the aid of extra-depart-
mental talent in the process of fitting a facade to the depart-
mental plans. No instructions were given as to the "style"
required, but on account of Lord Curzon's public declarations
of sympathy with Indian art, nearly all the drawings sent in
were more or less oriental in character. Lord Curzon, how-
ever, selected one of the very few which were in the Renais-
sance "style," on the ground that it was the only "style"
suitable for an Anglo-Indian city.

After a certain amount of revision and elaboration under
Lord Curzon's personal direction, the usual working drawings
were prepared in the official architect's office, and Indian crafts-
men of the Public Works type were called in to construct the
building accordingly. A difficulty, however, arose with re-
gard to the sculptured ornamentation of the facade. The
Renaissance " design " provided for a number of nondescript
classical heads connected with Renaissance ribbons and fes-
toons. The official architect wanted to give the sculpture a
symbolical touch by repeating the heads of Mars and Venus
alternately throughout the length of the facade, but unfortu-
nately the Indian masons, who could carve finely the Hindu
war-god and goddess — Karttikeya and Durga — did not know
what Mars and Venus were like. The difficulty was solved
by indenting on the School of Art for two antique plaster
casts as models. Mars was out of stock, so Juno took his
place, and eventually a long row of the Graeco-Roman mili-
tant goddesses, carved by Indian masons, adorned the facade
of the Military Secretariat offices. But the cost of the build-
ing was greatly augmented by the " style " adopted. An Indian
mason can carve Durga and Karttikeya well for fourpence a

PLATE CXI I

[Dr. A. K. Coomarasu'amy

A SOUTH INDIAN TEMPLE STAPATHI

THE EUROPEAN ARCHITECT 225

day without European supervision ' ; for copying Juno or
Venus badly he must be paid eight times that sum and must
be carefully watched by European expert "designers" paid
much more highly.

The European dilettanti who rule India do not generally
know that any other system than this is possible or desirable,
and the more interest they take in architecture as an archaeo-
logical study the more they appreciate the opportunities for
selecting " styles " which departmental methods afford them.
The European architect in India who has followed the trend
of the best European practice in the last twenty years knows
not only that a better system is possible, but that no real
architectural progress can be made under present conditions.
He is helpless in the toils of a vicious system, for which the
education of the British public schoolboy and University
undergraduate is primarily responsible. Knowing little or
nothing of Indian craftsmanship outside the official area — for
he has been trained entirely in Europe, and is put into official
harness directly he lands in India — he naturally looks for
a remedy in more European supervision, more European
teaching, and a closer imitation of European methods.

And so long as the Government of India continue to hold
out to architects in Europe tempting commissions by which
"a fortune can be made in a few years, suggestions for reform
of the present system in India are not likely to originate in
the united professional opinion of Great Britain, however
much interest may be taken in architectural reform in this
country.

Meanwhile the Indian master-builder outside the Anglo-
Indian gate, though scorned by many of his own countrymen as
" uneducated," keeps up, as far as he is permitted to do so, the

1 Fourpence a day are the average earnings of modern architectural sculptors in
Orissa, whose work is shown in Plates CXXVII-CXXVIII.
16

226 THE INDIAN MASTER-BUILDER

splendid traditions of the practical school of craftsmanship,
like that which existed in Europe a century and half ago, in
which his forefathers learnt. He is now seldom allowed—
except under the cramping processes of European dictation,
or under the supervision of " educated " Indian engineers
whose architectural qualifications are acquired by copying a
few sheets of " classic " orders in Anglo-Indian technical
colleges — to build the palaces of " progressive " Princes or to
undertake any public works of importance. But the Indian
field is so immense and varied in character that the school
of practice which is still left open to him is sufficient to keep
up a standard of craftsmanship infinitely higher than that
which passes muster in the Public Works Department
throughout British India.

As I have already stated, the Archaeological Survey of
India, through the initiative of Lord Curzon, has for some
years past given temporary occupation to many Indian crafts-
men in the restoration of the monuments their ancestors built.
The Director-General, Mr. Marshall, has frequently testified
to their intelligence and skill in work of this kind, and it was a
great, misfortune for India that Lord Curzon's interest in
craftsmanship did not extend further.1

There has been in the last few years considerable activity
in temple building in Southern India, owing to the large
donations made by wealthy Hindu merchants for that purpose.
Plate CXII shows a South Indian stapathi, or hereditary
temple architect, engaged in preparing drawings for the masons
working under his direction (Plate CXI 1 1). Many of the great
Hindu temple foundations give permanent employment to

1 Mr. O. C. Ganguly, in an article in the Modern Review for March 1912, states that
an hereditary architect of Bhuvaneshvar, since the work of the Archaeological Survey in the
neighbourhood was finished, sent his son to the village school to qualify for service as a
clerk, as no further remunerative work was available in the hereditary craft on which his
family had depended from time immemorial.

PLATE CX1V

236]

Aj MODERN INDIAN PALACE, MARWAR

THE INDIAN MASTER-BUILDER 227

master-builders learned in the Silpa-sastras, and the donations
of pious Hindus towards the building of new temples or the
repair of old ones, for constructing rest-houses for pilgrims,
bathing-ghats, wells, etc., as well as those of orthodox Muham-
madans for the building of mosques, help to keep alive the
traditions of Indian architecture and of many of the crafts de-
pendent on it.

This is a factor of extreme importance for the future of
Indian architecture, because religious works of this character
have always provided the best school of craftsmanship in India.
Temple craftsmanship is the foundation of all the great archi-
tecture of India, secular as well as religious. Under modern
conditions, however, temple building gives little opportunity
for structural experiments on a large scale, which are indispens-
able for the free development of the whole science and art of
building. In domestic architecture, the Indian master-builder
over the greater part of the country, outside the Anglo-Indian
cities, still remains in undisturbed possession.

Even under these restrictions the work of the Indian
master-builder during the Victorian period — now being com-
memorated in Calcutta by a building which appears to be an
archaeological essay on Kedleston Hall and the Radcliffe Library
at Oxford — would, if a complete survey of it were made, need
no comment to convince expert opinion in Europe of the
vitality of Indian craftsmanship, and silence for ever the
calumnies so often heaped upon the real Indian craftsman by
the incapacity of the Public Works mistri. At present I am
unable to attempt such a task as thoroughly as I should wish,
but I believe that the typical examples which illustrate this
chapter will be sufficient for the purpose, though they do not
cover a tithe of the whole field. They have not been specially
prepared for this work. Any cold-weather tourist in India,
whose interest lay in the direction of living craftsmanship as

22g THE VICTORIAN PERIOD

distinguished from archaeological dilettantism, could without
much difficulty, and without going far from the beaten track,
make an album of similar types.

PL CXIV is the mansion of a Rajput nobleman of the
Jodhpur State built about 1840. His ancestral castle which
crowns the hilltop behind belongs to the stormy days before
the/<3ur Britannica gave the people of Rajputana the security
they now enjoy. It will be noticed that the structural details,
taken separately, are similar to those which were employed in
the Dig palace, a century earlier ; but the architectonic design
as a whole is charmingly fresh and original.

The unprejudiced critic who compares the many different
types of Indian buildings, in different localities and different
periods, which illustrate these pages cannot fail to be struck
not only by the variety of " styles," but by the strong indi-
viduality which each building possesses. And the fertility of
Indian invention is just as conspicuous in buildings of the
Victorian period as it is in those of Muhammadan times.

Nothing can be more unjust than the charge so often
brought against the Indian master-craftsman that he follows
blindly a stereotyped tradition which he cannot adapt to the
changing conditions of the times in which he lives. Such an
imputation, coming as it generally does from those whose ideas
of creative art never get beyond the readjustment, under very
close restrictions, of a limited number of antique conventions,
is singularly ill-judged.

It is reallythe modern Anglo-Indian buildings, " designed "
according to the archaeological rules of the paper-architect —
often ignoring conditions of climate, site, local materials, arid
local craftsmanship — which are deadly in their monotony and
lack all the essentials of real architecture. Fergusson, who is
so unreliable in his classifications of Indian styles, had a clear
intuition of the truth of this matter when he wrote that in

X
o

THE VICTORIAN PERIOD

229

India alone at the present day can the real principles of the art
of building be observed in action.

To follow the history of Indian architecture in the nine-
teenth century one nxiistvisit the famous cities of pilgrimage,
like^ Benares, Brindaban, Hardwar, and other sacred placesjof
the Hindus. Benares is singularly rich in modern buildings ;
few of the fine palaces and monasteries which line the banks of
the Ganges are earlier than the eighteenth century, or the time
dfTXurangzib, who made havoc of the older Hindu temples
and built a mosque out of their remains. Not many Anglo-
Indians or European tourists who come to admire the wonder-
ful Isome, which the Ghats present on some great Hindu
festival reaHseJhat _two_pf Jthe most_st_ately of these palaces —
tHose^aTlvlunshi Ghat (Plate CXV) and Ghusli_jQhat-

(PTTTJXVI) — ar^ not, as they well might be, contemporary
with the famous buildings of the great Moguls, but bejDng to_
the latter half of the nineteenth century. The last named was
built by the^Ra.j_ah of Nagpur about 1860, and the other by
one of his ministers about the same time.

To find anything to compare with/ thejTi^iiLJEumpe for
Jar^en^sj_oJldesjgiL£ombined with perfection of craftsmanship^
one LWO^ilciJha^£Lla-gabackJ:a the, early days of the Renaissance
in Rome or Florence, when the fine craftsmanship of the
Middle Ages gave vitality to the classical conceptions of the
pamter-arcJiitects-XiL Italy. In Anglo-India there is not a
single building to be placed in the same class with them ;
none of the Mogul palaces display such a stately front — only
the fortress-palaces of the Rajputs compare with them in this-
respect. It was a strictly practical purpose, and not mere
academic "design" or the love of display, which determined
the distinctive character of these buildings. They are_builtjon—
the_steep slope of the high bank of the river, so as to allow
access to the sacred stream, both in the dry season when the

23o " INDO-SARACENIC '

water is below the foot of the Ghat steps, and in the monsoon
when the flood rises well above the basement line of the
palace itself. In the latter case the inmates of the palace can
perform their ablutions in safety from the central staircase
within the walls of the building. The principal apartments
.are placed high up, both for the sake of ventilation and so as
to be easily accessible from the main street at the level of the
high ground behind the palace.

The competent critic will recognise at a glance the essen-
tial difference between these native buildings and the " Indo-
Saracenic " of the British engineer-architect. The latter clothes
his engineering with external paper-designed adornments
borrowed from ancient buildings which were made for purposes
totally foreign to those which he has in hand. The engineer-
ing is more or less real (according to the skill of the designer) ;
the' 'style" is purely artificial. The artistry which may be
shown in the building is entirely dependent upon the vitality
which the Indian craftsman can put into it : if he is compelled
to follow mechanically the " Indo-Saracenic " paper patterns, in
the designing of which he has no share, according to the usual
departmental system, that cannot be of much account. In
other words, the engineer supplies the mechanics, the Indian
craftsman, so far as he is permitted, the art.

From an artistic point of view the only advantage which
this " Indo-Saracenic " has over Renaissance or any other
European "style" is that it gives Indian craftsmanship a
somewhat better chance of life. Imitation is said to be the
sincerest form of flattery, so it has the negative merit of not
being a standing insult to Indian culture and civilisation. As
architecture it is no better and no worse than the ordinary
departmental product. The engineer-architect does not come,
as the Moguls did, to learn the art of building from the Indian
.master-builder, but— on the false assumption that art in India

ENGINEERING AND ART 231

vanished with the last of the Moguls — to teach the application
of Indian archaeology to the constructive methods of the West,
using the Indian craftsman only as an instrument for creating
a make-believe Anglo-Indian " style."

The merits or demerits of Anglo-Indian buildings, from
an academic point of view as " designs," is an irrelevant ques-
tion which need not be discussed, since they all fail in different
degrees in the essentials of real architecture ; and this not so
much from want of ability or good training in the architects as
from the inherent vice of the system by which the buildings
are constructed. Michelangelo or Sir Christopher Wren
would have done quite as much injury to Indian craftsmanship
as any Public Works engineer has done if he had been given
the same responsibilities and had been compelled to follow the
same method of fulfilling them. When an organ-grinder is
playing Mozart or Strauss, it is idle to discuss which of the
three is the best musician.

JrMthese two Benares bathing-palaces the Indian master-
builder followed no fixed archaeological formulary. He built
according to the science and art of building, and was not con-
soouslyLreproducing. a- "-style." The engineering difficulties
which have to be met in building a large palace on the sloping
bank of a great river subject to heavy floods are much greater
than those which must be considered in ordinary Anglo-Indian
departmental buildings. The excellence of the craftsmanship
in these two palaces is proved by the present condition of the
masonry, which shows no signs of flaw or settlement. In
engineering there are few Anglo-Indian buildings to compare
with them ; in art, none.

The Indian master-builder's engineering and art are one,
and both are adequate for the purpose. Hence his artistic re-
sources have always been sufficient for the practical objects he had
in view. The style of these buildings is truly beautiful, like the

232 THE VICTORIAN PERIOD

spontaneous growth of trees and flowers, a quality inherent in
their growth and structure, determined by the soil in which they
are built,, by the materials of which they are made, and by
the purpose for which they are intended. The fortress-palace
of Datiya (PL XCVII), and the pleasure-house of Suraj Mall
(PL CVII), are so widely differentiated from these two modern
bathing-palaces of Benares, not by change of " style," but by
changes of time, place, men, and conditions of life — vital things,
not the unrealities of fashion and of taste. And just because^
they all belong to real life and to the soil on which they are built,
the bathing-palace of the nineteenth century is in every way as
great in art as the seventeenth-century Rajput fortress or the
eighteenth-century garden-palace.

We will turn now for a moment to another great place of
Hindu pilgrimage, Brindaban^ which contains some-U?vpeftent
temples built about the same time as these Benares-palaces.
They are described but not adequately illustrated in Mr. F. S.
Growse's manual of Mathura. The great temple of Rangunatk,
{Vishnu), founded by two wealthy Hindu merchants, the Seths
Gobind Das and Radha Krishna, was commenced in i845jmd
finished in 1851 at a cost of forty-five lakhs of rupees (Plate
CXVII). It is one of the largest of modern Indian temples — the
outer walls measuring 773 feet in length and 440 feet in breadth
—and is interesting for having brought together in one group
of buildings the South Indian and the North Indian building"
traditions. The central part, including the shrine itself and its"
lofty pyramidal towers, or gopuras, was designed by a South^
Indian temple stapathi, or architect; but the pavilions^atjthe^
•east and west entrances were the work of the local master-crafts-
men. The Indian master-builder now, as in former days, leads
a wandering life, and railways give more facilities for travelling
than the Indian bullock-cart. When I visited Gaya jn 1905
a Hindu temple was being built there by Jaipur craftsmen, and

X
o

PLATE V.CXVIII
v.

Photo by]
232*]

A MODERN HINDU TEMPLE (DURGA TEMPLE, BENARES)

[Johnston & Hoffmann

A DISTRICT OFFICER AND THE MASTER-BUILDER 233

two dharamsalas for pilgrims by craftsmen from the United
Provinces.

Mr. Growse also mentions two other modern temples at

Kishore, completed in

1871 at a cost of three lakhs, and the temple of Radha Gopal,
built by the Maharajah of Gwalior about 1860, of which he
remarks that the interior ^rj-angeinent is an exact counterpart
of an Italjaji^JiujxJi-and would be-." an excellent model for our
architects to follow, since it secures to perfection both free
ventilation and a softened light.1

The same gifted civilian, while in charge of the Buland-
shahar district of the Punjab from 1878 to 1884, exerted him-
self greatly in the interest of the local building craft, with the
result that all the official buildings required in the district were
planned and carried out successfully by the Indian master-
builder without the intervention of the Public Works " experts."
But the department would not tolerate this encroachment upon
its prerogatives, and Mr. Growse was called upon for an official
explanation, and this being considered unsatisfactory, he was
summarily removed from the district.

In his apologia written afterwards, Mr. Growse says :

" What I had still more at heart than the artistic education
of the wealthy was to improve the status of the poor local
artisans by securing them regular and lucrative employment,
either with private individuals, or as Government servants
under the District Board. I certainly demonstrated their fit-
ness and the economy that would result from their substitution
for certificated engineers, but the demonstration was unavail-
ing. The men who were working for me at the time of my
transfer have, I fear, derived injury rather than benefit from
my exertions on their behalf. I was removed so suddenly
that it was impossible for me to wind up their accounts, and

1 For plan see Growse's " Mathura," p. 263.

234 A DISTRICT OFFICER AND THE MASTER-BUILDER

since I left they have experienced the greatest difficulty in
getting paid for the work which they stayed on to finish. They
have too much respect for their art to undertake the clumsy
and grotesque erections in which the local squirearchy delight,
and they are consequently debarred from private service, while
—to complete the frustration of all my hopes for their advance-
ment— a circular has lately been issued which peremptorily
forbids their employment under Government. Under this
departmental ukase all posts of even Rs. 50 a month in the
gift of any District Board must be reserved for the holders of
a certificate from the Rurki College of Engineers, where no
orientalism has ever been tolerated. The mistri or indigenous
architect thus superciliously excluded from competition may
be a skilled craftsman whose work is of sufficient merit to be
transported at great expense across the sea and set up for
admiration in New York or London ; but in India he cannot
be trusted to design or carry out the most petty work in the
smallest village : the reason being that he has spent the whole
of his life in acquiring a practical mastery of his art, and
therefore he had no time to study English and in due course
obtain an engineering certificate ; having done so, he is at once
qualified for an appointment of Rs. 250 a month, in which he
will be freely entrusted with the design and execution of local
works, though he may know nothing of architecture beyond
the hideous ' standard plans ' provided by the Public Works
Department. Is it not an insult to common sense to be thus
liberal to bungling apprentices while a master in the art is not
allowed even Rs. 50 to supplement his exhibition medal, and
then to expect architecture to revive and flourish ? The higher-
paid employee can speak English and keep accounts in the
European fashion ; but in the real work for which he is en-
gaged he is immeasurably beneath his underpaid brother." l

It would be difficult to explain more tersely and accurately

1 From "Indian Architecture of To-day, as exemplified in New Buildings in the
Bulandshahar District," by F. S. Growse, quoted by Mr. O. C. Ganguly in the Modern
Revieiv, Calcutta, March 1912.

THE VICTORIAN PERIOD 235

the method by which English-educated Indians are led to
assist in the extinction of their own art, since the arch-Philis-
tine Macaulay — who was less fit to legislate for the education
of Indian youth than a Brahman pandit would be for the
British public schoolboy — laid the foundations of modern
education in India. This little incident will throw light upon
the astonishing ignorance regarding the Indian master-builder
and his work which is shown by many Anglo-Indian district
officers of long experience.1

We will return now to Benares. The modern temples of
Benares are_not, as a rule, architecturally interesting, but a
fine porch added to the temple of Durga, popularly known as the
Monkey Temple, about 1865 is an exception (PI. CXVIII).

Jhe beauty of some of the architectural sculpture of
Benares temples executed in the middle of the nineteenth
gjentury Is, however, very remarkable — as will be evident from
the illustrations given in the plates. The front of the temple
in Jhe suburb of Ramnagar which was built for the Maharajah
of Benares and completed about 1850 might easily be mistaken
for a fine example of the Byzantine School ; and one would
search in vain in modern European architecture for anything
to compare with the delightful row of the heavenly Apsaras
discoursing sweet music under the cornice of the Ahm£ty
temple, which was also built about 1850 (Plate CXX). Yet
Anglo-Indian writers will solemnly aver that after the third
century A.D. there is little Indian sculpture that can be called
art,2 and in the name of progress, education, and art Indian

1 Mr. Vincent Smith (" History of Indian Fine Art," p. 419 n.) says that, in Northern
India, Mathura is almost the only town where architecture can be described as " still a
living and progressive art " — a statement apparently based upon the fact that Mr. Growse's
district manual is almost the only official document referring to the work of the modern
Indian master-builder.

2 See Mr. Vincent Smith on Archeology in the latest edition of ': The Imperial
Gazetteer of India."

236 A MODERN MASTER-BUILDER'S TOWN

revenues make provision for costly " Renaissance " sculpture to
adorn the Secretariats of Calcutta !

To obtain an insight into the actual j^rnditiQn_ol_th£
Indian building craft of the present day — outside the depart-
mental enclave — one could not do better than wander through
the streets of a modern Indian town in Rajputana or Central
India and realise at once its vitality and gradual decadence.
Lashkar, the present capital of the Gwalior State, is a typi€al
one. It is a town of about 80,000 inhabitants, founded only
a hundred years ago, in which until quite recently the Indian
master-craftsmen have built without the supervision and
teaching of the European engineer-architect.

There they have built such fine bridges as that shown m

PI. CXXI ; many shops and private houses for rich andjDpor
(PL CXXI I) ; temples and secular public buildings and chhatns
to commemorate the death of the ruling Princes (PI. CXXIV),
for though a progressive Indian ruler may employ an architect
to design buildings for ceremonial purposes in the latest
Western fashion, in matters which concern his religious^anrh-
intimate private life he will generally call upon the InciiaTr
master-craftsman.

Though compared with former times the native master-
builder in the present day works everywhere under very de-
pressing conditions, his circumstances in a town like Lashkar
are infinitely better than they generally are elsewhere. In the
Public Works Department — should he ever gain employment
there — he is an insignificant cypher in the sum-total of the
departmental system. When he works for the " curiosity "
market of the great Anglo-Indian cities he is under the screw
of a grasping middleman. Here he is an artist who, even in
his poverty, can take pride and pleasure in his work. His
employer will testify a personal interest in the master-crafts-
man's work in various ways. A progressive Prince will not

X
X
u

J-i

A MODERN MASTER-BUILDER'S TOWN 237

now retain master-builders in his service as Court architects,
or bestow honours upon them for the successful completion of
a fine building, but the " uneducated " public of Rajputana will
still find pleasure in the skill of the local craftsmen and reward
them according to its means.

Mr. J. L. Kipling throws some interesting light on this
subject in his report of the Panjab Exhibition of 1881-2.
" In building a house," he writes, " the workpeople are all paid
wages more or less regularly, but for any extra spurt, or during
the execution of delicate or difficult details, they are often
liberally treated with sweetmeats, tobacco, sherbert, etc. In
some districts when a carpenter has made a carven chaukut for
door or window, he takes a holiday to exhibit it, and spreading
a sheet on the ground, lays it in front of the house it is to adorn,
and sits there to receive the congratulations and gifts of his
admiring townsmen. As much as Rs. 100 have in one day
been thrown to the carver of a particularly good piece of work."

Unfortunately, if a clever young craftsman should attract
the attention of an " educated" Indian nowadays, the benevo-
lence of the latter sometimes takes the form of paying for the
lad's training in an Anglo-Indian technical college, or he may
be despatched to Europe to learn " styles " more thoroughly at
the Royal Academy or in a London architect's office. The
attractions of an assured income and a small pension in Govern-
ment service also tend to draw away the sons of the most in-
telligent and successful craftsmen into the minor posts of the
Education or Public Works Departments, or to swell the
overfilled ranks of clerical labour.

Under such conditions the deterioration in modern Indian
craftsmanship needs no further explanation ; the fact that it
retains so much vitality might be a greater cause for wonder.
One of the signs of its vitality which can be noticed in many
modern buildings in Lashkarand elsewhere — the attempts to

238 A MODERN MASTER-BUILDER'S TOWN

assimilate the structural forms of the West with those of the
indigenous building traditions — is, curiously enough, generally
cit: -I as a proof of its utter decadence by the very critics who
deny the modern Indian craftsman's capacity for adapting him-
i Jf to the needs of departmentalism. The serious arcHItec-
tural student will be deeply interested to observe in India of
the present day exactly the same process of hybrid isationjwhich_
constantly recurred in the history of European architecture
when a new style was in process of evolution.

The free use of the Western column and classical -details
in combination with the forms of indigenous Indian " Gothic "
affords an exact parallel to the change which took place in Eng-
lish architecture of the sixteenth century, when English master^
builders were trying to adapt the fashionable "classical " taste of^
the period to their own Gothic tradition, and eventually created
the Elizabethan and Jacobean " styles " of the archaeologist.

It is most interesting to see how a clever Indian master-
builder will sometimes convert his own " Saracenic" or Hindu
capital into a quasi-Byzantine one, not by the archaeological
process of imitating ancient Byzantine capitals, but by the same~
artistic mental process by which Byzantine architecture was
originally created. A modern purist would check any pos-
sibility of further evolution by teaching the craftsman the
correct " style."

The archaeological pedant who is thus blighting the life of
Indian craftsmanship has lately started work in the town of
Lashkar. As one wanders through the town admiring the work
of a century of Indian craftsmanship, one is suddenly confronted
by a group of "classical " official buildings, including a brand-
new, spick-and-span, Greek-temple British Post Office ^PTale~
C XXV), which might have been imported ready-made tfom
Bloomsbury or St. Pancras together with the telegraph wires,
telephones, and railway engines. Lashkar in the year of grace

PLATE CXXII

2380)

STREET IN A MODERN MASTER-BUILDER'S TOWN (LASHKAK)

AN INDIAN RAILWAY-STATION 239

1908 became architecturally " progressive," and the craftsmen of
Central India are now learning " styles " under the supervision
of the British engineer, who took infinite pains toensure that the
Ionic volutes were correctly drawn and that the classical mould-
ings were cut according to the rules of the proper classical text-
books. The " uneducated" master-builderwho does not care for
these things has no longer any occupation in the State buildings
of Gwalior.

It is a pleasure to turn from a betise of this kind to an
excellent pieceof modern work in aneighbouring State, in which
the engineer in charge of the railway, not being burdened with
a classical taste, has permitted the local craftsmen to follow their
own ideas of correctness of style — namely, . th^

statiQqjc^ILH..the Maharajah of AwarXPLCXXVI ). Here_.
fHe_Indian master-builder is quite up to date, and shows his
capacityjoFass i m flat i n g foreign ideas bybuilding a very elegant
and at the same time a practical railway-station, which puts to
shame the banal " Gothic " terminus at Bombay, and is by far
the most artistic in all India. Being for the Maharajah's
private use only, it is of course small and more ornate than an
ordinary railway-station should be ; but the Oriental idea of a
waiting-room on the roof which has been borrowed from Indian
domesticjDuiJdings might _well be adopted for the comfort of
travellers in the design of larger stations in India. Roofs
aclapted for a temperate climate and a European rainfall are
among the many weak points of Anglo-Indian building design.
A survey of the Punjab, Rajputana, Central India, and
the adjacent provinces of the North in which Muhammadan
influence was predominant for many centuries would by no
means exhaust the subject of modern Indian building. In-
deed, a great amount of the most valuable material would be
found in those parts of the country occupied by the Hindu
kingdoms which resisted the Muhammadan invader more or

24o MODERN BUILDINGS IN ORISSA

less successfully. In the former provinces, especially where
Mogul influence has penetrated deeply, modern native archi-
tectural decoration is sometimes characterised by an insipidity
and meretricious prettiness which European critics, who only
know Indian art from museums and international exhibitions,
erroneously believe to be the common vice of all modern Indian
craftsmanship. This degeneracy, needing only skilful and
sympathetic artistic treatment, is partly to be accounted for by
the influence of modern commercialism, and partly by the
restrictions which Musulman law imposed upon the Indian
craftsman, for in those parts of India where the Hindu
tradition is purest modern Indian architectural decoration is
very different to the emasculated commercial bric-a-brac which
is justly despised by the Western critic.

Orissa, one of the ancient Hindu kingdoms which held out
longest against the military power of Islam, is practically an
unexplored field, rich in the finest craftsmanship, and one of
the most interesting and valuable in the whole of India, because
it represents a tradition uninfluenced by Musulman artistic
prejudices.

The two illustrations I give of Orissan buildings

snapshots taken by myself in a visit to Puri a few years ago.
They are examples of modern work carried out by a family of
masons still living there. PI. CXXVII is the entrance to the
monastery called the Emar Math, the fine carving of which
will bear comparison with that of the most famous^f the
Orissan temples built by the ancestors of these masons.
PL CXXVII I is the verandah of a private house

same family of craftsmen. During the last fifteen or twenty
years these fine sculptors, who are content with earnings of
fourpence to sixpence a day, have been reduced to making
trifling stone souvenirs for pilgrims, owing to the lack of
more profitable employment. During the same time lakhs

AN INDIAN SADHU 241

of rupees have been, and are still being, spent in Calcutta on
the decoration of public buildings with imported commercial
terra-cotta and sham Renaissance sculpture.

At Jajpur, the ancient capital of Orissa, Indian crafts-
manship is being preserved in a manner characteristically^
IfffianflL&^sddhu, or religious mendicant, has devoted his life
to^begging for money for the restoration of the temple of
Biroja in the town, and Orissan stonemasons, paid a pittance
sufficient for bare existence, have for many years past devoted
their pious labour to the work. As long as this spirit survives,
so long will India remain, as it is at present, the finest school
of craftsmanship in the world.

I will conclude this slight sketch of the modern Indian
building craft with an illustration of a temple gateway built
at Benares about twelve years ago by a master-mason named
Mallu, from a design by a craftsman, Madhu Prasad, in the
employ of H.H. the Maharajah of Benares (Plate CXXIX):"

CHAPTER XV

THE FUTURE OF ARCHITECTURE IN INDIA — THE BUILDING

OF THE NEW DELHI

FOR nearly eighty years the spell of Macaulay's literary genius
has been over the British administration of India in matters
educational, and there are still many placed in high authority
who maintain that the benefits which India has derived intel-
lectually and morally from British rule. are due to the policy
he inaugurated of attempting to Europeanise India " in morals,
in intellect, in taste, and in opinions," so that Indians shall
remain Indian " only in blood and colour." I venture to
think that future historians will view the case in a different
light, and attribute the great achievements of the British Raj
to the wisdom of those of Macaulay's successors who have
tried to adjust his crude ideas of education to a better under-
standing of Indian culture and history.

For Macaulay's policy, pursued to its logical conclusion,
was not in the true sense of the word educational — directed
towards a fusion or reconciliation of Eastern and Western
ideals ; it was only a philistine war of extermination against
all the intellectual traditions of Hinduism which he did not
think worth consideration. He was the great iconoclast of
Anglo-India. The fact that both India and the British Raj
have so far prospered on this educational foundation cannot
be credited to Macaulay's superior insight. The intellectual
aristocracy of India has always been ready to consider new
ideas with philosophic calm, even those opposed to its most

242

PLATE CXXV

POST OFFICE, LASHKAR

MACAULAYISM 243

cherished convictions ; and the deep religious sense of the
masses of the Indian people gives them an implicit faith in
the inscrutable wisdom of Providence which has sent the
White Brahmans of the West to rule over them. But it is
confidence in British justice, and not in our intellectual or
spiritual mission, as Macaulay conceived it, that keeps India
loyal.

India under British rule has given many signs of an
intellectual reawakening which fanatical followers of the
Macaulay cult are always ready to put forward as proofs of its
success. The patent fact is that those Indians who have profited
least by Western learning are those who have blindly accepted
Macaulay's estimate of Oriental civilisation. The great majority
of the English-educated Indians to whom Western ideas have
been a real inspiration are those who have cherished most their
own intellectual inheritance which Macaulay sought to destroy.

If Indian art, from being kept out of the sun so long, now
possessed so little vitality that an educational system which as
yet touches only a small fraction of the population could
destroy it root and branch, it could not be helped much by a
Western artist's pen and ink. I myself do not anticipate that
the Macaulay policy, even if British educationists should always
continue to interpret it in the sense intended by its author,
will ever succeed in fulfilling his intention. The inevitable
result will be the exact opposite of that which Macaulay anti-
cipated, to open wider and wider the cleavage it has already
made between the educators and the educated. For the more
we sap and mine at the foundations of Hindu civilisation,
which has made the Indian masses of all people on earth the
most amenable to law and order, the nearer we shall bring
India into the vortex of anarchy.

There is no real danger that an art, with an unbroken tradi-
tion of over two thousandyears behind it, which has maintained

244 INDIAN ART AND THE BRITISH RAJ

so much vitality in spite of the ban which intellectual Europe
has put upon it in the last fifty years, should now die of in-
anition, when the whole of the East is vibrating with a newborn
sense of nationality. Whether we like it or not, Indian nation-
ality will grow, and Indian art will grow with it ; nor should
we dislike or be ashamed of the inevitable result of the
contact of East and West. Under these conditions the worst
enemy of the British Raj is our own ignorance of Indian history,
of Indian ideals and their relationship to the practical affairs
of Indian life as expressed in Indian art and craft, and our
persistent habit of regarding art not as essential to life and
nationality, but as a hobby and a pastime — a habit which does
not prevent every European, from Thomas Atkins to the
highest official, considering himself qualified to teach art to the
benighted Hindu. By pretending to be artistic in India we
only succeed in making ourselves artificial. If we would all,
dilettanti and experts alike, give up pretending to teach art,
and, like Akbar, put ourselves to school, we should soon under-
stand the true secret of Mogul architecture, and instead of dis-
figuring utility with our art we should come to be artistic
through being useful.

It is no justification of a Public Works system of archi-
tecture, based upon a misreading of history, bad art, and pseudo-
science, to say that it is British : there are more excellent ways
which are also British. A department which exists pro bono*
publico should not be worked, as it has been, to the detriment
of Indian craftsmanship ; neither is it politic to allow the
vested interests of a great State monopoly to prejudice Indians
against the British Raj. Certainly there are useful things which
Indian builders might learn from co-operation with the
Western engineer and architect. But why is it that in over
fifty years, during which all the most important building opera-
tions in British India and in many of the Native States have

X
X
o

ENGINEERING COLLEGES 245

been a close Government monopoly, not a single Indian master-
builder has been trained to understand these useful modern
things? History proves that the Indian craftsman has always
had the capacity for learning, and even for teaching his teachers.
But there is now no co-operation between the architect and the
craftsman, and the education in architecture afforded to Indian
students at Anglo-Indian engineering colleges is a relic of
Victorian pedagogics in England seventy years ago. A know-
ledge of architectural drawing less than that of the youngest
articled pupil in a modern London architect's office has quali-
fied a European for a professorship. In a good London archi-
tect's office of to-day there is always a keen interest in Indian
art, however little knowledge of it there may be. The Indian
engineer learns just enough art to despise his own architecture
and to remain ignorant of any other. The curriculum is such
that if by any chance a young Indian master-builder should
enter one of these colleges, he would end by ceasing to be a
first-rate craftsman-architect and become a fourth-rate engineer.
The Macaulay system applied to the training of a literary caste
for the smooth working of departmental machinery may, with
much tinkering, be made serviceable. Applied to Indian art
and craft it is unworkable and entirely mischievous.

Indian architecture is said to be medieval and uneconom-
ical ; but if the Macaulay theory had justified itself in Anglo-
Indian public works, it would not have failed in fifty years to
make one Indian architect modern. The best architects in Eng-
land are now endeavouring — in spite of its medievalism — to
revive the old system of co-partnership between the architect and
the craftsman which existed in Europe down to the middle of the
eighteenth century,1 and many young architects are now be-

1 An influential Committee, called the Beaux Arts Committee of London, with many
leading British architects as members, was recently formed to improve architectural teach-
ing in London, this being considered the first necessary step towards "placing architec-

246 INDIAN ECONOMICS

coming builders themselves. And this because it is generally
admitted that no real art in architecture is possible except under
these conditions. The medieval way in Europe is becoming
the most modern way, just because there is no other way in
art. Unless the British artistic conscience is always to be less
sensitive east of Suez, it must also become the new Anglo-
Indian way.

Macaulayism in relation to Indian economics is the propa-
ganda of capitalism and machinery, and the misapplication of
theories which have not proved successful in Europe to totally
different conditions in India. But — the exponents of it say — if
we can make these theories succeed in India, it will be splendid
for the Empire ! That is Macaulay logic. Economy is the
modern Philistine's cheap excuse for bad art ; but the Philis-
tine's budget economy is seldom true economy, even in
engineering. Budget economy does not consider whether a
building will remain sound for ten years or for a century : its
foresight in this respect is often limited to the duration of the
financial year. It does not reckon whether processes which
have been tested for only ten or twenty years in temperate
climates are cheaper for India than those which have stood the
test of centuries of tropical conditions. It does not consider
how many good craftsmen are converted into bad mechanics,
or driven to find employment in petty clerkships and agri-
cultural pursuits ; how many Indian stone-quarries and brick-
kilns are closed ; and how many indigenous industries are
injured by the use of foreign methods and foreign materials.
It does not take into account the effect of blocking up profitable
artistic careers for Indian youth, or of the intellectual injury
inflicted upon India by the neglect of all artistic culture in the
education of the " educated."

ture in Great Britain on a sound theoretical basis." In India we have been propagating
unsound architectural theories for over a century as part of the white man's mission.

PLATE CXXVII

2460]

MODERN INDIAN SCULPTURE, PURI

EAST AND WEST 247

Even from the British standpoint there are considerations
of equal importance for ourselves. The history of Indian
architecture, if it teaches us anything, should bring to our
minds one obvious lesson, writ large on all the monuments of
Muhammadan rule, that the cordial relationship which existed
between Hindus and Muhammadans at the height of the
Musulman supremacy in India was largely due to the fact that
the Muhammadan rulers found in the practice of the arts and
in the unprejudiced pursuit of learning for its own sake the
best means of reconciling racial and religious differences.
When Aurangzib deliberately broke down the bridge which
Akbar and Shah Jahan had built, the Empire of the Moguls
quickly crumbled to pieces.

That is a bridge which we have not yet built. The Indian
master-builder is there to help us, as he helped the great Mogul,
but we have hitherto refused his aid. It is not a healthy sign
that when a great imperial project like that of the building of
the new Delhi is taken in hand, not a single departmental official
— expert or non-expert — could be found tolerably acquainted
with the present and past conditions and work of a great in-
dustrial community numbering over a million,1 representing a
craft so intimately bound up with the real life of the people as
that of the builder. Macaulayism, helped by the archaeological
pedant, instead of building a bridge between East and West,
has separated them by a high social wall, through the loop-
holes of which they occasionally shake hands ceremoniously.

There is a religious aspect of the question which to the
earnest Christian may present a real architectural difficulty, 'in

1 According to the Census of 1901, the population supported by " artificers in build-
ing" in India was 1,212,196; besides 367,564 supported by "building materials."
Twelve years ago a much greater industrial community — that of hand-weaving— numbering
over five millions, was similarly ignored departmentally, and it was only through public
lectures and other non-official channels that I succeeded in drawing the attention of the
department concerned to the importance of the greatest of all Indian industries.

248 CHRISTIAN CHURCHES

connection with the building of Christian churches and cathe-
drals in India. The ecclesiastical pedant will insist that they
must be either " Gothic," which is a Christian form of archi-
tecture, or " classic," which was originally pagan but has be-
come Christian by adoption. If the architectural history of
Christianity were better understood, the difficulty would at
once disappear. India was the original hpme_of the Western
Gothic ideal. " Indo-Saracenic " architecture is Eastern Gothic.
Let the Western architect teach the Indian master-builder to
Christianise his symbolism and structure, as, the Muhamma-
dans adapted them for their own ritual, and they would jointly
build Indian churches for Christian worship which might be
as beautiful as Muhammadan mosques, and perchance lead
Indians to understand Christianity better and respect it more.
This idea may not appeal to those who cannot recognise a
Christian except in petticoats or trousers, but it is good archi-
tecture and archaeologically consistent.

Western Gothic has been such a miserable failure in
India, both in secular and religious buildings, only because
Anglo-Indian builders have neither had the practical sense to
orientalise it nor the historical sense to recognise its relation-
ship to the Indian branch of the same school.

How will the new Delhi be built ? Will it be the starting-
point of real Anglo-Indian architecture, or only the oppor-
tunity of a life-time for the modern Western stylist ? We
must wait and see. If the old precedents are maintained, the
cut of its official uniform — " Renaissance," " Indo-Saracenic,"
or whatever its name may be — will be decided by eminent
European professors after grave deliberation ; and when the
fashion-plates of the latest style have been duly admired by
the British public, Indian craftsmen will be summoned from

PLATE CXXIX

GATEWAY OF A MODERN TEMPLE, BENARES

THE NEW DELHI 249

north and from south, from east and from west, as in days of
old ; but not to sit in durbar at the Padshah's Court — only
to copy the eminent professors' paper patterns. And the
things which really matter, both for East and for West, will
remain as they were before. The new Delhi will be another
splendid make-believe ; and Mr. Kipling will perhaps, after
all, prove to be a true prophet. Macaulay's New Zealander
wrill make a note of it.

APPENDIX

A PETITION presented to His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State
for India, February 6th, 1913.

To THE MOST HONOURABLE

THE MARQUIS OF CREWE, K.G., ETC., ETC.,

His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for India.

THE HUMBLE PETITION OF THE UNDERSIGNED

Most respectfully sheweth : —

That they would draw your Lordship's attention to an
aspect of the question of the new City of Delhi that they fear may be
lost sight of in discussions upon a choice of styles that seem to be beside
the point and to confuse the issue.

Here, in England, where, broadly speaking, no traditionaT'eraftsmen
have survived, and where, in place of un-selfconscious artists practising
with intelligence and pleasure their various crafts, there are only
mechanics dully earning a living, there is unfortunately a show of reason
for treating building as a dead art, and for selecting from our museums
examples to imitate.

But India is not England (or Europe), and where there are still
master-builders and craftsmen and an unbroken building tradition of
more than 2,000 years with all that it implies, there can be no serious
question of style ; that is better left to the classifiers and historians.
The force of genuine craftsmanship is so vital and tremendous, that
if its methods are not tampered with, it will always assimilate fresh and
foreign forms. English workmen of the sixteenth century by the
strength of their inherited craftsmanship made real the architecture

252 APPENDIX

of the Renaissance. The native architecture suffered, but the buildings
were still living. Indian native architecture would suffer in the same
way if it was required to take its inspiration from abroad, but if left to
the craftsmen the product would still be living art.

They submit that the question to be discussed is, not in what style,
but by what method the new city should be built ; whether that of the
modern architect in an office with his assistants, detached from materials,
craftsmen, and site, carrying his buildings to completion upon paper,
with pencil-trained mind and hands, and binding with details and speci-
fication those who are to build strictly within these limits ; the method
that has produced the public buildings of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, and in India those of the Anglo-Indian cities : or, the method
that has given us Westminster Abbey, Saint Sofia, Saint Peter's (Rome),
and in India the Taj, the Palaces of Akbar and Shah Jahan, and the
great public works of former times, that of the master-builder with his
craftsmen, working in accustomed materials upon the site from simple
instructions as to accommodation and arrangement such as would have
been given to a master-mason or a master-carpenter by a medieval King
who required a palace or a castle, or by a Bishop who desired to found
a cathedral. This was the method that has produced all the great build-
ings of the world, and no modern buildings warrant the assumption
that it can be safely departed from. That King and Bishop understood
crafts in a way that is not general now, and at the present time there
seems to be an urgent need for a sympathetic middle-man with a know-
ledge of building to act as a protecting buffer to the craftsmen, and to
interpret to them modern departmental needs.

Your Petitioners feel that the possibility of work upon these lines
is now so rare that its value can hardly be exaggerated. Even in these
days, when the arts suffer so much in England from its want, the
pricelessness of genuine un-selfconscious craftsmanship is not fully
realised. Nothing can revive it, once the chain is definitely broken ;
it is gone for ever, more hopelessly gone than the general public can
understand or imagine.

They submit that it is for the general good, artistically and morally,
not only of the United Kingdom and India, but of the world at large,
that living craftsmanship should be saved from extinction by a right
method of employment ; that politically such a method will tie the

APPENDIX

253

natives of India more closely to the Mother Country, and at the same
time give an outlet for the energies of the college-trained Indians to
whom all the arts are at present closed ; further, that the use of native
master-builders handling native material is financially economical.

That your humble Petitioners beg to lay the foregoing before your
Lordship in the earnest hope that your Lordship will be graciously
pleased to give them the deepest and most careful consideration.

For which your humble Petitioners, as in duty bound, shall ever
pray.

Signatures of: —

PERCY ALDEN, M.P.

MARGARET ALLCHIN.

AMEER ALI, P.C.

ISABELLE AMEER ALI.

SIR WILLIAM R. ANSON,M.P.

C. R. ASHBEE.

ALFRED AUSTIN, Poet Laur-
eate.

J. HANSHAWE BODELEY.

OLIVER BAKER.

GEORGE P. BANKART.

A SHAW BANKS.

H. GRANVILLE BARKER.

SIDNEY H. BARNSLEY. .

ADELINE, DUCHESS OF BED-
FORD.

MGR. ROBERT HUGH BEN-
SON.

NORA BIGHAM.

WALTER B. BLAIKIE.

SIR J. P. BRABAZON.

FRANK BRANGWYN, A.R.A.

SIR J. FREDERICK BRIDGE.

ROBERT BRIDGES.

ALBERT BRUCE-JOY, R.H.A.

SIR MAURICE DE BUNSEN.

SIR PHILIP BURNE-JONES.

LADY ARTHUR BUTLER.

GILBERT CANNAN.

R. CATTERSON-SMITH.

K. H. D. CECIL.

GEORGE CLAUSEN, R.A.
REV. DR. W. F. COBB.
SYDNEY C. COCKERELL.
W. WARD COOK.
DR. ANANDA K. COOMARAS-

WAMY.
W. J. COURTHOPE, M.P.

W. L. COURTNEY.
VIOLET EYRE CRABBE.
LIONEL F. CRANE.
WALTER CRANE, R.W.S.
W. HARRISON COWLISHAW.
LORD DALRYMPLE, M.P.
REV. DR. PERCY DEARMER.
DAVID ERSKINE.
SIR ARTHUR J. EVANS.
H. BUXTON FORM AN.
E. REGINALD FRAMPTON.
EDWARD GARNETT.
CHARLES M. GERE.
EDWARD GERMAN.
ERNEST W. GIMSON.
LORD GLENCONNER.
LADY GLENCONNER.
SIR LAURENCE GOMME.
CLAYRE ANSTRUTHER GRAY.
J. T. GREIN.
RICHARD C. GROSVKNOR.
WALTER GUINNESS, M.P.
E. MARSHALL-HALL, K.C.,
M.P.

THOMAS HARDY, O.M.
AUSTIN HARRISON.
E. B. HAVELL.
MAURICE HEWLETT.
ROBERT HICHENS.
KATHERINE TYNAN HINK-

SON.

SIR THOMAS HOLDICH.
CLIVE HOLLAND.
CANON H. S. HOLLAND.
J. R. HOLLIDAY.
ARTHUR HOPKINS, R.W.S.
ROY HORNIMAN.
LAURENCE HOUSMAN.
WILLIAM H. HUDSON.
A. HUGHES.
ARTHUR D. INNES.
GEORGE JACK.
FRED. HUTH JACKSON.
JEROME K. JEROME.
WALTER J ERR OLD.
E. BOROUGH JOHNSON.
SIR H. H. JOHNSTON.
HENRY ARTHUR JONES. '
J. KING, M.P.
L. WHITE KING.
GERTRUDE KINGSTON.
DR. W. EGMONT KIRBY.
CLAUD LAMBTON.
E. BLAIR LEIGHTON, R.I.
SIR BRADFORD LESLIE.

254

APPENDIX

SIR ARTHUR LASENBY LI-
BERTY.

SIR OLIVER LODGE.

LORD LONSDALE.

J. H. LORIMER, R.S.A

H. C. MARILLIER.

MARY A. M. MARKS.

CHARLES MARRIOTT.

MAJOR-GENERAL FRANK H.
B. MARSH.

SIR WILLIAM MATHER.

ALYMER MAUDE.

SIR HERBERT MAXWELL.

E. D. MOREL.

ARTHUR MORRISON.

HUGH MORRISON.

A. H. HALLAM MURRAY.

LORD NAPIER OF MAGDALA-

HENRY W. NEVINSON.

DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.

MARY ETHEL NOBLE.

REV. CONRAD NOEL.

EDWIN A. NORBERY.

ALFRED NOYES.

J. W. ORDE.

MAJOR VICTOR PAGET.

LADY PAGET, WIDOW OF
RT. HON. SIR AUGUSTUS
BERKELEY PAGET.

VISCOUNTESS PARKER.

BERNARD PARTRIDGE.

JAMES PATERSON, R.S.A.

J. BEAUMONT PEASE.

JOHN PEDDER, R.I.
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL A.

PHELPS.

LISLE MARCH PHILLIPPS.
EDEN PHILLPOTTS.
MARMADUKE PICKTHALL.
LADY PLYMOUTH.
JOHN POLLOCK.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
GILBERT A. RAMSAY.
G. WOOLISCROFT RHEAD,

R.E.

ERNEST RHYS.
SIR JOHN RHYS.
B. LEWIS RICE.

F. STUART RICHARDSON.
SIR W. B. RICHMOND, R.A.
PROFESSOR WALTER RIPP-

MANN.

J. W. ROBERTSON-SCOTT.
E. R. ROBSON.

DR. W. H. D. ROUSE.
LOUISE JOPLING ROWE.
FRANK O. SALISBURY.
ETELKA SARTES.
R. A. SCOTT-JAMES.
ANNE DOUGLAS SEDGWICK

(MRS. BASIL DE SELIN-

COURT).
CECIL J. SHARP.

G. BERNARD SHAW.
BYAM SHAW.

CHARLOTTE F. SHAW.
M. SHEFIK.
CLEMENT SHORTER.
CHARLES SIMS, A.R.A.
MAJOR N. P. SINHA.
FRANCIS HENRY SKRINE.
JOSEPH E. SOUTHALL.
LORD SPENCER.
DR. W. A. SPOONER.
H. DE VERB STACPOOLE.
BASIL STEWART.
MARCUS STONE, R.A.
G. A. STOREY, A.R.A.
ALICE STRACEY-CLITHEROW.
C. E. STRACEY-CLITHEROW.
ALFRED SUTRO.
JANE S. TEMPLER.
ALFRED H. R. THORNTON.
DR. MARGARET TODD.
SIR ALLISTON TOKER.
SIR ADOLPH TUCK.
PROFESSOR H. H. TURNER.
WALTER S. S. TYRWHITT.
T. FISHER UNWIN.
ALLEN UPWARD.
EMERY WALKER.
FABIAN WARE.
LADY WARWICK.
WILLIAM WEIR.
A. RANDALL WELLS.
JOHN G. WOODROFFE.
PAUL WOODROFFE.

INDEX

Abul Fazl, n, 161
Ad'histh&na, 25

Adinah Mosque, 53, 87-8, 124
Agra, Fort, 40, 174

„ Itmad-ud-dau'lah's tomb, 206-7
„ Jahangiri Mahall, 174-5
„ Mod Masjid, 2, 87, 119, 209
„ Samman Burj, 206
„ Sikandara Bagh, 216
Ahmad Shah, 68, 129
Ahmadabad, 68, 129, 137, 142, 180

„ Jami' Masjid, 13, 68-72, 133

,, Rani Rupavati's mosque and

tomb, 137-8
„ „ Sipari's mosque and

tomb, 141-2

,, Sidi Sayyid's mosque, 139-40

Ahmadnagar, 181
Ajanta, frescoes at, 27, 121
„ dagabas, 24-5, 61
„ temples, 93

Ajmir, arches at, 47-8, 69, 70, 83
„ mosque, 42, 85
,, pavilions, 209
Akbar, 45, 145, 147, 148, 160-76, 177,

199, 205
,, control of expenditure by, 162,

i62#., 205

„ fort of, 40, 174, 201
,, office of, 169
„ palace of, 161, 163

Akbar, throne of, 169-70

„ tomb of, 27, 176
Akhi Seraj-ud-Din, mosque of, 125
Alau-d-Din, 46
Alberuni, TI, 12, 21, 177
Alhambra, the, 20-1, 49-50
'Ali Adil Shah of Bijapur, 184, 185, 186
Ali Masjid stupa, 83
Alif Khan, mosque of, 107, no-n, 125
Altamsh, 42, 46, 85
Alwar railway-station, 239
Amaravati, 15
Amber, palace at, 204
Arches, at Bijapur, 89, 185, 187

„ foliated, 79-90, 121, 183, 197,.

218-9
„ horse-shoe or lotus-leaf, 54, 81, 83,.

92, 122-3

,, ornamentation of, 85
„ pipal-leaf, 81, 85, 89, 139, 158, 187
„ pointed, 4, 5, 44, 45, 57, 58, 69-70,.

79, 85> '3°, 174, 183, 196
radiating, 55-6, 57, 65-6
,, round, 84, 85
Architecture, Anglo-Indian, 121, 175, 193,.

215, 221-5, 228> 23J
„ Arab, 9-10, 19, 116, 183

,, Buddhist, 10, 55

,, Burmese, 55-6

„ Bengali, 52-7, 115-28, 177^

205-6, 219

255

256 INDEX

Architecture, Byzantine, 4, 8, 10, 77, 78, Bambu construction, 92-3, 121-2, 125

149, 153, 179, 238 Banyan tree, 82

„ Christian, 134, 212 Benares, bathing-palaces, 229-32

„ classic school of, 138, 144, >, temples at, 235

16-), 209, 216 Bengali architecture, 52-7, 92

„ classification of Indian, 40, Bijapur, 177-8

116-17, 127, 155 ,, 'Alt Shahi Pir-ki Masjid, 89

„ dilettantism in, 153, 215, „ construction of domes at, 104-15

224-5 „ dynasty of, 89, 177-8

„ Dravidian or South Indian, ,, Ibrahim's mosque and tomb, 90,

25-6, 179-86, 226-7 187-90

Gothic, 153 „ Jami' Masjid, 107, in, 183-4,

„ Hindu, 1 1, 40, 48, 72-4, 179- 185, 186-7

86, 202-4, 210-13 ,, Mahmud's tomb, 107, 112-15, 191

,, Italian, 30 ,, Mehtar Mahall, 190-1

,, Jain> J97 Bikanir, house at, 220

,, modern Indian, 216-41 Bir Singh Deva, palaces of, 202-4

,, Mogul, 149-53, 160-76, 204- Birdwood, Sir George, 223

,, 8, 214-15 Bodh-Gaya, temple of, 54

,, rissan, 240-1 Bodhi tree, 80, 81

„ painter's, 209 Bon, Dr. Gustave le, 9

,, Pathan, 12, 39-40, 156, 157 Boud-khana, 6

,, Persian, 19-20, 99, 107-8, Borobudur, 23, 27

140-1, 150, 168-9, I74~5. Brackets, 15, 66, 84, 89-90, 114, 140, 189

178 Brahmans, Muhammadan rulers and, 162,

„ Rajput, 145, 163, 177, 194-8, 181,195

202-4, 219-20, 236-9 Brahma Samaj, 196

,, Renaissance, 133,151, 218,229 Brindaban, temple of Govind Deva, 194-8

„ Saracenic schools, 5 „ modern temples, 232-3

,, style in, 36, 67, 116-17, I28, Buland Darvvaza, 20, 168-9

J45> I5I> I7I5 I^9t I9&> "Bulbous" or lotus-leaf domes, see

203, 230-2, 238 Domes

Asoka, missionaries of, 6 Burgess, Dr., 133^., 136, 142

Aura, 81-5 Burmese architecture, 55-6
Aurangzib, 37-8, 150, 153, 178, 194-5,

199, 214-15 Calligraphists, 32, 47, 50, 57, 88, 121, 125,

132, 150, 209

Babar, 148-53, 200 Cambay, mosque at, 50-1

Baghdad, 12, 136, 150, 154, 165 Capitals, Hindu, 97

INDEX

257

Chakra, or wheel, 82, 84, 87, 94, 96
Champanir Jami' Masjid, 71, 91, 102, 103,

129-36, 144, 154, 167
„ Nagina Masjid, 137
Chandi Sewa, 22-3, 31
Chandragiri, palace of, 213
Chhatris, 6 in.

Chisholm, Mr. R. F., 22, 213
Chitor, 204

„ Tower of Victory, 70, 133, 145-6
Craftsmen, migrations of, 9, 126, 214, 219
Chota Sona Masjid, Gaur, 86-7, 125
Cousens, Mr., 144

wages of, 31-3, 225, 240
Curzon, Lord, 170, 174, 209, 224, 226

Dabhoi, buildin'gs at, 2, 90, 180
Dagabas, 24, 25, 61
Dakhil Gate, Gaur, 78
Darya Khan, tomb of, 107-10, 114
Datiya, palace of, 38, 201-3, 232
D'Avennes, M. Prisse, 7
Davids, Professor Rhys, Son.
Delhi, Diwan-i-Khas, 86
,, Golden Pavilion, 128
„ Jami' Masjid, 2, 130, 209-10
,, Qutb Minar, 46-7
„ Qutb Mosque, 45, 46, 47, 91
,, the new, 247, 248-9, appendix
Dhar, 64

Dholka, Alif Khan's Masjid, 75, no-ii
„ Hilal Khan Qazi's Masjid, 52
„ Jami' Masjid, 75
,, Taka or Tanka Masjid, 52
Dig, palace of, 38, 217-9, 232
Domes, Arab, 16, 23, 32

,, Bijapur, 104, 111-15, r9r> 209
,, bell-shaped, 93, 97-8
„ Buddhist, 15

Domes, bulbous or lotus-leaf, 16, 23, 24,

93, 94-7, 156, 183, 187, 188
,, By/antine, 76-7, 179
,, construction of, yo-i 15, 134-5, 158
,, Decoration of, 96-7, 103-4
,, European, 1 13

Hindu, 15, 25-6, 42, 90, 91, .101-3,

105, 109-10, 134, 155, 183, 188

,, Indo-Muhammadan, 58, 62, 104-

i5> '4°

„ nava-ratna grouping of, 138-9, 156
,, panch-mtna grouping of, 22 3, 128,

138, 156, 158, 170, 202
„ Pathan, 42, 101-2, 188, 197
„ Persian, 16, 32, 96, 105, 158
„ ribbed, 93-9, 103, 134

Fatehpur-Sikri, 161-74

,, ,, A k bar's office, 169

,, ,, Buland Darwaza, 130

,, ,, Di\van-i-Khas, 164, 169-70,

176;*.
,, ,, Jami' Masjid, 130, 163-9,

196-7

,, ,, Jodh Bai's palace, 172-3

,, ,, Panch Mahall, 164, 172-3,

176

,, ,, Rajah Birbal's house, 171-2

Finials, Indian, 95, 100, 103, 154, 156-7,

158, 166
Persian, 99, 158
Firuz Shah, 47
Flinders Petrie, Professor, 6
Franz Pasha, 19
Fresco, Indian, 192

Gandharan art, i, n, 80

Gandhi, 98, 194

Ganguly, Mr. O. C., 226;*., 234/7.

258

INDEX

Junagarh, mosque at, 135

Garbha griha, 194, 197

Gardens, Mogul, 34, 62, 151-2, 190, 207

Gaur, 40, 52, 87, 123-4, 180

„ buildings at, 52-7, 120-8, 205
Gesso, 192

Ghazni, n, 12, 42, 47
Ghusla Ghat, palace at, 229-32
Gpa, 212

Govardhan, palace at, 198
Govind Deva's temple, Brindaban, 194-8
Griva, 25
Growse, Mr. F. S., 232-5

Hilal Khan Kazi, mosque of, 52
Hiranya-garbhci) 14

Humayun, tomb of, 23, 29-30, 154, 157-8,

160, 164, 166
Husain Shah, 118, 122, 124

Ibrahim I. of Bijapur 181

„ II. of Bijapur, 187

,, ,, tomb of, 187-90

,, Shah of Jaunpur, 66
Idealism, Hindu, 26-7, 208

„ Muhammadan, 2-4
Iron in buildings 45, 121-2
Itmad-ud-daulah, tomb of, 18, 27, 28

Madura, Tirumalai Nayyak's chaultri at,

Jahangir, 146, 167, 176, 199, 200, 204, 212-13

205,207 .» palace of, 210-12

„ tomb of, 207
Jahangiri Mahall, 174-5
Jai Singh, Raja, 198
Jaipur, city of, 217
Jaunpur, 64, 66-8, 135, 178

„ Atala Masjid, 66-8

„ Jami' Masjid, 66-8

Kailasa temple, 26

Kalasha, or kumbhu, 14, 26, 32, 95, 99,

154, 188
Kaha, 32, 99
Kalugumalai, 93

Kandarya Mahadeva temple, 197
Khajuraho, temples at, 2, 197
Kirtti-mukhi, 89
Kulbarga, 177, 179

,, mosque at, 58-61
Kumbha Rana, 68, 72, 145-6

Langenegger, Dr., 96;;., 100

Lashkar, 236-9

Lethaby, Professor, 37, 140-1, 150, 159,

167, 200

Lighting of mosques, 58
Lingam, 196
LlwAn, 41

Lotus, symbolism of the, 14-15, 94, 96> 97
Lotus-leaf arches. See Arches
Lucknow, buildings at, 215
Lupa-mula, 25

Maha-padma, 26, 94-5, 99, 103, 154, 188
Mahmud of Bijapur, 191

„ of Ghazni, n, 12, 21, 35, 40, 41,

177
Shah Begarah of Gujerat, 129,

Jodhpur, fort and palace, 204
„ modern mansion, 228

Makara, 82, 84
Mala-baddha, 26
Mahva, 60-6, 170

INDEX

259

, architecture of, 64-6
Mamallapuram, 26, 93
Man Singh of Amber, palace of, 194, 198

,, „ of Gwalior, palace of, 146-7, 148
Mandapas, 41, 74, 133
Mandu, 64-6, 179

„ Jami' Masjid, 78, 107
„ Mulik Mughi's mosque, 105-6
Manrique, Father, 17, 36
Marshall, Mr. J. H., 152;;., 156, 226
Martand, temple at, 84
Master-builders, 188, 220-1, 226-41
Mathura, 41, 80 -
Mihrdb, 5, 53, 71, 87, 135, 168
Mimbar, 41

Mogul architecture. See Architecture
Mosaic, 32-3, 206-7
M.oti Masjid, Agra, 2, 26, 119, 209

„ „ Delhi, 205
Mubarak Sayyid, tomb of, 76-8
Mudhera, temple at, 2, 52, 87, 180
Muhafiz, Khan, mosque of, 142
Mumlaz Mahall, 28, 37, 61, 208
Munshi, Mr. R. N., 47^.
Munshi Ghat, Palace at, 229-32
Muzaffar Shah of Gujerat, 5 1

Nagina Masjid, Champanir, 137
'" Nalanda, 83
Nasrat Shah, 122
Nivedita, Sister, 80
Nur Jahan, 200, 201, 206

Observatories, Hindu, 198, 198^.
Orientation of temples and mosques, 131
Origins of Indian art, 2

Palitana, 197
Panipat, battle of, 148

Pathan architecture, 12, 39-40, 101

Pattica, 26

Pendentives, 105-15, 140, 186

„ Persian, 168, 188

,, stalactite, 7, 20
Pietra dura, 32-3
Pillars, temple, 15, 97
Pinnacle of domes. See Finials
Pipal tree and leaf, 81-2, 83, 85, 89, 139
Poole, Mr. Stanley Lane, 19
Prambanam, 22, 31

Qadam-i-Rasul mosque, 56, 122

Quarries, Indian stone, 175, 246

Qutb Minar, 46-7

Qutbu-d-Din, mosque of, 45, 46, 47, 96, 106

Rabia Daurani, tomb of, 37, 215
Rakshasa, 89

Ram Raz, 25, 163, 163^., 217, 217/7.
Rani Rupavati, mosque of, 70
Ranpur, temple at, 68, 69, 72-3, 131, 145
Roof construction, 57, 58, 62, 92, 125, 139-
40, 170-1, 189

Safdar Jung, tomb of, 215

Saladin, M., 148, 155^.

Samarkand, 2, 35, 36, 96

Samman Burj, 206

Sarkhej, mosque and tomb at, 75

Sas Bahu or Padmanabha temple, 68, 195,

196

Satya Pir, cult of, 1 18
Scallop, 96

Sen, Mr. Dinesh Chandra, 118
Shah Jahan, 31, 34, 35, 36, 134, 146, 161,

199, 200, 204, 205, 207-8

,, „ buildings of, 200

Sher Shah, 161

260

INDEX

Sher Shah, mosque of, 153-4, 164

„ „ tomb of, 154-7
Sikandara, Akbar's tomb at, 27, 176

Bagh, Agra, 216
Sikh religion, 196
Sikhara, 25, 98-9

Silpa-sastras, 15, 25, 94, 127, 136, 176;?.
Sinan, architect, 149
Smith, Mr. Edmund, 174

„ Mr. Vincent, 155, 155;*., 156, 176;;.,
235^?.

Sona Masjid, Gaur, 124-5
Spiers, Mr. Phene, 23
Stucco, Indian, 75, no, 124, 192-3
Sun emblems, 15. 87, 92

,, worship, 92-3
Sftrya, 88
Symbolism, Hindu, 14-15, 92, 94, 100-1,

103, 115, 196, 210
,, Saracenic, 3-4, 5, 7-8, 15

Taj Mahall, the i, 2, 13, 17-37, 47, 104,
119, 128, 160, 190, 199,
205, 207-8

» .. .1 c°py of, 37

,, ,, ,, craftsmen of, 31-6
,, „ ,, dome of, 22-6, 208
., „ ,, marble trellis of, 208
,, „ ,, minarets of, 139
,, ,, „ mosaic of, 32-3, 207
,, ,, ,, technique of, 29
Taka or Tanka Masjid, 52
Talikota, battle of, 182, 186, 213

Terra-cotta, 192
Timur, 2, 12, 35, 36

,, tomb of, 96
Tirthankaras, 81
Tirumalai Nayyak, chaultri, 212-3

,, ,, palace of, 210-12

Tod, Colonel, 33
Tower of Victory, 70, 133, 145-6
Town-planning, 163-4, i63//., 217
Trellises, 132, 137, 140
Trimurti, 14

Udaipur, palaces of, 204, 219
Urcha, palace of, 38, 203
Usman, Sayyid, tomb of, 75-6
Ustid Isa, 33

Veroneo, Geronimo, 2, 17, 36-7

Vihdra, 176

Vijayanagar, 58, 89, 180-6

,, description of, 181-2

„ " Elephant Stables " at, 185

,, Moorish quarter at, 182, 183

,, Ram Raja's treasury at, 184-5

,, Vitthalaswami temple at, 182-4

Vimanas, 26, 134, 188

Vishnu, 87, 96, 100, 164

,, pillar or tree of, 164, 169, 197

Vishnupur, temple, 56, 122

Wages of craftsmen, 31-3, 225, 240
Wazir Khan's mosque, 207;;.
Wells, Indian, 143-4, 162

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1503. Indian architecture

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