CONTENTS.

Mosques of Jumma Musjid and Lall Durwaza.

CHRONOLOGY.

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

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

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

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

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

Mosque, which was commenced by Shah Ibrahim, A.D. 1419, but not completed till the reign of Husain, A.D. 1451-1478. It consists of a courtyard 220 ft. by 214 ft., on the western side of which is situated a range of buildings, the central one covered by a dome 40 ft. in diameter,

in front of which stands a gate pyramid or propylon,[511] of almost Egyptian mass and outline, rising to the height of 86 ft. This gate pyramid by its elevation supplied the place of a minaret, which is a feature as little known at Jaunpore, as it was, at the same age, in the capital city of Delhi. On each side of the dome is a compartment divided into two storeys by a stone floor supported on pillars; and beyond this, on each side, is an apartment 40 ft. by 50 ft., covered by a bold pointed vault with ribs, so constructed that its upper surface forms the external roof of the building, which in Gothic vaults is scarcely ever the case. The three sides of the courtyard were surrounded by double colonnades, two storeys in height internally, but with three on the exterior, the floor of the courtyard being raised to the height of the lower storey. On each face was a handsome gateway; one of which is represented in Woodcut No. 291, which gives a fair idea of the style: the greater part of the eastern side of the court has been taken down and removed by the English to repair station-roads and bridges, for which in their estimation these pillars are admirably adapted.

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

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

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

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

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

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