CONTENTS.

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

Capital—Gaur.

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

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

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

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

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

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

A design, such as that of the Adinah mosque, would be appropriate

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

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

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