History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v2.c24.23

v2.c24.23

The earliest hint we get of a twelve-pillared dome, such as those universally used by the Jains, is in a sepulchre at Mylassa in Caria,² probably belonging to the 4th century. A second hint is found in the great cave at Bâgh (Woodcut No. 113) in the 6th or 7th century, and there is little doubt that others will be found when looked for—but where? In the valley of the Ganges, and wherever the Muhammadans settled in force, it would be in vain to look for them. These zealots found the slender and elegant pillars, and the richly carved horizontal domes of the Jains, so appropriate and so easily re-arranged for their purposes, that they utilised all they cared not to destroy. The great mosques of Ajmîr, Delhi, Kanauj, Dhâr, and Ahmadâbâd, are merely reconstructed temples of the Hindûs and Jains. There is, however, nothing in any of them that seems to belong to a very remote period—nothing in fact that can be carried back to times long, if at all, anterior to the year 1000. So we must look further for the cause of their loss.