History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v2.c26.s5.4

v2.c26.s5.4

Although so long after the time when, under 'Alâu-d-Dîn and Tughlaq Shâh, 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 Jaunpur were erected. The principal parts of the mosque, 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 Hindû and Jaina temples. Instead of being fused together, as they afterwards became, the arcuate style of the Moslims stands here, though in juxtaposition, in such marked contrast to the trabeate style of the Hindûs, 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 Muhammadans and converted to their purposes.¹ The truth of the matter appears to be, that the greater part of the Muhammadans in the province at the time the mosques were built were Hindûs 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.