History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v2.c30.s1: Sindh.
History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v2.c30.s1
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Sindh.
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Among the minor styles of Muhammadan art in India there is one that would be singularly interesting in a historical sense if a sufficient number of examples existed to elucidate it, and they were of sufficient antiquity to connect the style with those of the West. From its situation, almost outside India, the province of Sindh must always have had a certain affinity with Persia and the countries lying to the westward of the Indus, and if we knew its architectural history we might probably be able to trace to their source many of the forms we cannot now explain, and join the styles of the East with those of the West in a manner we cannot at present pretend to accomplish.
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The buildings in this province were nearly always in brick, stone being scarce; and though they are not exposed to the destructive agencies of vegetation like those of Bengal, the mortar is bad, and salt in the soil rises and disintegrates the bricks, which are easily picked out and utilised by the natives to build their huts or villages.
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TOMBS BEYOND THE COURTYARD AT GOLKONDA.
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Most of what we at present know belong to a series of tombs in the neighbourhood of Tatta, which were erected under the Mughal dynasty by the governors or great men of the province, during their sway. At least the oldest now known is that of Jâm Nizâmu-d-Dîn built in 1508, almost coeval with which is the Dabgir mosque of 1509, and later is the tomb of Amîr Khalîl Khân, erected in or about A.D. 1572, the year in which Akbar deposed the Jâmi dynasty and annexed Sindh to his empire. The tombs or mosques of the earlier dynasties have not yet been surveyed and described. The later series extends from A.D. 1572-1640, and all show a strongly-marked affinity to the Persian style of the same or an earlier age. One example must for the present suffice to explain their general appearance, for they are all very much alike. It is the tomb of Sharfa Khân,
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420. Tomb of Nawâb Sharfa Khân, near Tatta, A.D. 1640. (From a Photograph.)
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the Nawâb or minister to Amîr Khân, who was governor of the province in the reign of Shâh Jahân, from A.D. 1627 to 1632, and afterwards A.D. 1641 to 1650. The tomb was built apparently in A.D. 1638 (Woodcut No. 420). It is 38 ft. 4 in. square, is of glazed coloured brick, the foundation and plinth are of stone, but it was, like all the others of its class, ornamented with coloured tiles, like those of Persia generally, of great beauty of pattern and exquisite harmony of colouring.¹ It is not a very monumental way of adorning a building, but, as carried out on the dome of the Rock at Jerusalem, in the middle of the 16th or in the mosque at Tabrîz in the beginning of the 13th century,² and generally in Persian buildings, it is capable of producing the most pleasing effects.
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¹ Abundant examples of coloured tiles from the Jâmi' Masjid at Tatta, erected about 1646, and from tombs and mosques in the province have been published in a 'Portfolio of Illustrations of Sind Tiles,' by Mr. H. Cousens (fifty plates, atlas folio), 1906. But, except a section of the Jâmi' Masjid at Tatta, there are no drawings—plans and sections—to explain the positions of the specimens in the various mosques and tombs from which they are copied.
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² 'History of Ancient and Medieval Architecture,' vol. ii. p. 573.
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Like the other tombs in the province, it is so similar to Persian buildings of the same age, and so unlike any other found at the same age in India Proper, that we can have little doubt as to the nationality of those who erected them.