History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v2.c32: Chapter XI. Kashmîr.
History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v2.c32
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Chapter XI. Kashmîr.
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CONTENTS. Mosque of Shâh Hamadân, Srînagar.
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TURNING for the nonce from this quasi-wooden style—which is only an indication of decadence and decrepitude—it would be pleasing if we could finish our narrative with the description of a true wooden style as it exists in Kashmîr. The Jâmi' Masjid, in the city of Srînagar, is a large and important building, and if not so magnificent as some of those described in the preceding pages, is of great interest from being designed to be constructed in wood, and wood only. A knowledge of its peculiarities would, consequently, help us much in understanding many problems that arise in investigating the history of architecture in India. Unfortunately it is not a fashionable building, and of the 1001 tourists who visit the valley no one mentions it, and no photographer has yet set up his camera within its precincts.¹
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¹ If Lieut. Cole, instead of repeating plans and details of buildings which had already been published by Gen. Cunningham, had given us a plan and details of this unknown building, he might have rendered a service all would have been grateful for. What I know of it is principally derived from verbal communication with Col. Montgomerie, R.E.
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Its plan is the usual one: a courtyard surrounded by cloisters of three arcades wide on the east side and four on the other three, its peculiarity being that all the pillars that support its roofs are of Deodar pine—not used, of course, to imitate stone or stone construction, but honest wooden forms, as in Burmese monasteries and elsewhere. The carving on them is, I believe, rich and beautiful, and though dilapidated, the effect is said to be still singularly pleasing.
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There is one other mosque in the same city, known as that of Shâh Hamadân (Woodcut No. 443), which is equally erected wholly in wood, and though very much smaller than the Jâmi'
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443. Mosque of Shâh Hamadân, Srînagar. (From a Photograph.)
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Masjid, is interesting, in the first place, because its roof is probably very similar to that which once covered the temple at Mârtând (Woodcut No. 146), and the crowning ornament is evidently a reminiscence of a Buddhist Htî, very much altered, it must be confessed, but still not so very unlike some found in Nepâl, at Swayambhûnâth (Woodcut No. 155), for instance, and elsewhere.
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The walls, too, are of interest to us, because the mode in which the logs are disposed and ornamented resembles the ornamentation of the Orissan temples more clearly than any stone forms we can call to mind. The courses of the stone work in the tower of the great temple at Bhuvaneswar (Woodcut No. 315), and other temples there, produce so nearly the same effect, that it does not seem improbable they may have been derived from some such original. The mode, too, in which the Orissan temples are carved, and the extent to which that class of ornamentation is carried, is much more suggestive of a wooden than of a lithic origin.
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These, however, are questions that can only be profitably discussed when we have more knowledge of this Kashmîri style than we now possess. When the requisite materials are available for the purpose, there are few chapters that will be of greater interest, or that will more worthily conclude the Architectural History of India than those that treat of the true and false styles of wooden art, with which the narrative begins, and with which it also ends.
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OF EASTERN ARCHITECTURE IN FURTHER INDIA, CHINA AND JAPAN.
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REVISED AND EXTENDED
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BY R. PHENÉ SPIERS, F.S.A., F.R.I.B.A., ETC.
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DECORATION OF THE PIERS INSIDE THE NAN-PAYÂ TEMPLE, MYINPAGAN.