A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c18.60

c18.60

Bābar, the versatile founder of the Mughal dynasty, was an active builder during his brief and stormy Indian reign of five years (1526–31). Holding a poor opinon of all Indian products, he summoned from Constantinople pupils of the celebrated architect Sinan, an Albanian officer on the staff of the Janissaries, who had planned hundreds of important buildings in the Ottoman empire.³ Out of the numerous edifices erected by those foreigners to Bābar's order at Agra, Delhi, Kābul, and other places, only two are now visible, namely, the large mosque in the Kābul Bāgh, Pānīpat, built after the great victory of 1526, and the Jāmi Masjid at Sambhal in Rohilkhand, bearing the same date (A. H. 933). The Pānīpat building has not been described, but is said to be in fair condition. The Sambhal mosque has a remarkable ovoid dome.⁴ Although the Indian buildings are much more Persian than Ottoman in style, there is some reason for thinking that the grandeur of the proportions of the existing monuments in Northern India and Bījāpur may be partly due to the teaching of the school of Sinan.