The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c23.s4.167

v4.c23.s4.167

This phase of sandstone building in Sind endured only, however, for a time, for in the reign of Shāh Jahān the builders returned again to their customary creations in brick and tile. In 1644 this emperor caused to be begun at Tatta a Jāmi' Masjid, one of the largest buildings in Sind and decorated with the finest type of coloured glaze. It occupies a rectangle of 305 feet by 170 feet, the plan being remarkable for the great depth of its aisles and for two small square courtyards that are placed on each side of the entrance hall. Consisting of large flat surfaces unrelieved by any serious attempt at contrasting planes or mouldings, it relies for effect on an unlimited display of broken colour, every portion of the interior being covered with tiles. From floor to ceiling and right up into the main dome geometrical patterns are crowded together, with panels of inscriptions along the cornice and arabesques in the spandrels. The principal colours are two varieties of blue, light and dark, and white, while the minute character of the workmanship may be judged by the smallness of the tiles, many of them being only half an inch wide, over a hundred being used in a square foot of pattern so that it resembles a mosaic. But with all this expenditure of skilled labour in the production of the colour scheme the general appearance of the building arouses little enthusiasm, and although the prodigality of the decoration has its attractions there is such a surfeit of it that it becomes cloying. Other buildings, chiefly tombs of this type, are found in various parts of Sind, at Haidarābād, Khudābād and Sukkur, but most of these were erected after the period of the Mughul ascendancy.