The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c23.s4.82

v4.c23.s4.82

Bābur was a shrewd, but perhaps prejudiced, critic of the art of building in Hindūstān, as his *Memoirs* repeatedly indicate. Although he praises the remarkable dexterity of the Indian workman, especially the stonemasons, he complains of the slipshod manner in which they designed their structures, without “regularity or symmetry”, faults which would readily offend the inherent taste of the Mughuls for strict formality and balance. In spite of this he embarked on several building projects of a fairly ambitious order, for he states that “680 men worked daily on my buildings in Āgra, . . . while 1491 stone-cutters worked daily on my buildings in Āgra, Sīkrī, Biāna, Dholpur, Gwālior and Kiūl”. Most of these craftsmen, however, appear to have been engaged on the construction of pleasaunces, pavilions, baths, wells, tanks and fountains, for as an out-of-doors man, such extemporary amenities appealed to him more than palaces or public buildings, and, having no religious or sentimental character, they were allowed to fall into decay and have entirely disappeared. Three mosques attributed to Bābur have survived. One of these in the Kābulī Bāgh at Pānīpat, and another, the *Jāmi‘ Masjid* at Sambhal, were both built in 1526. Although fairly large structures, neither of them possesses any special architectural significance, while of another mosque which he built about the same time within the old Lodī fort at Āgra, he himself complains that it “is not well done, it is in the Hindūstānī fashion”.¹ Some of Bābur’s dissatisfaction at the state of the building art may be traced to his having acquired in the course of his varied career a certain knowledge of the manner in which such things were done in Europe, as on one occasion he fortified his camp “in the Rūmī way”, meaning no doubt in the western, or Byzantine, fashion. According therefore to one authority, in view of his frequently expressed dislike of the indigenous methods of building, he is said to have sent to Constantinople, for the pupils of the celebrated Albanian architect, Sinān, to advise him on his building schemes.² It is, however, very unlikely that this proposal ever came to anything, because had any member of this famous school taken service under the Mughuls, traces of the influence of the Byzantine style would be observable. But there is none; in no building of the dynasty is there any sign of the low segmental dome flanked by the slender pointed minaret which characterised the compositions of Sinān and his followers.