The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c30.43

v3.c30.43

Another mausoleum of exceptional interest both on historic and on architectural grounds is that of Khān-i-Jahān Tilangānī, the Prime Minister of Fīrūz Shāh, who died in 1368–69. It is situate a little south of the Dargah of Nizām-ud-dīn, alongside the *Kālī* (or *Sanjar*) *Masjid*, which Khān-i-Jahān Jauna Shāh built two years after his father’s death. The enclosure in which it stands is of the usual fortress-like character. But the tomb itself marks an entirely new departure. Instead of being square, like all its predecessors at Delhi, the tomb chamber is octagonal, surmounted by a single dome and encompassed by a low arched verandah. Thus its form generally resembles that of the Dome of the Rock (*Qubbat-us-Sakhra*) at Jerusalem, from which it may, indeed, have been ultimately derived. But the very dissimilar materials of which it is built—grey granite and red sandstone, white marble and plaster—and the essentially Indian character of its component parts produce an effect widely different from that of its tile-enamelled prototype. Being the first attempt of its kind, it need hardly be said that its architecture is far from being faultless. The domes, for example, both central and subsidiary, are too squat, the verandah arches too low, and in other respects the elevation lacks symmetry and finish. These defects, however, are not without interest, since they show us more clearly than anything else could have done the difficulties which the architect had to face in essaying this novel type of funeral monument. In the century following, the Tilangānī tomb became the standard pattern for the royal tombs of the Sayyid and Afghān dynasties, and one by one we shall trace the steps by which the initial defects were removed and the design gradually improved upon and elaborated until it reached its final consummation in the magnificent mausoleum of Sher Shāh. The mosques of Fīrūz Shāh’s reign are for the most part remarkably uniform in style. Constructed of rubble and plaster, with pillars, eaves and brackets of local grey granite, they are characterised by boldly projecting gateways, multi-domed roofs, tapering turrets engaged at the quoins and Hindu eaves and brackets. But while these are factors common to almost all buildings of this class, here and there may be found an example distinguished by features of an exceptional kind. Thus the Kālī Masjid which Jauna Shāh built in connexion with his father’s tomb is planned on quite unusual lines. Instead of the area in front of the prayer chamber being an open court, it is divided into four by arcades crossing it at right angles, one arcade linking the eastern entrance with the middle bay of the prayer chamber, the other linking the northern and southern entrances. A still finer and better preserved masjid designed on the same cruciform plan and also attributed to Jauna Shāh is in the village of Khirkī in Jahānpanāh. But though this treatment of the courtyard had the advantage of affording shelter to the worshippers and incidentally of relieving the nakedness of the interior, it failed to supplant the more orthodox plan, and was not repeated at the other mosques of this period such as the Begampurī mosque in Jahānpanāh or the Kalān Masjid in Shahjahānābād, which Jauna Shāh himself afterwards erected. Again, in the Kalān and Khirkī examples there is a lower *tahkhāna* storey resembling that in the *Jāmi‘ Masjid* at Fīrūzābād; and at the Begampurī mosque, which was the principal place of worship in Jahānpanāh, there is a heavy arched screen in front of the central *līwān* of the prayer chamber, which in point of organic unity is as inappropriate as the screen in front of the Quwwat-ul-Islām mosque. Finally, in the mosque of Shāh ‘Ālam at Tīmūrpūr, there occurs the earliest example at Delhi of a ladies’ gallery in the rear corner of the prayer chamber, which henceforth was to become the orthodox position for these galleries.