The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c30.44

v3.c30.44

The only other monument of the Tughluq period that need be mentioned is the tomb of the Saint, Kabīr-ud-dīn Auliyā, locally known as the Lāl Gumbad, which there is reason to believe was erected in the reign of Nāsir-ud-dīn Mahmūd Shāh (1389–92). In general form as well as in materials it is clearly a copy, and a very indifferent copy, of the tomb of Tughluq Shāh. Nevertheless it possesses a certain interest if only because it indicates a reviving sympathy for the more animated colouristic style of the Khaljī and early Tughluq periods, which had then been out of fashion for more than half a century. Happily the new movement which this tomb seems, as it were, to inaugurate, was destined to find expression in something more than the slavish imitation of antique models. Out of the universal chaos which followed on the invasion of Tīmūr, there emerged a vigorous and catholic spirit of design—a spirit replete with creative energy and imagination—which under the Sayyid and Lodī dynasties gave encouragement once more to the latent genius of Hindūstān and at the same time derived new inspiration from the never failing source of Islamic art in Persia. To revive again the fresh, spontaneous beauty of thirteenth-century architecture was no longer feasible. Through mutual reaction and other causes Muslim and Hindu ideals alike had undergone too much change in the interval. However much the new generation might strive to emulate the old models, however much it might elaborate their form or improve upon their colour, it could never hope to recapture their poetry. The prosaic formality of Tughluq architecture, and the habit which had grown up of designing buildings largely in accordance with set conventional rules, had left an indelible mark on Indo-Saracenic architecture. Henceforth, in spite of its returning animation, the style could not escape being more or less laboured and self-conscious. It struggled hard to find scope for inventiveness and individuality, and in a large measure it succeeded, but it could never wholly shake off the deadening effect of the Tughluq period.