The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c30.7

Language: English

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In a country as vast and diversified as India, it is not to be supposed that architecture ever conformed to a universal type. The local styles of buildings which the Muhammadans encountered in different districts were almost as numerous and distinct one from another, as the peoples themselves or the languages they spoke. Some of the styles, as we have seen in the preceding volume of this history, were determined by the ethnic character of the population; others were the outcome of differing religions; others, again, resulted from foreign inspiration; and others were conditioned by geographical surroundings or by the climate or geology of the neighbourhood. Whatever the underlying causes, each style represented a spontaneous development suited to the religious or social needs of the inhabitants and reflecting their specific habits and mentality. Out of these antecedent styles the Muhammadans evolved their own particular forms of architecture, adapting each to their requirements and modifying or transforming it according to its character or to the facilities which they possessed for giving expression to their own ideals. Thus, at Delhi, they built their first mosques out of the spoils of Hindu and Jaina temples, constructing them on Indian principles and enriching them with the handiwork of indigenous sculptors. At Delhi, however, the Muslims were in preponderating strength and better able, therefore, to maintain their own traditions.

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Hence at Delhi they quickly began to assert their own individuality and allowed Hindu craftsmanship only a very limited play. At Jaunpur, on the other hand, and in the Deccan, the local styles enjoyed greater ascendancy, while in Bengal the conquerors not only adopted the established fashion of building in brick, but adorned their structures with chiselled and moulded enrichments frankly imitated from Hindu prototypes. So, too, in Western India they appropriated to themselves almost *en bloc* the beautiful Gujarātī style, which had yielded some of the finest buildings of mediaeval India; and in Kashmīr they did the same with the striking wooden architecture which must long have been prevalent in that part of the Himālayas. But much as Muhammadan architecture owed to these older schools, it owed much also to the Muhammadans themselves; for it was they who, in every case, endowed it with breadth and spaciousness and enriched it with new beauties of form and colour. Before their advent, concrete had been little used in India, and mortar scarcely ever; by the Muhammadans these materials were employed as freely as by the Romans and became two of the most important factors of construction. Thanks to the strength of their binding properties it was possible for the Muslim builders to span wide spaces with their arches, to roof immense areas with their domes and in other ways to achieve effects of grandeur such as the Indians had never dreamt of.

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Of the arch the Indian had not been wholly ignorant; but without a cementing agent for the masonry, his knowledge had been of little avail. With the Muhammadans, on the contrary, the arch and dome had been from time immemorial the key-notes of their construction, and, though in their newly-adopted styles they frequently perpetuated the trabeate system, it was the arch and dome that they always regarded as peculiarly their own and as symbolic of their Faith. Other characteristic features which they introduced were the minar and minaret, the pendentive and squinch arch, stalactite, honey-combing and half-domed double portal. Elaborate decoration and brightly coloured ornament were at all times dear to the heart of the Muslim, and in both these spheres he introduced striking innovations. The rich floral designs of the Indian artists he supplemented with flowing arabesque or intricate geometric devices of his own, or sometimes interwove with them (as only a Muslim calligraphist could do) the graceful lettering of his sacred texts and historic inscriptions. Nor was it enough that his buildings should be beautified merely with a wealth of carvings executed in stone or brick or plaster; the Muslim required colour also and colour he supplied by painting and gilding, or by employing stones of various hues to accentuate the architectural features.

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Later on, by the more laborious processes of tesselating and *pietra dura*, he reproduced the designs themselves in coloured stones and marbles. Still more brilliant were the effects he attained by encaustic tiling, which he used at first sparingly and in a few colours only, but later without restraint to embellish whole buildings with a glistening surface of enamel.