The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c30.s1.45

Language: English

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Another mosque belonging to the reign of Sultān Ibrāhīm (1401–40) was built by two governors of Jaunpur, Maliks Khālis and Mukhlis, who have given their names to it; and a third was the *Jhanjhrī Masjid* erected by Ibrāhīm himself in honour of Hazrat Sa'īd Sadr Jahān Ajmālī. The former is a simple plain structure, devoid of ornament and invested with little architectural interest. Of the latter only the main propylon screen is now standing,—the rest having, it is said, been to a large extent destroyed by Sikandar Lodī. Yet even from this mutilated fragment it is evident that the *Jhanjhrī Masjid*, though smaller in scale, was very similar in design to the Atala;—so much so, indeed, that there seems every probability of its having been the creation of the same architect. Who this architect,—the father of the Jaunpur style,—was is not known, but he was certainly gifted with an originality and good taste far beyond that of his successors, who built the *Lāl Darwāza* and *Jāmi' Masjids*. The first of these, which dates from the reign of Mahmūd Shāh (1440–56), is, indeed, but a small and pale edition of the Atala. True, there are differences between them. The style of the *Lāl Darwāza* is more markedly Hindu; its cloisters are only one storey in height by two bays in depth; the prayer chamber is provided with one instead of three domes; the ladies' galleries are placed alongside the central hall;

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and the single propylon is much lower in proportion to its width than that of Atala *Masjid*. These differences, however, are not enough to betoken originality on the part of the architect. On the contrary, in endeavouring to improve on his model, he has signally failed to reproduce its vigour and stylishness and succeeded only in giving us a dull and unimaginative substitute. It is much the same with the great *Jāmi‘ Masjid*, which was erected, a generation later, in the reign of Ḥusain Shāh (acc. 1458), but in this case decidedly more inventiveness has been displayed over the planning and disposition of its parts. The prayer chamber of this mosque (which is 235 feet in length, over all) is divided into five compartments, viz. a square *līwān* in the centre surmounted by a lofty dome and fronted by the customary propylon; on either side of it a low pillared chamber supporting a *zanāna* gallery, which thus looked down into the central *līwān*; and beyond the *zanāna* gallery, a vaulted hall 50 feet in length by 40 in depth. Though less chaste in its details than that of the Atala *Masjid*, which it closely resembles, the domed *līwān* is nevertheless a noble and imposing hall; and the vaulted wings are well conceived and, in cleverer hands, might have been developed into really effective features.

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As they are, however, no effort has been made to soften their hard straight silhouettes or to bring them into harmony with the central propylon which towers starkly abrupt above them. This weakness of composition and lack of rhythm is one of the most glaring defects of the Jaunpur school. Another (and this is a defect common to most Indo-Islamic architecture) is its failure to visualise the subject in more than two dimensions at once or to design a building in the mass and with reference to every angle of view. The propylon screen of a Jaunpur mosque was meant to be seen from the quadrangle only and in this direction it certainly presented an effective appearance. Looked at, however, from the side or back, it was an incongruous adjunct unconnected, structurally or artistically, with the rest of the building. Few things, indeed, in Muslim architecture are so anomalous as the juxtaposition of these flat, abruptly squared, propylons and of the graceful domes immediately behind them. It is an anomaly of which no architect imbued with the true spirit of Islamic art could have been guilty. The architect of the *Lāl Darwāza Masjid* is said to have been a Hindu, named Kamau, the son of Visadru, and it is likely enough that the architect of the Atala *Masjid* was a Hindu also,—a Hindu to whom the dome and arch meant little more than structural expedients or unavoidable symbolic accessories, and who had little understanding of their inherent beauty.

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However this may be, the defects of construction and composition are so fundamental and obtrusive in these mosques that it is impossible to place them, as Fergusson did, in the foremost rank of Indo-Islamic monuments. Certainly they are not to be mentioned in the same breath with the finest of the monuments at Delhi, Ahmadābād, or Bījāpur.