The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c30.s1.49.7

v3.c30.s1.49.7

The Indian builders of these forts grasped what was required and designed their structures accordingly, not slavishly following established precedent nor matching one feature meticulously against another as the later Moghul builders did, but setting each where it was needed, making it of such size and strength as was required, and giving to the whole that touch of beauty that comes naturally and instinctively to the artists of Southern India¹. It is this quality of simple purposefulness in their architecture that gave to these fortresses of the Deccan much of their romantic charm—a charm which was denied to many a building in which beauty was more consciously aimed at. What this particular charm signified can perhaps best be appreciated by comparing, for example, the dignified but unpretentious gateway of Golconda (Fig. 90) with the highly ornate and conventionally laboured Mahākālī gateway of the Narnāla Fort erected in 1486 during the reign of Shihāb-ud-dīn Mahmūd Shāh and manifestly inspired by the contemporary Lodī architecture of Delhi.