The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c30.s1.58.1

v3.c30.s1.58.1

Finally, there remains the remote valley at Kashmīr. When, in the fourteenth century, the Muhammadans entered into possession of this highland valley, they found there a legacy of many fine buildings left by their predecessors, some of stone, but the vast majority of wood, which has always been the principal building material in these well-wooded tracts of the Himālayas. The stone buildings, however,—imposing structures of peculiarly classic stamp—belonged to a bygone age, and the art of the stone-mason had been too long forgotten for the Muhammadans to revive it. True, they did convert a few of the stone temples of the unbelievers into mosques and tombs for themselves, but this they did merely by using such of the old architectural members as they could, and completing the rest of the structure in rubble or brick. One such reconstructed temple is the tomb of Mandanī, with mosque adjacent, which bears an inscription recording its erection in the year 1444—in the reign of Zain-ul-‘Ābidīn; but the remarkable tile decoration on its eastern face, for which this tomb is celebrated, belongs not, as is generally supposed, to the original edifice, but to a later restoration of the Mughal period. Another monument of Zain-ul-‘Ābidīn’s reign (1420–70) is the tomb of his mother, the wife of Sikandar Butshikan.