A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c21.121

c21.121

We may conclude with a brief sketch of the architecture of the Bāhmani kingdom and its successors. In general the model of Delhi architecture was followed here even after the political bond with Delhi was snapped in 1347. No provincial style of Muslim architecture in India was less influenced by the surrounding indigenous styles than the art of the Bāhmani kingdom. From the beginning of the fifteenth century, however, other and more remote influences began to come into play. The Bāhmani rulers were generous patrons of art, science and learning, and their court was as attractive to poets, scholars and artists as their army was to soldiers of fortune. Influences from the military architecture of Europe and the civil architecture of Persia come more into evidence here than in any other contemporary style of India. The Jami Masjid of Gulbarga is known to be the work of Persian architects. Others like the Chand Minar at Daulatabad (1435) and the college of Mahmud Gawan at Bidar (1472) are also dominantly Persian, and must have been the work mostly of architects and craftsmen from that country. Other structures show Persian inspiration in a more partial and indirect form. Towards the end of the fifteenth century, however, the Deccan reasserted itself and the influence of pre-Muslim styles appears strongly in the architecture of Bijapur on which Indian artists were employed in considerable numbers.