A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c21.123

c21.123

The capital cities of Gulbarga and Bidar were the centres of the civil architecture of the Bāhmanis. In the former are two groups of royal tombs—one near the south gate of the fort and the other to the east of the town. They fall into two patterns: single tombs, ‘simple square chambers crowned with battlements and corner turrets and roofed by a single dome, the whole standing on a low square plinth’; and double tombs which are merely duplications of the single ones. In the treatment of details, changes are traceable from reign to reign. First, Sultan Hasan’s tomb is typical of the Tughlak style of Delhi. So also are the tombs of Muhammad Shah, Mujahid, and Daud. In that of Ghiyyas-ud-din, at the close of the fourteenth century, Hindu craftsmanship begins to appear in the carvings of the prayer niche. A generation later, the splendid mausoleum of Firuz Shah and his family, measuring externally 153 feet by 76 feet, bears witness to the growing strength of this Hindu influence as well as to the new preference for Persian ornament, the former on the outside and the latter in the shining plaster and painted decorations of the interior recalling the rich designs of Persian book-binding and embroidery.