MALWA.
CONTENTS.
The Great Mosque at Mandu.
CHRONOLOGY.
Sultan Dilawar Ghori A.D. 1401
Sultan Hoshang Ghori 1405
Ghazni Khan 1432
Mahmúd Khan, cotemp. Rana Khumbo of Chittore 1435
Sultan Ghias ud-dîn 1469
Sultan Mahmúd II 1512
Malwa incorporated with Gujerat 1534
---- annexed by Akbar 1568
The Ghori dynasty of Mandu attained independence about the same time as
the Sharkis of Jaunpore--Sultan Dilawar, who governed the province from
A.D. 1387, having assumed the title of Shah in A.D. 1401. It is,
however, to his successor Hoshang, that Mandu owes its greatness and all
the finest of its buildings. The state continued to prosper as one of
the independent Moslem principalities till A.D. 1534, when it was
incorporated with Gujerat, and was finally annexed to Akbar’s dominion
in A.D. 1568.
The original capital of the state was Dhar, an old Hindu city, twenty
miles northward of Mandu, to which the seat of government was
transferred after it became independent. Though an old and venerated
city of the Hindus, Dhar contains no evidence of its former greatness,
except two mosques erected wholly of Jaina remains. The principal of
these, the Jumma Musjid, has a courtyard measuring 102 ft. north and
south, by 131 ft. in the other direction. The mosque itself is 119 ft.
by 40 ft. 6 in., and its roof is supported by sixty-four pillars of
Jaina architecture, 12 ft. 6 in. in height, and all of them more or less
richly carved, and the three domes that adorn it are also of purely
Hindu form. The court is surrounded by an arcade containing forty-four
columns, 10 ft. in height, but equally rich in carving. There is here no
screen of arches, as at the Kutub or at Ajmir. Internally nothing is
visible but Hindu pillars, and, except for their disposition and the
prayer-niches that adorn the western wall, it might be taken for a Hindu
building. In this instance, however, there seems no doubt that there is
nothing _in situ_. The pillars have been brought from desecrated temples
in the town, and arranged here by the Mahomedans as we now find them,
probably before the transference of the capital to Mandu.
The other mosque is similar to this one, and only slightly smaller. It
has long, however, ceased to be used as a place of prayer, and is sadly
out of repair. It is called the Lât Musjid, from an iron pillar now
lying half-buried in front of its gateway. This is generally supposed to
have been a pillar of victory, like that at the Kutub; but this can
hardly be the case. If it were intended for an ornamental purpose, it
would have been either round or octagonal, and had some ornamental form.
As it is, it is only a square bar of iron, some 20 ft. or 25 ft. in
height, and 9 in. section, without any ornamental form whatever. My
impression is, that it was used for some useful constructive purpose,
like those which supported the false roof in the Pagoda at Kanaruc
(_ante_, page 428). There are some holes through it, which tend further
to make this view of its origin probable. But, be this as it may, it is
another curious proof of the employment of large masses of wrought-iron
by the Hindus at a time when they were supposed to be incapable of any
such mechanical exertion. Its date is probably that of the pillars of
the mosques where it is found, and from their style they probably belong
to the 10th or 11th centuries.
* * * * *
The site on which the city of Mandu is placed is one of the noblest
occupied by any capital in India. It is an extensive plateau, detached
from the mainland of Malwa by a deep ravine about 300 to 400 yards
across, where narrowest, and nowhere less than 200 ft. in depth. This is
crossed by a noble causeway, defended by three gateways, and flanked by
tombs on either hand. The plateau is surrounded by walls erected on the
brink of the cliff--it is said 28 miles in extent. This, however,
conveys a very erroneous idea of the size of the place, unless qualified
by the information that the walls follow the sinuosities of the ravines
wherever they occur, and many of these cut into the hill a mile or two,
and are only half a mile across. The plateau may be four or five miles
east and west, and three miles north and south, most pleasingly
diversified in surface, abounding in water, and fertile in the highest
degree, as is too plainly evidenced by the rank vegetation, which is
tearing the buildings of the city to pieces or obscuring them so that
they can hardly be seen.
The finest building in the city is the Jumma Musjid, commenced and
nearly completed by Hoshang, the second king, who reigned from A.D. 1405
to A.D. 1432, which, though not very large, is so simple and grand in
outline and details, that it ranks high among the monuments of its
class. Its dimensions are externally 290 ft. by 275 ft., exclusive of
the porch.
Internally, the courtyard is almost an exact square of 162 ft., and
would be quite so, were it not that two of the piers on the east and
west faces are doubled. In other respects the four sides of the court
are exactly similar, each being ornamented by eleven great arches of
precisely the same dimensions and height, supported by piers or pillars,
each of one single block of red sandstone. The only variety attempted
is, that the east side has two arcades in depth, the north and south
three: while the west side, or that facing Mecca, has five, besides
being ornamented by three great domes, each 42 ft. in diameter.
As will be seen on the plan (Woodcut No. 308), these large domes are
supported each by twelve pillars. The pillars are all equally spaced,
the architect having omitted, for the sake of uniformity, to widen the
central avenues on the intersection of which the domes stand. It follows
from this that the four sides of the octagon supporting the dome, which
are parallel to the sides of the court, are shorter than the four
diagonal sides. Internally, this produces a very awkward appearance; but
it could not have been avoided except by running into another
difficulty--that of having oblong spaces at the intersections of the
wider aisles with the narrower, to which the smaller domes must have
been fitted. Perhaps, on the whole, the architect took the less
inconvenient course of the two.
[Illustration: 308. Plan of Mosque at Mandu. No scale.]
The interior of the court is represented in Woodcut No. 309, and for
simple grandeur and expression of power it may, perhaps, be taken as one
of the very best specimens now to be found in India. It is, however,
fast falling to decay, and a few years more may deprive it of most of
that beauty which so impressed me when I visited it in 1839.
The tomb of the founder, which stands behind the mosque, though not
remarkable for size, is a very grand specimen of the last resting-place
of a stern old Pathan king. Both internally and externally it is reveted
with white marble, artistically, but not constructively, applied, and
consequently in many places peeling off. The light is only admitted by
the doorway and two small windows, so that the interior is gloomy, but
not more so than seems suitable to its destination.
[Illustration: 309. Courtyard of Great Mosque at Mandu. (From a Sketch
by the Author.)]
On one side of the mosque is a splendid Dharmsala, or hall, 230 ft.
long, supported by three ranges of pillars, twenty-eight in each row.
These are either borrowed from a Hindu edifice, or formed by some native
architect from stones originally Hindu, and on the north side is a
porch, which is avowedly only a re-erection of the pillars of a Jaina
dome.
The palaces of Mandu are, however, perhaps even more remarkable than its
mosques. Of these the principal is called Jehaj Mehal, from its being
situated between two great tanks--almost literally in the water, like a
“ship.” It is so covered with vegetation that it is almost impossible to
sketch or photograph it,[521] but its mass and picturesque outline make
it one of the most remarkable edifices of its date; very unlike the
refined elegance afterwards introduced by the Moguls, but well worthy of
being the residence of an independent Pathan chief of a warrior state.
The principal apartment is a vaulted hall, some 24 ft. wide by twice
that length, and 24 ft. in height, flanked by buttresses massive enough
to support a vault four times its section. Across the end of the hall is
a range of apartments three storeys in height, and the upper ones
adorned with rude, bold, balconied windows. Beyond this is a long range
of vaulted halls, standing in the water, which were apparently the
living apartments of the palace. Like the rest of the palace they are
bold, and massive to a degree seldom found in Indian edifices, and
produce a corresponding effect.
On the brink of the precipice overlooking the valley of the Nerbudda is
another palace, called that of Baz Bahadur, of a lighter and more
elegant character, but even more ruined than the northern palace, and
scattered over the whole plateau are ruins of tombs and buildings of
every class and so varied as almost to defy description. In their
solitude, in a vast uninhabited jungle, they convey as vivid an
impression of the ephemeral splendour of these Mahomedan dynasties as
anything in India, and, if illustrated, would alone suffice to prove how
wonderfully their builders had grasped the true elements of
architectural design.