BENGAL.
CONTENTS.
Kudam ul Roussoul Mosque, Gaur--Adinah Mosque, Maldah.
CAPITAL--GAUR.
It is not very easy to understand why the architects of Malwa should
have adopted a style so essentially arcuate as that which we find in the
capital, while their brethren, on either hand, at Jaunpore and
Ahmedabad, clung so fondly to a trabeate form wherever they had an
opportunity of employing it. The Mandu architects had the same
initiation to the Hindu forms in the mosques at Dhar; and there must
have been innumerable Jaina temples to furnish materials to a far
greater extent than we find them utilised, but we neither find them
borrowing nor imitating, but adhering steadily to the pointed-arch
style, which is the essential characteristic of their art in foreign
countries. It is easy to understand, on the other hand, why in Bengal
the trabeate style never was in vogue. The country is practically
without stone, or any suitable material for forming either pillars or
beams. Having nothing but brick, it was almost of necessity that they
employed arches everywhere, and in every building that had any
pretensions to permanency. The Bengal style being, however, the only one
wholly of brick in India Proper, has a local individuality of its own,
which is curious and interesting, though, from the nature of the
material, deficient in many of the higher qualities of art which
characterise the buildings constructed with larger and better materials.
Besides elaborating a pointed-arched brick style of their own, the
Bengalis introduced a new form of roof, which has had a most important
influence on both the Mahomedan and Hindu styles in more modern times.
As already mentioned in describing the chuttrie at Alwar (_ante_, p.
474), the Bengalis, taking advantage of the elasticity of the bambu,
universally employ in their dwellings a curvilinear form of roof, which
has become so familiar to their eyes, that they consider it beautiful
(Woodcut No. 310). It is so in fact when bambu and thatch are the
materials employed, but when translated into stone or brick
architecture, its taste is more questionable. There is, however, so
much that is conventional in architecture, and beauty depends to such an
extent on association, that strangers are hardly fair judges in a case
of this sort. Be this as it may, certain it is, at all events, that
after being elaborated into a feature of permanent architecture in
Bengal, this curvilinear form found its way in the 17th century to
Delhi, and in the 18th to Lahore, and all the intermediate buildings
from, say A.D. 1650, betray its presence to a greater or less extent.
[Illustration: 310. Modern Curved Form of Roof.]
It is a curious illustration, however, of how much there is in
architecture that is conventional and how far familiarity may render
that beautiful which is not so abstractedly, that while to the European
eye this form always remains unpleasing, to the native eye--Hindu or
Mahomedan--it is the most elegant of modern inventions.[522]
* * * * *
Even irrespective, however, of its local peculiarities, the architecture
of Gaur, the Mahomedan capital of Bengal, deserves attention for its
extent and the immense variety of detail which it displays. Bengal,
apparently because it was so distant from the capital, was erected into
a separate kingdom almost simultaneously with Delhi itself. Mahommad
Bakhtiar Khilji, governor of Berar under Kutub ud-dîn, became first king
of the dynasty in A.D. 1203, and was succeeded by a long line of
forty-eight kings, till the state was absorbed into Akbar’s vast kingdom
in A.D. 1573, under Daud Khan ben Suleiman. Though none of these kings
did anything that entitles them to a place in general history, they
possessed one of the richest portions of India, and employed their
wealth in adorning their capital with buildings, which, when in a state
of repair, must have been gorgeous, even if not always in the best
taste. The climate of Bengal is, however, singularly inimical to the
preservation of architectural remains. If the roots of a tree of the fig
kind once find a resting-place in any crevice of a building, its
destruction is inevitable; and even without this, the luxuriant growth
of the jungle hides the building so completely, that it is sometimes
difficult to discover it--always to explore it. Add to this that Gaur is
singularly well suited to facilitate the removal of materials by
water-carriage. During the summer inundation, boats can float up to any
of the ruins, and after embarking stones or bricks, drop down the
stream to any new capital that may be rising. It thus happens that
Moorshedabad, Hoogly, and even Calcutta, are rich in spoils of the old
Pathan capital of Bengal, while it has itself become only a mass of
picturesque but almost indistinguishable ruins.
The city of Gaur was a famous capital of the Hindus long before it was
taken possession of by the Mahomedans. The Sên and Bellala dynasties of
Bengal seem to have resided here, and no doubt adorned it with temples
and edifices worthy of their fame and wealth. These, however, were
probably principally in brick, though adorned with pillars and details
in what used to be called black marble, but seems to be an indurated
potstone of very fine grain, and which takes a beautiful polish. Many
fragments of Hindu art in this material are found among the ruins; and
if carefully examined might enable us to restore the style. Its
interest, however, principally lies in the influence it had on the
Mahomedan style that succeeded it. It is neither like that of Delhi, nor
Jaunpore, nor any other style, but one purely local, and not without
considerable merit in itself; its principal characteristic being heavy
short pillars of stone supporting pointed arches and vaults, in
brick--whereas at Jaunpore, for instance, light pillars carried
horizontal architraves and flat ceilings.
The general character of the style will be seen in the example from a
mosque called the Kudam ul Roussoul at Gaur, and is by no means devoid
of architectural merit (Woodcut No. 311). The solidity of the supports
go far to redeem the inherent weakness of brick architecture, and by
giving the arches a firm base to start from, prevents the smallness of
their parts from injuring the general effect. It also presents, though
in a very subdued form, the curvilinear form of the roof, which is so
characteristic of the style.
In Gaur itself there are two very handsome mosques--the Golden and the
Barah Durwaza, or twelve-doored. Both their façades are in stone, and
covered with foliaged patterns in low-relief, borrowed evidently from
the terra-cotta ornaments which were more frequently employed, and
continued a favourite mode of adorning façades down to the time of the
erection of the Kantonuggur temple illustrated above (Woodcut No. 263).
In the interior their pillars have generally been removed, and the
vaults consequently fallen in, so that it is not easy to judge of their
effect, even if the jungle would admit of the whole area being grasped
at once. Their general disposition may be judged of, however, by the
plan on page 549 (Woodcut No. 312) of the Adinah mosque at Maldah, which
formed at the time it was erected the northern suburb of the capital.
From inscriptions upon it, it appears that this mosque was erected by
Sikander Shah, one of the most illustrious of his race (A.D. 1358-1367),
with the intention of being himself buried within its precincts, or in
its immediate neighbourhood. Its dimensions are considerable, being
nearly 500 ft. north and south, and nearly 300 ft. east and west. In the
centre it contains a courtyard, surrounded on all sides by a thick wall
of brick, divided by eighty-eight similar arched openings, only one of
which, that in the centre of the west side facing Mecca, is wider and
more dignified than the rest. The roof in like manner is supported by
266 pillars of black hornblende, similar in design to those represented
in Woodcut No. 311. They are bold and pleasing in design, but it must be
confessed wanting in variety. These with the walls support no less than
385 domes, all similar in design and construction. The only variation
that is made is where a platform, called the Padshah ka Takht, or King’s
Throne, divides a part of the building into two storeys.[523]
[Illustration: 311. Kudam ul Roussoul Mosque, Gaur. (From a
Photograph.)]
A design, such as that of the Adinah mosque, would be appropriate
[Illustration: 312. Plan of Adinah Mosque, Maldah. Scale 100 ft. to 1
in.]
for a caravanserai; but in an edifice where expression and beauty were
absolutely required it is far too monotonous. The same defect runs
through the whole group; and though their size and elegance of details,
joined with the picturesque state of richly foliaged ruin in which they
are now found, make them charming subjects for the pencil, they possess
all the defects of design we remarked in the great halls of a thousand
columns in the south of this country.[524] It seems, indeed, almost as
if here we had again got among the Tamil race, and that their
peculiarities were reappearing on the surface, though dressed in the
garb of a foreign race.
One of the most interesting of the antiquities of the place is a minar,
standing in the fort (Woodcut No. 313). For two-thirds of the height it
is a polygon of twelve sides; above that circular, till it attains the
height of 84 ft. The door is at some distance from the ground, and
altogether it looks more like an Irish round-tower than any other
example known, though it is most improbable that there should be any
connexion between the two forms. It is evidently a pillar of victory--a
Jaya Stambha--such as the Kutub Minar at Delhi, and those at Coel,
Dowlutabad, and elsewhere. There is, or was, an inscription on this
monument which ascribed its erection to Feroze Shah. If this is so, it
must be the king of that province who reigned in Gaur A.H. 702-715, or
A.D. 1302-1315,[525] and the character of the architecture fully bears
out this adscription.[526] The native tradition is, that a saint, Peer
Asa, lived, like Simon Stylites, on its summit!
[Illustration: 313. Minar at Gaur. (From a Photograph by J. H.
Ravenshaw, B.C.S.)]
Besides these, there are several of the gateways of Gaur which are of
considerable magnificence. The finest is that called Dhakhal, which,
though of brick, and adorned only with terra-cotta ornaments, is as
grand an object of its class as is to be found anywhere. The gate of the
citadel, and the southern gate of the city, are very noble examples of
what can be done with bricks, and bricks only. It is not, however, in
the dimensions of its buildings or the beauty of their details that the
glory of Gaur resides; it is in the wonderful mass of ruins stretching
along what was once the high bank of the Ganges, for nearly twenty
miles, from Maldah to Maddapore--mosques still in use, mixed with mounds
covering ruins--tombs, temples, tanks and towers, scattered without
order over an immense distance, and half buried in a luxuriance of
vegetation which only this part of India can exhibit. What looks poor,
and may be in indifferent taste, drawn on paper and reduced to scale,
may give an idea of splendour in decay when seen as it is, and in this
respect there are none of the ancient capitals of India which produce a
more striking, and at the same time a more profoundly melancholy,
impression than these ruins of the old Pathan capital of Bengal.