BIJAPUR.
CONTENTS.
The Jumma Musjid--Tombs of Ibrahim and Mahmúd--The Audience Hall--Tomb
of Nawab Amir Khan, near Tatta.
CHRONOLOGY.
Yusaf Khan Adil Shah A.D. 1501
Ismail Adil Shah 1511
Mullu Adil Shah 1534
Ibrahim Adil Shah I. 1535
Ali Adil Shah 1557
Ibrahim Adil Shah II. 1579
Muhammad 1626
Ali Adil Shah II. 1660
If the materials existed for the purpose, it would be extremely
interesting, from a historical point of view, to trace the various
styles that grew out of each other as the later dynasties of the Dekhan
succeeded one another and strove to surpass their predecessors in
architectural magnificence in their successive capitals. With the
exception, however, of Bijapur, none of the Dekhani cities produced any
edifices that, taken by themselves irrespective of their surroundings
and historical importance, seem to be of any very great value in an
artistic sense.
Burhampur, which was the capital of the Faruki dynasty of Kandeish, from
A.D. 1370-1596, does possess some buildings remarkable for their extent
and picturesque in their decay, but of very little artistic value, and
many of them--especially the later ones--in very questionable taste.
Ahmednugger, the capital of the Nizam Shahi dynasty, A.D. 1490-1607, is
singularly deficient in architectural grandeur, considering how long it
was the capital of an important dynasty; while if Golcondah, the chosen
seat of the Kutub Shahi dynasty, A.D. 1512-1672, has any buildings that
are remarkable, all that can be said is that they have not yet been
drawn or described. The tombs of the kings of this dynasty, and of their
nobles and families, do form as extensive and as picturesque a group as
is to be found anywhere; but individually they are in singularly bad
taste. Their bases are poor and weak, their domes tall and exaggerated,
showing all the faults of the age in which they were executed, but still
not unworthy of a place in history if the materials existed for
illustrating them properly.
* * * * *
As mentioned above, the Bahmani dynasty of Kalburgah maintained the
struggle against the Hindu principalities of the south for nearly a
century and a half, with very little assistance from either the central
power at Delhi or their cognate states in the Dekhan. Before the end of
the 15th century, however, they began to feel that decay inherent in all
Eastern dynasties; and the Hindus might have recovered their original
possessions, up to the Vindhya at least, but for the appearance of a new
and more vigorous competitor in the field in the person of Yusaf Khan, a
son of Amurath II. of Anatolia. He was thus a Turk of pure blood, and,
as it happens, born in Constantinople, though his mother was forced to
fly thence while he was still an infant. After a varied career he was
purchased for the body-guard at Bidar, and soon raised himself to such
pre-eminence that on the defeat of Dustur Dinar, in 1501, he was enabled
to proclaim his independence and establish himself as the founder of the
Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur.
For the first sixty or seventy years after their accession, the struggle
for existence was too severe to admit of the Adil Shahis devoting much
attention to architecture. The real building epoch of the city commences
with Ali, A.D. 1557, and all the important buildings are crowded into
the 100 years which elapsed between his accession and the wars with
Aurungzebe, which ended in the final destruction of the dynasty.
During that period, however, their capital was adorned with a series of
buildings as remarkable as those of any of the Mahomedan capitals of
India, hardly excepting even Agra and Delhi, and showing a wonderful
originality of design not surpassed by those of such capitals as
Jaunpore or Ahmedabad, though differing from them in a most marked
degree.
It is not easy now to determine how far this originality arose from the
European descent of the Adil Shahis and their avowed hatred of
everything that belonged to the Hindus, or whether it arose from any
local circumstances, the value of which we can now hardly appreciate. My
impression is, that the former is the true cause, and that the largeness
and grandeur of the Bijapur style is owing to its quasi-Western origin,
and to reminiscences of the great works of the Roman and Byzantine
architects.
Like most Mahomedan dynasties, the Adil Shahis commenced their
architectural career by building a mosque and madrissa in the fort at
Bijapur out of Hindu remains. How far the pillars used there by them are
_in situ_, or torn from other buildings, we are not informed. From
photographs, it would appear that considerable portions of them are used
at least for the purposes for which they were intended; but this is not
incompatible with the idea that they were removed from their original
positions and readapted to their present purposes. Be this as it may, as
soon as the dynasty had leisure to think really about the matter, they
abandoned entirely all tendency to copy Hindu forms or Hindu details,
but set to work to carry out a pointed-arched, or domical style of their
own, and did it with singular success.[533]
The Jumma Musjid, which is one of the earlier regular buildings of the
city, was commenced by Ali Adil Shah (A.D. 1557-1579), and, though
continued by his successors on the same plan, was never completely
finished, the fourth side of the courtyard with its great gateway not
having been even commenced when the dynasty was overthrown. Even as it
is, it is one of the finest mosques in India.
[Illustration: 317. Plan of Jumma Musjid, Bijapur. (From a Drawing by A.
Cumming, C.E.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
As will be seen from the plan (Woodcut No. 317), it would have been, if
completed, a rectangle of 331 ft. by 257 ft. The mosque itself is
perfect, and measures 257 ft. by 145 ft., and consequently covers about
37,000 sq. ft. It consequently is in itself only a very little less than
the mosque at Kalburgah; but this is irrespective of the wings, which
extend 186 ft. beyond, so that if complete it would have covered about
50,000 sq. ft. to 55,000 sq. ft., or about the usual size of a mediæval
cathedral. It is more remarkable, however, for the beauty of its details
than either the arrangement or extent of its plan. Each of the squares
into which it is divided is roofed by a dome of very beautiful form, but
so flat (Woodcut No. 318) as to be concealed externally in the thickness
of the roof. Twelve of these squares are occupied in the centre by the
great dome, 57 ft. in diameter in the circular part, but standing on a
square measuring 70 ft. each way. The dimensions of this dome were
immensely exceeded afterwards by that which covers the tomb of Mahmúd,
constructed on the same plan and 124 ft. in diameter; but the smaller
dimensions here employed enabled the architect to use taller and more
graceful outlines, and if he had had the courage to pierce the niches at
the base of his dome, and make them into windows, he would probably have
had the credit of designing the most graceful building of its class in
existence.
[Illustration: 318. Plan and section of smaller Domes of Jumma Musjid.
Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 319. Section on the line A B through the Great Dome of
the Jumma Musjid. (From a Drawing by Mr. Cumming.) Scale 50 ft. to 1
in.]
If the plan of this mosque is compared with that of Kalburgah (Woodcut
No. 314), it will be seen what immense strides the Indian architects had
made in constructive skill and elegance of detail during the century and
a half that elapsed between the erection of these two buildings. If they
were drawn to the same scale this would be more apparent than it is at
first sight; but on half the present scale the details of the Kalburgah
mosque could hardly be expressed, while the largeness of the parts, and
regularity of arrangement can, in the scale adopted, be made perfectly
clear in the Bijapur example. The latter is, undoubtedly, the more
perfect of the two, but there is a picturesqueness about the earlier
building, and a poetry about its arrangements, that go far to make up
for the want of the skill and the elegance exhibited in its more modern
rival.
The tomb which Ali Adil Shah commenced for himself was a square,
measuring about 200 ft. each way, and had it been completed as designed
would have rivalled any tomb in India. It is one of the disadvantages,
however, of the Turanian system of each king building his own tomb, that
if he dies early his work remains unfinished. This defect is more than
compensated in practice by the fact that unless a man builds his own
sepulchre, the chances are very much against anything worthy of
admiration being dedicated to his memory by his surviving relatives.
[Illustration: 320. Tomb or Rozah of Ibrahim. (From a Plan by Mr.
Cumming.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
His successor Ibrahim, warned by the fate of his predecessor’s tomb,
commenced his own on so small a plan--116 ft. square--that as he was
blessed by a long and prosperous reign, it was only by ornament that he
could render it worthy of himself. This, however, he accomplished by
covering every part with the most exquisite and elaborate carvings. The
ornamental inscriptions are so numerous that it is said the whole Koran
is engraved on its walls. The cornices are supported by the most
elaborate bracketing, the windows filled with tracery, and every part so
richly ornamented that had his artists not been Indians it might have
become vulgar. The principal apartment in the tomb is a square of 40 ft.
each way, covered by a stone roof, perfectly flat in the centre, and
supported only by a cove projecting 10 ft. from the walls on every
side. How the roof is supported is a mystery which can only be
understood by those who are familiar with the use the Indians make of
masses of concrete, which, with good mortar, seems capable of infinite
applications unknown in Europe. Above this apartment is another in the
dome as ornamental as the one below it, though its only object is to
obtain externally the height required for architectural effect, and
access to its interior can only be obtained by a dark narrow stair in
the thickness of the wall.
Besides the tomb there is a mosque to correspond; and the royal garden,
in which these are situated, is adorned, as usual, internally with
fountains and kiosks, and externally with colonnades and caravansaries
for strangers and pilgrims, the whole making up a group as rich and as
picturesque as any in India, and far excelling anything of the sort on
this side of the Hellespont.
[Illustration: 321. Plan of Tomb of Mahmúd at Bijapur. Scale 100 ft. to
1 in.]
The tomb of his successor, Mahmúd, was in design as complete a contrast
to that just described as can well be conceived, and is as remarkable
for simple grandeur and constructive boldness as that of Ibrahim was for
excessive richness and contempt of constructive proprieties. It is
constructed on the same principle as that employed in the design of the
dome of the great mosque (Woodcut No. 319), but on so much larger a
scale as to convert into a wonder of constructive skill what, in that
instance, was only an elegant architectural design.
As will be seen from the plan, it is internally a square apartment, 135
ft. each way; its area consequently is 18,225 sq. ft., while that of the
Pantheon at Rome is, within the walls, only 15,833 sq. ft.; and even
taking into account all the recesses in the walls of both buildings,
this is still the larger of the two.
At the height of 57 ft. from the floor-line the hall begins to contract,
by a series of pendentives as ingenious as they are beautiful, to a
circular opening 97 ft. in diameter. On the platform of these
pendentives the dome is erected, 124 ft. in diameter, thus leaving a
gallery more than 12 ft. wide all round the interior. Internally, the
dome is 175 ft. high, externally 198 ft., its general thickness being
about 10 ft.
The most ingenious and novel part of the construction of this dome is
the mode in which its lateral or outward thrust is counteracted. This
was accomplished by forming the pendentives so that they not only cut
off the angles, but that, as shown in the plan, their arches intersect
one another, and form a very considerable mass of masonry perfectly
stable in itself; and, by its weight acting inwards, counteracting any
thrust that can possibly be brought to bear upon it by the pressure of
the dome. If the whole edifice thus balanced has any tendency to move,
it is to fall inwards, which from its circular form is impossible; while
the action of the weight of the pendentives being in the opposite
direction to that of the dome, it acts like a tie, and keeps the whole
in equilibrium, without interfering at all with the outline of the dome.
[Illustration: 322. Pendentives of the Tomb of Mahmúd, looking upwards.
(From a Drawing by Mr. Cumming.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
In the Pantheon and most European domes a great mass of masonry is
thrown on the haunches, which entirely hides the external form, and is a
singularly clumsy expedient in every respect compared with the elegant
mode of hanging the weight inside.
Notwithstanding that this expedient gives the dome a perfectly stable
basis to stand upon, which no thrust can move, still, looking at the
section (Woodcut No. 323), its form is such that it appears almost
paradoxical that such a building should stand. If the section
represented an arch or a vault, it is such as would not stand one hour;
but the dome is itself so perfect as a constructive expedient, that it
is almost as difficult to build a dome that will fall as it is to build
a vault that will stand. As the dome is also, artistically, the most
beautiful form of roof yet invented, it may be well, before passing from
the most extraordinary and complex example yet attempted anywhere, to
pause and examine a little more closely the theory of its construction.
Let us suppose the diagram to represent the plan of a perfectly flat
dome 100 ft. in diameter, and each rim consequently 10 ft. wide.
[Illustration: 323. Section of Tomb of Mahmúd at Bijapur. Scale 50 ft.
to 1 in.]
Further assuming for convenience that the whole dome weighs 7850 tons,
the outer rim will weigh 2826 tons, or almost exactly as much as the
three inner rims put together; the next will weigh 2204, the next 1568,
the next 942, and the inner only 314; so that a considerable extra
thickness might be heaped on it, or on the two inner ones, without their
preponderance at all affecting the stability of the dome; but this is
the most unfavourable view to take of the case. To understand the
problem more clearly, let us suppose the semicircle A A A (Woodcut No.
324) to represent the section of a hemispherical dome. The first
segment of this, though only 10 ft. in width, will be 30 ft. in height,
and will weigh 9420 tons; the next, 10 ft. high and 10 ft. wide, will
weigh 3140; the third, 10 ft. by 6 ft., will weigh only 1884; the fourth
will weigh 942; and the central portion, as before, 316.
[Illustration: 324. Diagram illustrative of Domical Construction.]
Now it is evident that the first portion, A B, being the most
perpendicular, is the one least liable to disturbance or thrust, and,
being also two-thirds of the whole weight of the dome, if steady and
firmly constructed, it is a more than sufficient abutment for the
remaining third, which is the whole of the rest of the dome.
It is evident from an inspection of the figure, or from any section of
the dome, how easy it must be to construct the first segment from the
springing; and if this is very solidly built and placed on an immoveable
basis, the architect may play with the rest; and he must be clumsy
indeed if he cannot make it perfectly stable. In the East they did play
with their domes, and made them of all sorts of fantastic forms, seeking
to please the eye more than to consult the engineering necessities of
the case, and yet it is the rarest possible contingency to find a dome
that has fallen through faults in the construction.
In Europe architects have been timid and unskilled in dome-building; but
with our present engineering knowledge it would be easy to construct far
larger and more daring domes than even this of Mahmúd’s tomb, without
the smallest fear of accident.
* * * * *
The external ordonnance of this building is as beautiful as that of the
interior. At each angle stands an octagonal tower eight storeys high,
simple and bold in its proportions, and crowned by a dome of great
elegance. The lower part of the building is plain and solid, pierced
only with such openings as are requisite to admit light and air; at the
height of 83 ft. a cornice projects to the extent of 12 ft. from the
wall, or nearly twice as much as the boldest European architect ever
attempted. Above this an open gallery gives lightness and finish to the
whole, each face being further relieved by two small minarets.
[Illustration: 325. Audience Hall, Bijapur. (From a Photograph.)]
The same daring system of construction was carried out by the architects
of Bijapur in their civil buildings. The great Audience Hall, for
instance (Woodcut No. 325), opens in front with an arch 82 ft. wide,
which, had it been sufficiently abutted, might have been a grand
architectural feature; as it is, it is too like an engineering work to
be satisfactory. Its cornice was in wood, and some of its supports are
still in their places. Indeed, it is one of the peculiarities of the
architecture of this city that, like the English architects in their
roofs, those of Bijapur clung to wood as a constructive expedient long
after its use had been abandoned in other parts of India. The Ashur
Moobaruk, one of the most splendid palaces in the city, is entirely open
on one side, the roof being supported only by two wooden pillars with
immense bracket-capitals; and the internal ornaments are in the same
material. The result of this practice was the same at Bijapur as in
England--far greater depth of framing and greater richness in
architectural ornamentation, and an intolerance of constructive
awkwardness which led to the happiest results in both countries.
Among the principal edifices in the city is one of those seven-storeyed
palaces which come across us so strangely in all out-of-the-way corners
of the world. Add to this that the Ashur Moobaruk has been converted by
the Mahomedans into a relic-shrine to contain some hairs of the
Prophet’s beard, and we have a picture of the strange difficulty of
weaning a Tartar from the innate prejudices of his race.
Besides these two there are five other palaces within the walls, some of
them of great splendour, and numberless residences of the nobles and
attendants of the court. But perhaps the most remarkable civil edifice
is a little gateway, known as the Mehturi Mehal (“the Gate of the
Sweeper”)--with a legend attached to it too long to quote here. It is in
a mixed Hindu and Mahomedan style, every part and every detail covered
with ornament, but always equally appropriate and elegant. Of its class
it is perhaps the best example in the country, though this class may not
be the highest.
The gigantic walls of the city itself, 6¼ miles in circumference, are
a work of no mean magnitude, and, combined with the tombs of those who
built them, and with the ruins of the suburbs of this once great city,
they make up a scene of grandeur in desolation, equal to anything else
now to be found even in India.
SCINDE.
Among the minor styles of Mahomedan art in India there is one that would
be singularly interesting in a historical sense if a sufficient number
of examples existed to elucidate it, and they were of sufficient
antiquity to connect the style with those of the West. From its
situation, almost outside India, the province of Scinde must always have
had a certain affinity with Persia and the countries lying to the
westward of the Indus, and if we knew its architectural history we might
probably be able to trace to their source many of the forms we cannot
now explain, and join the styles of the East with those of the West in a
manner we cannot at present pretend to accomplish.
It is doubtful, however, whether the materials are in existence for
doing this. The buildings in this province were always in brick, no
stone being available; and though they are not exposed to the
destructive agencies of vegetation like those of Bengal, the mortar is
bad, and the bricks are easily picked out and utilised by the natives to
build their huts or villages.
All we at present know belongs to a series of tombs in the neighbourhood
of Tatta, which were erected under the Mogul dynasty by the governors or
great men of the province, during their sway. At least the oldest now
known is that of Amir Khalleel Khan, erected in or about A.D. 1572, the
year in which Akbar deposed the Jami dynasty and annexed Scinde to his
empire. No tombs or mosques of the earlier dynasties have yet been
edited, though they may exist. The known series extends from A.D.
1572-1640, and all show a strongly-marked affinity to the Persian style
of the same or an earlier age. One example must for the present suffice
to explain their general appearance, for they are all very much alike.
It is the tomb of the Nawab Amir Khan, who was governor of the province
in the reign of Shah Jehan, from A.D. 1627-1632, and afterwards A.D.
1641-1650. The tomb was built apparently about A.D. 1640 (Woodcut No.
326). It is of brick, but was, like all the others of its class,
ornamented with coloured tiles, like those of Persia generally, of great
beauty of pattern and exquisite harmony of colouring. It is not a very
monumental way of adorning a building, but, as carried out on the dome
of the Rock at Jerusalem, in the middle of the 16th or in the mosque at
Tabreez in the beginning of the 13th century,[534] and generally in
Persian buildings, it is capable of producing the most pleasing effects.
[Illustration: 326. Tomb of Nawab Amir Khan, near Tatta, A.D. 1640.
(From a Photograph.)]
Like the other tombs in the province, it is so similar to Persian
buildings of the same age, and so unlike any other found at the same age
in India Proper, that we can have little doubt as to the nationality of
those who erected them.