276. Ornaments from the Tomb of Mahmúd at Ghazni.
At the same time there is nothing in their style of ornamentation that at all resembles anything found in any Hindu temple, either of their age or at any other time. There is, in fact, no reason for doubting that these gates were made for the place where they were found.[488] If any other parts of the tomb are ornamented in the same style, it would be of great interest to have them drawn. It probably is, however, from the Jumma Musjid that we shall obtain the best picture of the arts of that day, when any one will take the trouble of examining it.
Two minars still adorn the plain outside the city, and form, if not the most striking, at least the most prominent of the ruins of that city. Neither of them was ever attached to a mosque; they are, indeed, pillars of victory, or Jaya Stambhas, like those at Chittore and elsewhere in India, and are such as we might expect to find in a country so long Buddhist. One of them was erected by Mahmúd himself; the other was built, or at least finished, by Masúd, one of his immediate successors.[489]
The lower part of these towers is of a star-like form—the plan being apparently formed by placing two squares diagonally the one over the other. The upper part, rising to the height of about 140 ft. from the ground, is circular; both are of brickwork, covered with ornaments of terra-cotta of extreme elaboration and beauty, and retaining their sharpness to the present day.
Several other minars of the same class are found further west, even as far as the roots of the Caucasus,[490] which, like these, were pillars of victory, erected by the conquerors on their battle-fields. None of them have the same architectural merit as those of Ghazni, at least in their present state, though it may be that their ornaments, having been in stucco or some perishable material, have disappeared, leaving us now only the skeleton of what they were.
The weakness of Mahmúd’s successors left the Indians in repose for more than a century and a half; and, like all Eastern dynasties, the Ghaznavides were gradually sinking to inevitable decay, when their fall was precipitated by the crimes of one of them, which were fearfully avenged by the destruction of their empire and capital by Ala ud-dîn, and their race was at length superseded by that of the Ghori, in the person of Shahab ud-dîn, in the year 1183.
Though centuries of misrule have weighed on this country since the time of the Ghaznavides, it is scarcely probable that all traces of their magnificence have passed away; but till their cities are examined by some one competent to discriminate between what is good or bad, or old or new, we must be content merely to indicate the position of the style, leaving this chapter to be written hereafter when the requisite information shall have been obtained. In the meanwhile it is satisfactory to know that between Herat and the Indus there do exist a sufficient number of monuments to enable us to connect the styles of the West with those in the East. They have been casually described by travellers, but not in such a manner as to render them available for our purposes; and in the present unsettled state of the country it may be some time yet before their elucidation can be accomplished.
CHAPTER III.
PATHAN STYLE.
CONTENTS.
Mosque at Old Delhi—Kutub Minar—Tomb of Ala ud-dîn—Pathan Tombs—Ornamentation of Pathan Tombs.