CHRONOLOGY.
| Shahab ud-dîn Ghori | A.D. 1192 |
| Kutub ud-dîn Ibek | 1206 |
| Shum ud-dîn Altumsh | 1210 |
| Ala ud-dîn Khilji | 1295 |
| Tugluck Shah | 1321 |
| Nasar ud-dîn last of the Khiljis | 1393 |
| Khyer Khan under Tamerlane | 1414 |
| Behloli Lodi | 1450 |
| Shere Shah | 1510 |
| Sekunder defeated by Akbar | 1554 |
With all the vigour of a new race, the Ghorians set about the conquest of India. After sustaining a defeat in the year 1191, Shahab ud-dîn again entered India in A.D. 1193, when he attacked and defeated Prithiraj of Delhi. This success was followed by the conquest of Canouge in A.D. 1194; and after the fall of these two, the capitals of the greatest empires in the peninsula, India may be said to have been conquered before his death, which happened in A.D. 1206.
At his death his great empire fell to pieces, and India fell to the share of Kutub ud-dîn Ibek. This prince was originally a Tûrkish slave, who afterwards became one of Shahab ud-dîn’s generals and contributed greatly by his talents and military skill to the success of his master. He and his successor, Altumsh, continued nobly the work so successfully begun, and before the death of the latter, in A.D. 1235, the empire of northern India had permanently passed from the hands of the Hindus to those of their Mahomedan conquerors.
For a century and a half after the conquest the empire continued a united whole, under Tûrkish, or, as they are usually called, Pathan dynasties. These monarchs exhibited a continued vigour and energy very unusual in the East, and not only sustained and consolidated, but increased by successive conquests from the infidels, that newly-acquired accession to the dominions of the faithful, and during that time Delhi continued practically the capital of this great empire. In the latter half, however, of the 14th century, symptoms of disintegration manifested themselves. One after another the governors of distant provinces reared the standard of revolt, and successfully established independent kingdoms, rivalling the parent state in power and in the splendour of their capitals. Still Delhi remained the nominal head at least of this confederation of states—if it may be so called—till the time when Baber (A.D. 1494), the fourth in descent from Tamerlane, invaded Hindustan. He put an end to the Pathan sway, after it had lasted for three centuries and a half, and finally succeeded in establishing the celebrated dynasty of the Moguls, which during six successive reigns, extending over the extraordinary period of more than two centuries (A.D. 1494-1707), reconsolidated the Moslem empire into one great whole, which reached a degree of splendour and of power almost unknown in the East.
Nothing could be more brilliant, and at the same time more characteristic, than the commencement of the architectural career of these Pathans in India. So soon as they felt themselves at all sure of their conquest, they set to work to erect two great mosques in their two principal capitals of Ajmir and Delhi, of such magnificence as should redound to the glory of their religion and mark their triumph over the idolators. A nation of soldiers equipped for conquest, and that only, they had of course brought with them neither artists nor architects, but, like all nations of Turanian origin, they had strong architectural instincts, and having a style of their own, they could hardly go wrong in any architectural project they might attempt. At the same time, they found among their new subjects an infinite number of artists quite capable of carrying out any design that might be propounded to them.
In the first place, they found in the colonnaded courts of the Jaina temples nearly all that was wanted for a ready-made mosque. All that was required was the removal of the temple in its centre, and the erection of a new wall on the west side, adorned with niches—mihrabs—to point out to the faithful the direction in which Mecca lay, towards which, as is well known, they were commanded in the Koran to turn when they prayed. It is not certain, however, that they were ever in India content with this only. In the two instances at least to which we are now referring, they determined in addition to erect a screen of arches in front of the Jaina pillars, and to adorn it with all the richness and elaboration of carving which their Indian subjects were capable of executing. Nothing could be more successful than the results. There is a largeness and grandeur about the plain simple outline of the Mahomedan arches which quite overshadows the smaller parts of the Hindu fanes, and at the same time the ornamentation, though applied to a greater extent than in any other known examples, is kept so flat as never to interfere with or break the simple outlines of the architectural construction. There may be other examples of surface-decoration as elaborate as this, but hardly anywhere on such a scale. Some parts of the interior of Sta. Sophia at Constantinople are as beautiful,[491] but they are only a few square yards. The palace at Meshita, if completed, might have rivalled it, but it is a fragment;[492] and there may be—certainly were—examples in Persia between the times of Chosroes and Harun al-Rashid, which may have equalled these, but they have perished, or at least are not known to us now; and even if they ever existed, must have been unlike these mosques. In them we find a curious exemplification of some of the best qualities of the art, as exhibited previously by the Hindus, and practised afterwards by their conquerors.
Delhi.