283. Mosque at Ajmir. (Compiled from a Plan by Gen. Cunningham.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.
The glory, however, of this mosque, as of that of the Kutub, is the screen of seven arches with which Altumsh adorned the courtyard ([Woodcut No. 284]). Its dimensions are very similar to those of its rival. The central arch is 22 ft. 3 in. wide; the two on either side 13 ft. 6 in., and the outer one at each end 10 ft. 4 in. In the centre the screen rises to a height of 56 ft., and on it are the ruins of two small minarets 10½ ft. in diameter, ornamented with alternate circular and angular flutes, as in the lower storey of the Kutub. It is not clear
284. Great Arch in Mosque at Ajmir. (From a Photograph.)
whether anything of the same sort existed at Delhi—probably not, as the great minar may have served for that purpose, and their introduction here looks like an afterthought, and the production of an unpractised hand working in an unfamiliar style. Wherever and whenever minars were afterwards introduced, preparations for them were always made from the foundations, and their lines are always carried down to the ground, in some shape or other, as in true art they ought to be. This solecism, if it may be so called, evidently arose from the architects being Hindus, unfamiliar with the style; and to this also is due the fact that all the arches are constructed on the horizontal principle. There is not a true arch in the place; but, owing to their having the command of larger stones than were available at Delhi, the arches are not here crippled, as they were there before the late repairs.
It is neither, however, its dimensions nor design that makes this screen one of the most remarkable architectural objects in India, but the mode in which it is decorated. Nothing can exceed the taste with which the Cufic and Togra inscriptions are interwoven with the more purely architectural decorations, or the manner in which they give life and variety to the whole, without ever interfering with the constructive lines of the design. As before remarked, as examples of surface-decoration, these two mosques of Altumsh at Delhi and Ajmir are probably unrivalled. Nothing in Cairo or in Persia is so exquisite in detail, and nothing in Spain or Syria can approach them for beauty of surface-decoration. Besides this, they are unique. Nowhere else would it be possible to find Mahomedan largeness of conception, combined with Hindu delicacy of ornamentation, carried out to the same extent and in the same manner. If to this we add their historical value as the first mosques erected in India, and their ethnographic importance as bringing out the leading characteristics of the two races in so distinct and marked a manner, there are certainly no two buildings in India that better deserve the protecting care of Government; the one has received its fair share of attention; the other has been most shamefully neglected, and latterly most barbarously ill-treated.[506]
Later Pathan Style.
After the death of Ala ud-dîn (A.D. 1316) a change seems to have come over the spirit of the Pathan architects, and all their subsequent buildings, down to the time of Shere Shah, A.D. 1539, exhibit a stern simplicity of design, in marked contrast to the elaborate ornamentation with which they began. It is not clear whether this arose from any puritanical reaction against the quasi-Hinduism of the earlier examples, or from any political causes, the effect of which it is now difficult to trace: but, certain it is, that when that stern old warrior Tugluck Shah, A.D. 1321, founded the New Delhi, which still bears his name—Tugluckabad—all his buildings are characterised by a severe simplicity, in marked contrast with those which his predecessors erected in the capital that overlooks the plain in which his citadel is situated. His tomb, which was finished at least, if not built, by his successor, instead of being situated in a garden, as is usually the case, stands by itself in a strongly-fortified citadel of its own, surrounded by an artificial lake. The sloping walls and almost Egyptian solidity of this mausoleum, combined with the bold and massive towers of the fortifications that surround it, form a model of a warrior’s tomb hardly to be rivalled anywhere, and in singular contrast with the elegant and luxuriant garden-tombs of the more settled and peaceful dynasties that succeeded.
The change, however, of most interest from a historical point of view is, that by the time of Tugluck Shah’s reign, the Moslems had worked themselves entirely free from Hindu influence. In his buildings all the arches are true arches; all the details invented for the place where they are found. His tomb, in fact, would be as appropriate—more so, indeed—if found in the valley of the Nile than on the banks of the Jumna; and from that time forward Mahomedan architecture in India was a new and complete style in itself, and developed according to the natural and inevitable sequences of true styles in all parts of the world.