303. Plan and Elevation of Tomb of Syad Osmán. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.
Besides the monotony of the square plan, it was felt at Sirkej—as already pointed out—that the octagonal dome fitted awkwardly on to its supports. This was remedied, to a great extent, in the tomb of Syad Osmán, built in A.D. 460 by Mahmúd Begurra. In this instance the base of the dome is a dodecagon, and a very considerable amount of variety is obtained by grouping the pillars in twos and fours, and by the different spacing. In elevation the dome looks heavy for the substructure, but not so in perspective; and when the screens were added to inclose the central square, it was altogether the most successful sepulchral design carried out in the pillared style at Ahmedabad.
Towards the end of their career, the architects of Ahmedabad evinced a strong tendency to revert to the arched forms generally used by their brethren in other countries. Mahmúd Begurra built himself a tomb near Kaira, which is wholly in the arched style, and remains one of the most splendid sepulchres in India.[516] He also erected at Butwa, near Ahmedabad, a tomb over the grave of a saint, which is in every respect in the same style. So little, however, were the builders accustomed to arched forms, that, though the plan is judiciously disposed by placing smaller arches outside the larger, so as to abut them, still all those of the outer range have fallen down, and the whole is very much crippled, while the tomb without arches, that stands within a few yards of it, remains entire. The scale of the two, however (Plan No. 305), reveals the secret of the preference accorded to the arch as a constructive expedient. The larger piers, the wider spacing, the whole dimensions, were on a grander scale than could be attained with beams only, as the Hindus used them. As the Greeks and Romans employed these features, any dimensions that were feasible with arches could be attained by pillars; but the Hindus worked to a smaller modulus, and do not seem to have known how to increase it. It must, however, be remarked that they generally used pillars only in courts, where there was nothing to compare them with but the spectator’s own height; and there the forms employed by them were large enough. It was only when the Moslems came to use them externally, and in conjunction with arches and other larger features, that their diminutive scale became apparent.
It is perhaps the evidence of a declining age to find size becoming the principal aim. But it is certainly one great and important ingredient in architectural design, and so thought the later architects of Ahmedabad. In their later mosques and buildings they attained greater dimensions, but it was at the expense of all that renders their earlier style so beautiful and so interesting.[517]
304. Tomb of Kutub-ul-Alum, Butwa. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.
