corners the downward progress became apparent without any extraneous assistance. This is partially the case, as just mentioned, in the Mysore; but there is a cemetery at Junaghur, in Gujerat, where there exists a group of tombs, all erected within this century, some within the last twenty or thirty years, which exhibit more nearly than any others I am acquainted with the forms towards which the style was tending. The style is not without a certain amount of elegance in detail ([Woodcut No. 344]). The tracery of the windows is frequently fascinating from its beauty, and all the carving is executed with precision and appropriateness—but it is all wooden, or, in other words, every detail would be more appropriate for a sideboard or a bedstead, or any article of upholstery, than for a building in stone. The domes especially can hardly be traced back to their grand and solemn form as used by the Pathan architects. The pinnacles are fanciful, and the brackets designed more for ornament than work. It is a style, in fact, broken loose from the true principles of constructive design, and when this is the case, no amount of ornament, however elegant it may be, will redeem the want of propriety it inevitably exhibits.
It is curious, however, and instructive, in concluding our history of architecture as practised within the limits of India properly so called, to observe how completely we have been walking in a circle. We began by tracing how, two hundred years before Christ, a wooden style was gradually assuming lithic forms, and by degrees being elaborated into a style where hardly a reminiscence of wood remained. We conclude with finding the style of Hullabîd and Bijapur, or Delhi, returning to forms as appropriate to carpentry but as unsuited to masonry as the rails or gateways at Bharhut or Sanchi. It might some time ago have been a question worth mooting whether it was likely it would perish by persevering in this wrong direction. That enquiry, however, seems idle now, as it is to be feared that the death-blow will be given, as at Lucknow and elsewhere, by the fatal imitation of a foreign style.
CHAPTER XI.
WOODEN ARCHITECTURE.
CONTENTS.
Mosque of Shah Hamadan, Srinugger.
Kashmir.
Turning for the nonce from this quasi-wooden style—which is only an indication of decadence and decrepitude—it would be pleasing if we could finish our narrative with the description of a true wooden style as it exists in Kashmir. The Jumma Musjid, in the city of Srinugger, is a large and important building, and if not so magnificent as some of those described in the preceding pages, is of great interest from being designed to be constructed in wood, and wood only. A knowledge of its peculiarities would, consequently, help us much in understanding many problems that arise in investigating the history of architecture in India. Unfortunately it is not a fashionable building, and of the 1001 tourists who visit the valley no one mentions it, and no photographer has yet set up his camera within its precincts.[563]
Its plan apparently is the usual one: a courtyard surrounded by cloisters, longer and loftier on the side towards Mecca, its peculiarity being that all the pillars that support its roofs are of Deodar pine—not used, of course, to imitate stone or stone construction, but honest wooden forms, as in Burmese monasteries and elsewhere. The carving on them is, I believe, rich and beautiful, and though dilapidated, the effect is said to be still singularly pleasing.
There is one other mosque in the same city, known as that of Shah Hamadan ([Woodcut No. 345]), which is equally erected wholly in wood, and though very much smaller than the Jumma Musjid, is interesting, in the first place, because its roof is probably very similar to that which once covered the temple at Marttand ([Woodcut No. 161]), and the crowning ornament is evidently a reminiscence of a Buddhist Tee, very much altered, it must be confessed, but still not so very unlike some found in Nepal, as at Swayambunath ([Woodcut No. 170]), for instance, and elsewhere.