This gate resembling the skies in altitude was built anew.
In the year a.h. 1079 (a.d. 1668) the work of renewal was begun and completed
By the endeavour of the exalted Khán Muhammad Beg Khán.
From the accession of this Emperor of the World Aurangzíb.
This was the eleventh year by way of writing and history.
[2] Mr. Fergusson (Indian Architecture, page 543) says: “The pillars appear to have been taken from a Jain building.” But the refinement on the square capital of each pillar of the Hindu Singh-múkh or horned face into a group of leaves of the same outline shows that the pillars were specially carved for use in a Muslim building. The porch on the north side of the tomb enclosure is described (Ditto, page 543) as composed of pillars avowedly re-erected from a Jain building. This note of Mr. Fergusson’s must have gone astray, as the north porch of Hoshang’s tomb enclosure is in the plain massive pointed arch and square-shafted style of the tomb and of the great mosque. Mr. Fergusson’s note apparently belongs to the second and smaller Jámá Masjid, about a hundred yards east of the Sea or Sagár lake, the pillars of whose colonnade and porch are still enlivened by rows of the lucky face of the Hindu old horny. [↑]
[3] Hoshang’s great mosque has the following much damaged Persian inscription:
The mosque of exalted construction, the temple of heavenly altitude,
Whose every thick pillar is a copy of the (pillars of the) Sacred Temple (the Temple of Makkah).