Some of the details of this style are very elaborate; in fact, many of the finer temples were completely overlaid with sculptural ornament. The pillars are markedly different from the earlier Dravidian forms: they are massive, richly carved, often circular and highly polished. Their capitals are usually spread out, with a number of circular mouldings immediately below; and under these is a square block, while the middle section of the shaft is richly carved with mouldings in the round. In many cases the capitals and circular mouldings have been actually turned in a sort of lathe. They are almost always in pairs of the same design, the whole effect being singularly varied and elegant.
The great temple at Halebīd (see Plate II. fig. 11), begun about A.D. 1250, was left unfinished at the Mahommedan conquest in 1310. It is a double temple, measuring 160 ft. by 122 ft., and is covered with an amazing amount of the richest sculpture. But the spires were never raised over the shrines. The Kedaresvara temple at Balagāmvi is perhaps one of the oldest of the style in Mysore, and there are other good examples at Kubattūr, Harnhalli, Arsikere, Harihar, Koravangala and elsewhere; but their plans vary greatly.
Coming now to Northern India, we find the Hindu architectural style more widely spread and more varied than in the south, but wanting somewhat in individuality. Examples of the same order, however, are to be found also far to the south in the Chalukyan area. The characteristic that first appeals to our notice is the curvilinear spires of the temples, and the absence of that exuberance of sculpture seen in the great Chalukyan temples of the South; whilst in many cases, as in the Jain temples, a greater central area has been obtained in the halls by arranging twelve columns so as to support a dome on an octagonal disposition of lintels. The shrines are square in plan and only slightly modified by additions to the walls of parallel projections; the walls were raised on a moulded plinth of some height, over which was a deep base, the two together rising, roughly, to about half the height of the walls. Over this is the panelled face devoted to figure sculptures in compartments, but the tall, thin pilasters of the southern style have disappeared. Above is the many-membered architrave and cornice supporting the roof and spire. The latter follow the vertical lines of the walls, presenting no trace of divisions into storeys or steps, but they vary in other details with the age.
In Rajputana and Western India a variety of this northern style has been known as the Jain order. Though used by the Hindus and Jains alike, it was employed in its most ornate form by the Jains in their famous temples on Mount Ābū and elsewhere. A striking feature of this style is the elaborately carved roofs over their corridors and the domes of their porches and halls (see Plate II. fig. 12). Nothing can exceed the delicacy and elaboration of details in these sculptured roofs and vaults. Combined with the diversified arrangement of the variously spaced and highly sculptured pillars supporting them, these convey an impression of symmetry and beauty that is highly pleasing.
Gujarāt must have been rich in splendid temples before the 12th century, but it was devastated so often by the Moslems that the more notable have all perished, though the once magnificent Sun Temple at Mudhera still witnesses, in its ruins, to the architectural style and grandeur of the period—the early part of the 11th century—when it was erected. A notable group of between thirty and forty temples in this style exists at Khajurāho in Bundelkhand. They belong to both the Hindu and the Jain cults, and mostly date from the 10th and 11th centuries. Many of them are covered, inside and out, with the richest sculpture, and may be regarded architecturally as “the most beautiful in form as well as the most elegant in detail” of the temples of Northern India. With these, the temples at Bhuvaneswar in Orissa exhibit this style at its best. The latter have the earlier form of spire, nearly perpendicular below, but curving inwards near the summit.
The temple of Kanārak, known as the “Black Pagoda” (see Plate III. fig. 13), which for its size is, externally at least, the most richly ornamented building in the world. It has lately been filled up with stones and sand, as the only method the Archaeological Survey could devise to prevent its threatened collapse.
In the later examples of the style the spire is still a square curvilinear pyramid, to the faces of which are added smaller copies of the same form, carrying up the offsets of the walls; and in some examples these are multiplied to an extraordinary extent.
The Mahommedan architecture, also known as Indian Saracenic, begins in India with the 13th century and varied much at different periods and under the various dynasties, imperial and local. The imperial rulers at Delhi, for the first three centuries, were Pathāns, and were succeeded in 1526 by Baber, who founded the Mogul dynasty. Under the earlier Pathān emperors the style of building was massive but profusely ornamented and of extreme beauty in its details. Among the examples of this style may be instanced the Qutb Minār at Delhi (see Plate I. fig. 9), one of the finest pillars in the world, built in the first quarter of the 13th century. It is still 240 ft. high and ornamented by projecting balconies and richly carved belts between; the three lower storeys are cut up by projecting vertical ribs that add to its beauty. Beside it the tomb of Altamsh is also profusely sculptured and of extreme beauty of detail, and other examples are seen in the eastern portion of the adjoining mosque, the tomb of Alā-ud-dīn Khilji, and the Alai Darwāza. After about 1320 the Pathān architecture is marked by a stern simplicity of design and a solemn gloom and nakedness, in marked contrast to the elaborate richness of ornamentation of the preceding period. The tomb of Ghiyās-ud dīn Tughlak at New Delhi, with its sloping walls and massive solidity, is a typical example of this period, as is also the Kalān mosque at Delhi completed in 1386.
Early in the 15th century, however, a reaction had set in, and the later style was hardly less rich and much more appropriate for its purposes than the earlier in the end of the 12th and early 13th century. The façades of the mosques became more ornamental, were often encrusted with marble, and usually adorned with rich and beautiful sculpture. This was clearly a return to the elaborateness of the past, but with every detail fitted to its place and purpose and presenting one of the completest architectural styles of the world.
About the beginning of the 15th century several local dynasties arose, each of which developed a style more or less their own. Of the Shārki dynasty of Jaunpur only three great mosques in that city have come down to us, with several tombs. The cloisters surrounding the open courts of the mosques and the galleries within are closely allied to the Hindu style, being constructed with short square pillars having bracket capitals supporting lintels and roof of flat slabs. But the gateways and main features of the mosques are arched. The mosque itself consists of a central square hall covered by a lofty dome of the whole width of it, in front of which stands the great propylon or gate, of massive outline and rising to the full height of the central dome. This propylon had a large recessed arch between the two piers, in the lower portion of which was the entrance to the mosque, whilst the upper formed a pierced screen. On each side of the dome is a compartment divided into two storeys by a stone floor supported on pillars, and beyond this, on each side, is a larger apartment covered by a pointed ribbed vault. The ornamental work is bold and striking rather than delicate, and the mihrābs or qiblas are marked by severe simplicity, and form a link in the evolution of the later form under Mogul rule. These buildings afford a marked expression of strength combined with a degree of refinement that is rare in other styles. Other examples of this style are met with at Benares, Kanauj and places within the Jaunpur kingdom.