Page:A Handbook of Indian Art.djvu/217

Rh is very similar to that of the many-spired Bengali temples. Pl. XLII,, shows it in its present condition after the recent restoration by Sir John Marshall, who rightly replaced the feeble and meaningless kiosk placed on the summit by previous restorers by the original Hindu symbol which crowns other Afghan tombs in the neighbourhood.

Neither in this nor in any other of the great Indo-Muhammadan monuments is the hand or mind of the foreign builder apparent. It is neither "Pathān" nor "Indo-Persian." Though Shēr Shah was an Afghan by race, his family had been settled in Bengal for generations, a fact which gave him a great advantage over his rival, Humāyūn, for the Moguls at that time were looked upon as interlopers, disliked both by Hindus and by Musalmans born in India. This stately pile commemorating the deeds of the doughty Afghan chief is an early example of the great school of Indian masonic craftsmanship to which the fortress palace of Datiyā belongs. The only part which the Pathāns took in the new creation was that they forced the Indian builder to break loose from the rigid ritual of the Brahman and Buddhist temple and gave him a wider scope for his inventive faculties.