Page:Bulandshahr- Or, Sketches of an Indian District- Social, Historical and Architectural.djvu/79

 day. In the three-and-a-half centuries that had elapsed since the death of the last Hindu Sovereign of Delhi, Saracenic art had become thoroughly naturalized, and its fusion with the older indigenous style was the inevitable outcome of the closer and more equal intercourse between the two races. In the new cities that sprung up on the long desecrated sites of Hindu pilgrimage—such as Mathurá and Brindaban—the temples were constructed on the same ground plan, and exhibited the same massive proportions as in the older examples that still exist at Gwalior. But the area of the interior was freed from its forest of pillars—no longer required as supports, when a vault was substituted for a roofing of stone slabs—and the walls were lightened in appearance by filling in the heads of the intercolumniations with decorative spandrels, which converted them into an arcade.

In places nearer the seat of Government, and more secular in sentiment, the predominant characteristics of the new architecture were far more distinctly Muhammadan, and the subsequent development has been entirely in that direction. What few buildings there are in Mathurá of the 16th century, are of strongly Hindu type, though built for Muhammadan uses; but even there the modification has been rapid and continuous, and the whole series of temples erected since 1803—the first year of British government and of settled peace—have domes and cupolas and arches, on the same constructural principles and with the same style of panel and moulding and surface-carving as in a mosque.

The distinctive Hindu spire, or sikhara, is still frequently erected especially in country places and over shrines of Mahádev, but it is often in connection with a dome over the porch or other secondary part of the building, and its proportions have become so debased that the days of its survival are evidently numbered. From shattered fragments of most of the religious edifices of the present day—provided they bear no inscription nor betray any reference to ritual uses—it will be as difficult for an archæologist of the future to determine whether they are of Hindu or Muhammadan origin, as it is now to decide between the claims of Brahmanist and Jain to relics of mediæval India. To speak of Jain architecture, as is generally done, is altogether erroneous. What is so called is simply the style of national architecture that prevailed throughout the country, and was used indiscriminately by both classes alike, at the time when the Jains happened to be most flourishing. Thus the larger temple in the Gwalior