Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/687

Rh charge of bigamy. The parties to the first marriage must, of course, have been lawfully entitled to marry. It is a good defence that the accused was divorced from his first wife before contracting the second marriage, even though the decree should afterwards have been set aside, unless it has been obtained oorruptly and set aside for that reason. It is also a good defence that, at the time of contracting the second marriage, the accused had reasonable grounds for believing the other spouse to be dead. To constitute the crime of bigamy, it is not necessary that the second marriage should be such that, but for the first marriage, it would have been legal The punishment is imprisonment, and occasionally penal servitude.  BIGNON,, a French lawyer, was born at Paris in 1589. He was uncommonly precocious, and under his father s tuition had acquired an immense mass of knowledge before he was ten years of age. In 1 GOO was published a work by him entitled Ghorographie, ou Description de la Terre Sainte. The great reputation gained by this book introduced the author to Henry IV., who placed him for some time as a companion to the duke of Vendome, and afterwards made him tutor to the Dauphin. In 1604 he wrote his Discourse on the City of Rome, and in the follow ing year his Summary Treatise on the Election of the Pope. He then devoted himself to the study of law, wrote in 1C 10 a treatise on the precedency of the kings of France, which gave great satisfaction to Henry IV., and in 1613 edited, with learned notes, the Formulae of the jurist Mar- culfe. In 1620 he was made advocate-general to the grand council, and shortly afterwards a councillor of state, and in 1626 he became advocate-general to the parliament of Paris. In 1641 he resigned his official dignity, and in 1642 was appointed by Richelieu to the charge of the royal library He died in 1656.  BIGORDI,. See.  BIJAINAGAR, or, an ancient city in the south of India, once the capital of a great Hindu empire, but now in ruins, situated on the south bank of the Tumbhadra River, directly opposite to Annagundi, in 15 19 N. lat. and 76 32 E. long. The city has been enclosed with strong stone walls on the east side, and is bounded by the river on the west, the circumference of the whole appearing to be about eight miles. The streets of this city, from 30 to 40 yards wide, can be traced between the immense piles of rocks crowned with pagodas ; and one street yet remains perfect. The building of this metro polis was begun in 1336. Between the kings of the principality, of which it was the capital, and the Mahometan sovereigns of the Deccan constant hostility was maintained. In 1564 Ram Raja, the king of Bijainagar, was totally overthrown on the plains of Telikota, by a combination of the four Mahometan sovereigns of the Deccan, who imme diately marched to the metropolis, which they abandoned to pillage. From that time it has lain in ruins.  BIJAPUR, or, in Southern India, the ancient capital of an independent sovereignty of the same name, and once an extensive, splendid, and opulent city, but now retaining only the vestiges of its former grandeur. It is situated in a fertile plain, in 16 50 N. lat. and 75 48 E. long., and is a place of great extent, consisting of three dis tinct portions the citadel, the fort, and the remains of the city. The citadel, a mile in circuit, is a place of great strength, well built of the most massive materials, and en compassed by a ditch 100 yards wide, formerly supplied with water, but now nearly filled up with rubbish, so that its original depth cannot be discovered. It was built in 1489, by Yusaf Adil Shah, the founder of the dynasty of Bijapur. The fort consists of a rampart flanked by numerous towers, a ditch, and a covered way. Its defences, which are not less than six miles in circumference, were completed by Ali Adil Shah in 1566. The interior formerly contained the king s palace, the houses of the nobility, large magazines, and extensive gardens. At present, though considerable portions of the area are covered with buildings or ruins, there is room for corn-fields and extensive enclosures. Outside the fort are remains of a vast city, now for the most part in ruins, but the innumerable tombs, mosques, caravanserais, and other edifices, which have resisted the havoc of time, afford abundant evidence of the ancient splendour of the place. It is asserted by the natives that Bijapur contained, according to authentic records, 1 600 mosques and nearly 1,000,000 houses. The number of houses is certainly overrated ; that of the mosques, in the opinion of recent travellers, is no exaggeration. The outer wall of the city on the western side runs nearly south and north, and is of great extent. It is built of stone, is of prodigious thickness, and is about 20 feet in height, with a ditch and rampart; and at intervals of 100 yards are capacious towers, built of large hewn stones. The whole is now in a ruinous condition, the wall and the towers having in many places fallen into the ditch, and in other parts being covered with rubbish. Several mosques and mauso leums, adorned with all the embellishments of Eastern architecture, are still to be seen in Bijapur. The fort in the interior is adorned with many of these edifices, in rather better preservation than the outworks. Among these is the great mosque, which is 97 yards long by 55 broad. The wings, which are 15 yards broad, project 73 yards from the north and south ends, enclosing on three sides, with the body of the mosque, a large reservoir of water and a fountain. The mausoleum of Sultan Muhammad Shah is a plain building, 153 feet square, over which is reared a dome 117 feet in diameter at its greatest concavity, and called by the natives the grand cupola. The mosque and mausoleum of Ibrahim Adil Shah, king of Bijapur, which was probably completed about the year 1620, is said to have cost 1,700,000, and to have occupied thirty-six years in its construction. It is built on a basement 130 yards in length by 52 in breadth, and raised 15 feet. On this is a plain build ing, 115 feet by 76, covered by an immense dome raised on arches. The mausoleum is a room 57 feet square, enclosed by two verandahs, 13 feet in breadth and 22 feet in height. There are, besides, many other public buildings more or less injured by time and the violence of the Marhattas. Almost all the buildings, the palaces of the fort excepted, are of massive stone, and in the most durable style ; and at the same time the workmanship is minutely elegant. Among the curiosities of the capital is the celebrated monster gun, stated to be the largest piece of cast brass ordnance in the world. It was captured from the king of Ahmadnagar by the king of Bijapur about the middle of the 17th century. An inscription on the gun recording that fact was crazed by Aurangzeb, who substituted the present inscription, stating that he conquered Bijapur in 1685. The city is well watered, having, besides numerous wells, several rivulets running through it. After the dissolution of the great Bahmani dynasty of the Deccan in 1489, a race of independent sovereigns arose, who ruled over the new kingdom of Bijapur, extending on the east from the confluence of the Bhimd, and the Krishna to the sea-coast, on the west from Goa to Bombay. Their rule endured through several generations, until at length, in 1650, Shah Jahan compelled them to become tributary to the empire ; and shortly after, their monarchy was totally subverted by his successor Auraugzeb. The city and territory of Bijapur remained annexed to Dehli till 1724, when the Nizam established his independence in the Deccan, and included Bijapur within his dominions. His sway over this portion of his acquisitions, was, how ever, of brief duration ; for, being defeated by the Peshwa 