Page:Historic Landmarks of the Deccan.djvu/115

 before the destruction of its roof, undoubtedly domed, arcades, and terraced approaches. The Barid Shahi kings are blamed, by local tra- dition, for the dehberate destruction of monuments of the magnficience of their greater predecessors, the Bahmanis, and the Takht Mahal is cited as an instance of their vandalism.

The Tirkash Mahals which was the hall of audience of the Barid Shahi kings ^ the Gajan Mahal, and the Rangin Mahal are all interest- ing buildings, and the mother-of-pearl inlaid work of the last is very beautiful. This building has unfortunately been disfigured in recent years by the whitewashing of some old carved work in dark coloured wood.

The old guns in the fort are numerous, and some of them are very large. The finest is a gun, twenty-four feet in length, made in 1580, in the reign of Ali Barid Shah. It bears some engraved inscriptions, one of .which gives the weight of the ball which it carried as six maunds and half a seer, and of its charge as one maund and ten seers, to which ten seers were to be added if it were desired to increase the range.

The most interesting of the numerous tombs in the neighbourhood of Bidar are those of the Bahmani kings. These are, for the most part, large rectangular masses of masonry surmounted by heavy domes and adorned with tiers of arches. Their doorways are low and insig- nificant. The tomb of Ahmad Shah Wali, however, is beautifully adorn- ed with enamel, and is in a very fair state of preservation. A yearly gathering is held at the tomb to commemorate the saintly king. The third tomb, that of Humayun the Tyrant, the grandson of Ahmad Shah, is in ruins, half the dome having fallen away. There is an interesting legend to the effect that the dome split immediately after the Tyrant's body had been placed in the tomb, as though refusing to shelter it. Unfortunately there are many still living who remember the tomb in an undamaged condition, and it is probably not more than twenty years since the dome collapsed. Between the Bahmani tombs and the town is an octagonal building without a dome, the tomb of Khalil-uHah {But Shikan, or the Iconoclast). This saint was adopted by Ahmad Shah as his patron after the capital had been removed to Bidar.

The most beautiful of all the tombs in Bidar is that of Ali Barid Shah. The older Bahmani tombs excite what admiration they deserve