Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/280

 INDIAN SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE. BOOK VII. as there, but they are placed nearer to one another, and though of greater diameter the width of the whole is less, and they are only two ranges in depth. Except the Moti Masjid at Agra, to be described hereafter, there is no mosque in India more remarkable for simple elegance than this. Besides these larger mosques there are several smaller ones of great beauty, of which two those of Muhafiz Khan and the Rani Sipri are pre-eminent. The end elevation of the first, built in 1492, is by no means happy, but its details are exquisite and it retains its minarets, which is too seldom the case. 1 As will be seen from the woodcut, as well as from those of the Jami and Queen's Mosques (Nos. 387 and 389), the lower part of the minarets is of pure Hindu architecture ; all the bases at Ahmadabad are neither more or less than the perpendicular parts of the basement of Hindu or Jaina temples elongated. Every form and every detail^ may be found at Chandravati or Abu, except in one particular on the sides of all Hindu temples are niches contain- ing images. This the Moslim could not tolerate, so he filled them with tracery. We can follow the progress of the development of this form, from the first attempt in the Jami' Masjid, through all its stages to the exquisite patterns of the Queen's Mosque at Mirzapur. After a century's experience they produced forms which as architectural ornaments will, in their own class, stand comparison with any employed in any age or in any part of the world ; and in doing this they invented a class of window-tracery in which they were also unrivalled. The specimen below (Woodcut No. 394), from a window in the desecrated mosque of Sidi Sayyid in the palace enclosure (the Bhadr) will convey an idea of its elaborate- ness and grace. 2 It would be difficult to excel the skill with 393. Mosque of MuMfiz KMn. Scale 25 ft. to i in. 1 The finials of all the early domes and minars in Gujarat bore the pippal leaf ; but when this mosque was repaired by the public works about thirty years ago, the Turkish crescent was substituted. The Turks themselves only assumed the symbol at Constantinople, after its capture, and hardly before this mosque was com- pleted. The details of this beautiful masjid are pretty fully illustrated in 'Archaeological Survey of Western India, ' vol. vii. plates 97 to 104. 2 Ibid. vol. vii. pp. 41 et seqq. and plates 46 to 51.