Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/290

 246 INDIAN SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE. BOOK VII. CHAPTER VI. MALWA. CONTENTS. Dhar The Great Mosque at Mandu The Palaces. CHRONOLOGY. Sultan Dilawar Ghuri. . A.D. 1401 Sultan Hushang Ghtiri. . 1405 Muhammad Ghazni Khan. ,, 1434 Mahmud Shah I. Khalji, cotemp. Rana Kumbha of Chitor. . . ,, 1436 Sultan Ghiyas Shah Khalji. A.D. 1475 Sultan Nasir Shah. . ,,1500 Sultan Mahmud II. . . ,, 1510 Malwa incorporated with Gujarat. . . . ,, 1530 annexed by Akbar. ,, 1569 THE Ghuri dynasty of Mandu attained independence about the same time as the Sharqis of Jaunpur, Sultan DMwar, who governed the province of Malwa from A.D 1387, having assumed the title of Shah in A.D. 1401. It is, however, to his successor Hushang, that Mandu owes its greatness and all the finest of its buildings. The state continued to prosper as one of the independent Moslim principalities till A.D. 1530, when it was incorporated with Gujarat, and was finally annexed to Akbar's dominion in A.D. 1569. The original capital of the state was Dhar, an old Hindu city, about 24 miles northward of Mandu, to which the seat of government was transferred after it became independent. Though an old and venerated city of the Hindus, Dhar contains no evidence of its former greatness, except two mosques erected wholly of Hindu remains. The principal of these, the Jami' Masjid, has a courtyard measuring 102 ft. north and south, by 131 ft. in the other direction. The mosque itself is 119 ft. by 40 ft. 6 in., and its roof is supported by sixty-four pillars of Hindu architecture, 1 2 ft. 6 in. in height, and all of them more or less richly carved, and the three domes that adorn it are also of purely Hindu form. The court is surrounded by an arcade containing forty-four columns, 10 ft. in height, but equally rich in carving. There is here no screen of arches, as at the Qutb or at Ajmir. Internally nothing is visible but Hindu pillars, and,