Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/298

 254 INDIAN SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE. BOOK VII. employ in their dwellings a curvilinear form of roof, which has become so familiar to their eyes, that they consider it beautiful (Woodcut No. 404). It is so in fact when bambu and thatch are the materials employed, but when translated into stone or brick archi- tecture, its taste is more questionable. There is, however, so much that is conventional in architecture, and beauty depends to such an extent on associa- tion, that strangers are hardly fair judges in a case of this sort. Be this as it may, certain it is, at all events, that after being elaborated into a feature of permanent architecture in Bengal, ^ S CUr V ilinear form found its way in the 1 7th century to Delhi, and in the 1 8th to Lahor, and all the intermediate buildings from, say A.D. 1650, betray its presence to a greater or less extent. It is a curious illustration, however, of how much there is in architecture that is conventional, and how far familiarity may render that beautiful which is not so abstractedly that, while to the European eye this form always remains unpleasing, to the native eye Hindu or Muhammadan it is the most elegant of modern inventions. 1 404 Modern Curved Form 01 Roof. Even irrespective, however, of its local peculiarities, the architecture of Gaur, the Muhammadan capital of Bengal, deserves attention for its extent and the immense variety of detail which it displays. It was in A.D. 1193 that Qutbu-d- Din Aibak captured Delhi, and in the same year Muhammad Bakhtyar Khalji extended the Moslim conquests down the Ganges as far as Bengal. Immediately he took Nadiya he established himself, in 1 194, as governor at Lakhnauti or Gaur, in which office he was afterwards confirmed by the Sultan. The successive governors ruled with almost independent authority, and in 1282 Nasiru-d-Din Bughra Khan, a son of the emperor Ghiyasu-d-Din Balban, was appointed governor, and the office became hereditary in his family. In 1338 Fakhru-d-Dtn Mubarak rebelled and slew the governor Qadar Khan, and separate governors ruled in East and West Bengal. But, in 1345, Shamsu-d-Din Ilyas assassinated the ruler of West Bengal, i In this respect it is something like the curvilinear pediments which Roman and Italian architects employed as win- dow heads. Though detestable in them- selves, yet we use and admire them because we are accustomed to them.