Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/301

 CHAP. VII. BENGAL. 257 In Gaur itself, the Golden or Sona Masjid, called the Barah Darwaza, or twelve-doored, is a very handsome mosque. The facade is in stone, and covered with foliaged patterns in low-relief, borrowed evidently from the terra-cotta ornaments which were more frequently employed, and continued a favourite mode of adorning facades down to the time of the erection of the Kantanagar temple illustrated above (Woodcut No. 354). In the interiors of the mosques the pillars have generally been removed, and the vaults consequently fallen in, so that it is not easy to judge of their effect, even if the jungle would admit of the whole area being grasped at once. Their general dis- position may be judged of, however, by the plan on next page (Woodcut No. 406) of the Adinah mosque at Pandua, which formed at the time it was erected the northern suburb of the capital. The Barah Sona Masjid, outside the fort to the north-east, is perhaps the finest memorial now left at Gaur. Built by Na^rat Shah in 1526, it is 168 ft. in length by 76 ft. outside, with walls 8 ft. thick and faced inside and out with hornblende. It has eleven arched entrances in front, each 5 ft. 1 1 in. wide, and 14 ft. high. These enter the front corridor, the arches of which support the eleven domes of the roof. Beyond this is the masjid proper, of which the roof has all fallen; it had three longi- tudinal aisles, supported by twenty pillars, and there were eleven mihrabs in the wall. At both sides of the doorways at the ends of the corridor, and at the back corners were polygonal minarets of brown basalt, six in all, but their heads are now ruined. From its massive solidity and size this is an imposing building ; indeed this characteristic of the Gaur architecture forms a striking contrast to the lighter arcades of much of the Saracenic style. From inscriptions upon it, it appears that the Adinah masjid was erected by Sikandar Shah, one of the most illustrious of his race (A.D. 1358-1389), with the intention of being himself buried within its precincts, or in its immediate neighbourhood. 1 Its dimensions are considerable, being nearly 507 ft. north and south, and 285 ft. east and west. In the centre it contains a courtyard nearly 400 ft. by 154 ft., surrounded on all sides by a thick wall of brick, divided by eighty-nine similar arched openings, only one of which, that in the centre of the west side facing Mecca, is wider and more dignified than the rest. The roof in like manner was supported by some 260 pillars about 2 ft. square, at the base and 10 ft. 5 in. high some of one block of black hornblende and others built similar in design to those represented in Woodcut No. 405. They are bold and pleasing in 1 His ruined tomb is attached to the west wall near its north end. VOL. II. R