Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/303

 CHAP. VII. BENGAL. 259 A design, such as that of the Adinah mosque, would be appropriate for a caravanserai ; but in an edifice where expression and beauty were absolutely required it is far too monotonous. The same defect runs through the whole group ; and though their size and elegance of details, joined with the picturesque state of richly foliaged ruin in which they were long found, made them charming subjects for the pencil, they possess all the defects of design we remarked in the great halls of a thousand columns in the south of this country. 1 It seems, indeed, almost as if here we had again got among the Tamil race, and that their peculiarities were reappearing on the surface, though dressed in the garb of a foreign race. Two miles to the south-west of the Adinah masjid is the Ekiakhl mosque or tomb, for it is said to be the tomb of Ghiyasu-d-Dm 'Azam Shah (1390-1397), but there is no inscrip- tion to show this, and it may have been the work of Jalalu-d-Din Muhammad Shah (1414-1443), who was a great builder. It is 80 ft. square and covered by one dome. Much of the materials have been taken from Hindu temples, the structure being built of hornblende slabs and brick, with much em- bossed brick used in the decoration. The corner buttresses are richly carved, reminding one of the bases of minarets, but they had only a capstone above the level of the roof, the corners of which curve downwards on each face. Though much smaller, this was altogether a bolder and architectur- ally finer structure than the Adinah mosque. One of the most inter- esting of the antiquities of the place is a minar, standing just outside the fort to the east (Wood- cut No. 407). For two- thirds of the height it is a 4 7> polygon of twelve sides ; above that circular, till it attains the height of 84 ft. The door Minar at Gaur. (From a Photograph by J. H. Ravenshaw, B.C.S.) 1 Ante, vol. i. page 368, et seqq.