Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/334

 286 INDIAN SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE. BOOK VII. It is probable that very considerable light will yet be thrown upon the origin of the style which the Mughals introduced into India, from an examination of the buildings erected at Samarkand by Timur a hundred years before Babar's time (A.D. 1393-1404). Now that city is in the hands of the Russians, it is accessible to Europeans. Its buildings have been drawn and photographed, but not yet described so as to be available for scientific purposes, but sufficiently so to indicate the direction in which light may be expected. Though a frightful savage in most respects, Timur was possessed of a true Turki love for noble architecture ; and though he generally massacred the inhabitants of any town that resisted him, he always spared the architects and artists, and sent them to work on the embellish- ment of his capitals. Samarkand was consequently filled with splendid edifices, but, so far as can be judged from the materials available, more resembling in style those of Persia than anything now known to exist in India. The bulbous dome appears every- where, and was not known at that time in India, unless it was in the quasi-Persian province of Sindh. Coloured tiles were the favourite mode of decoration, and altogether their style was gorgeous in the extreme as compared with the sobriety of the later Pathan buildings in India. SHER SnAn, A.D. 1-539-1545. Certainly one of the most remarkable men who ever ruled in northern India, though his reign was limited to only five years' duration ; and during that brief space, disturbed by all the troubles incident to a usurpation, Sher Shah left his impress on every branch of the administration. The revenue system, the police, the army administration, all the great reforms, in fact, which Akbar so successfully carried out, were commenced, and to some extent perfected, by this usurper, as the Mughals call him. In architecture, too, which most concerns us here, he certainly pointed out the path by which his successor reached such eminence. The most perfect of his buildings that I am acquainted with is the mosque in the Purana Kila or Kila Kohna at Delhi. The walls of this place were repaired by Humayun in A.D. 1533, and, according to the latest authorities, it is said to have been built by Sher Shah in A.D. 1541 (Plate XXXII.). 1 It is a single hall, with five openings in front through pointed arches of what we would call Tudor form, but beautifully varied in design, and 1 Cunningham, ' Reports,' vol. i. p. 222 ; vol. iv. p. 74 ; Carr Stephen's ' Archae- ology of Delhi,' p. 190 ; Fanshawe's ' Delhi,' p. 228, frc from which the plate is taken.