Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/96

 68 JAINA ARCHITECTURE. BOOK V. certainly of its age. The weak part of the composition is the dome. It is elegant, but too conventional. It no longer has any constructive propriety, but has become a mere orna- ment. It is not difficult, however, to see why natives should admire and adopt it. When the eyes of a nation have been educated by a gradual succession of changes in any architectural object, persevered in through five or six centuries, the taste becomes so accustomed to believe the last fashion to be the best, the change has been so gradual, that people forget how far they are straying from the true path. The European, who has not been so educated, sees only the result, without having followed the steps by which it has been so reached, and is shocked to find how far it has deviated from the form of a true dome of construction, and, finding it also unfamiliar, condemns it. So, indeed, it is with nine-tenths of the ornaments of Hindu architecture. Few among us are aware how much education has had to do with their admiration of classical or mediaeval art, and few, consequently, perceive how much their condemnation of Indian forms arises from this very want of gradual and appropriate education. CONVERTED TEMPLES. Another form in which we can study the architecture of the Jains in the north of India is the courtyards of the early mosques which the Muhammadans erected on their first entry into India. So essentially do some of these retain their former features that it might be convenient to describe them here. It is doubtful, however, in some instances whether the pillars are some or all of them in their original position, or to what extent they have been altered or eked out by the conquerors. Be this as it may, for our present purposes the one fact that is certain is, that none of them are now Jaina temples. All are Muhammadan mosques, and it will, therefore, be more logical, as well as more convenient, to group them with the latter rather than with the former class of buildings. Were it not for this, the Arhai-din-ka Jhompra, at Ajmir so called might be, and has been, described as a Jaina temple : 1 it was probably built on the site and with the materials of Brahmanical ones. So might a great part of the mosque at the Qutb, near Delhi. That at Kanauj, however, was originally a rearrangement, and has been much altered since I knew it ; that at Dhar, near Mandu, is of comparatively recent date; while the Hindu and Jaina pillars, so frequently used at Tod's ' Rajasthan,' vol. i. p. 778, and plate facing it.