Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/97

 CHAP. IV. CONVERTED TEMPLES. 69 in the fifteenth century, are all imported, and used in positions for which they never were intended. The astylar temples of the Hindus were useless to the Moslims except as quarries a purpose to which they were frequently applied ; but the light columnar style .of the Jains not only supplied materials more easily adapted to their purposes, but furnished hints of which the Moslim architects were not slow to avail themselves. The architecture of Ahmadabad, for instance (A.D. 1410 to 1572), is derived far more directly from the Jaina than from any style familiar to their co-religionists in any other part of the world. The same may be said of that of Jaunpur, though in the last-named city there is hardly a stone that can be said to be derived direct from any previously existing building. The process by which this conversion of a Jaina temple to a Moslim mosque was effected will be easily understood by referring to the plan of that of Vimala on Mount Abu (Woodcut No. 283, supra, p. 37). By removing the principal cell and its porch from the centre of the court, and building up the entrances of the cells that surround it, a courtyard was at once obtained, surrounded by a double colonnade, which always was the typical form of a mosque. Still one essential feature was wanting a more important side towards Mecca ; this they easily obtained by removing the smaller pillars from that side, and re-erecting in their place the larger pillars of the porch, with their dome in the centre ; and, if there were two smaller domes, by placing one of them at each end. Thus, without a single new column or carved stone being required, they obtained a mosque which, for convenience and beauty, was unsurpassed by anything they afterwards erected from their own original designs.