Page:The Architecture of Ancient Delhi Especially the Buildings Around the Kutb Minar 1872 by Henry Hardy Cole.djvu/87

 Masjid-i-Kutb-ul-Isldtn* 59 Photograph V. PILLARS IN THE EAST COLONNADE OF THE MOSQUE. I HE most elaborate and effective pillars are in the Colonnade at the east end of the courtyard. They are budt up to the same height, but beyond this the}' have no precise resemblance one to the other. Each part of them differs as regards size, shape and detail of ornamentation ; some are made up of as many as five detached pieces, but as a rule only the two shafts, base and cap are in separate blocks. Crowning the columns in the centre of this cloister are a number of caps, with brackets arranged to support architraves at the angle of an octagon and to sustain the central dome, so that in some, at least, of the pre-existing twenty-seven temples, the Jain method of constructing a roof was employed by the Hindus. The pillars in the court- yard are thirteen feet in height and rest on a slab of stone two feet square and nine inches hio-h. The interval hi the length of the Colonnade, is seven feet seven inches and a half from centre to centre, and six feet one inch in the cross direction. The pillar in the foreground has a cap consisting of four brackets, to the under part of each of which figures or statues appear to have been fastened. The lower part of each bracket has a hole to receive the mortice of the figures or ornaments used. The shaft under this capital is, no doubt, wrongly placed. There is no support upon which the figure could have rested. In the lower shaft on the next column there are the remains of a small ledge or support for a figure, and it seems to me to be a reasonable surmise that such a shaft as this would have been more appropriate to the capital than the one which at present is there. K