An Irruption of Gothic Style Forms into Indo-Islamic Architecture

Author(s): H. Goetz
Source: Artibus Asiae, Vol. 22, No. 1/2 (1959), pp. 53-58
Published by: Artibus Asiae Publishers
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3249143
Accessed: 23-04-2018 20:32 UTC

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 H. GOETZ

AN IRRUPTION OF GOTHIC STYLE FORMS

INTO INDO-ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURE

M dndi, the capital of the Milwa sultanate (1392-1531), is one of the most impressive
sights of Indo-Islamic architecture. Already miles before one reaches the three lines of
fortifications which defend the neck connecting the inaccessible plateau high above the Narmadd
Valley with the fertile table land of Mdlwa, one passes along the ruined mausoleums, caravan-
sardis and garden palaces of the once so beautiful suburb Na'lcha. Inside the Delhi Gate one
encounters, first the royal palace, occupying the northwestern corner of the plateau and, east
of it, the palace and durbdr hall of Medini Rdi, a Rdjput officer who in the days of the dis-
integration of the sultanate had been dictator 5 12-17. The town centre had once been situated
further south, around the gigantic Jami' Masjid built by Hashang Shah (1405-35) and Mah-
mad I (i436-69), the white marble mausoleum of H6shang and the tomb and Madrasa of
Mahm-ad I. Further to the south, there are the mosque of Mahm-id's father Malik Mughis and
the LdI Mahal (the royal summer palace), the sardis and tombs of other nobles near the Sdgar
Taldo, and at last the palaces of Bdz-Bahddur (actually by Nasir-ud-din, 15 00oo-1 o) and of his
mistress, the famous singer Ripmati.
The palace of the sultans is the vastest in India, and most interesting. For although partly in
ruins, it has been much less altered by modern "improvements" than similar other sites more
frequented by tourists; and it is still possible to pass through the former courts, halls and gardens
as in the time of their occupation by the court. The pile of buildings stands on the site of the
palace of the mediaeval Paramara rajas, grouped around three artificial lakes, the Siraj (sun)
Talho, the Munja Taldo (named after rdjd Munja Vdkpati II 974-95, grandfather of the famous
Bh6ja of Dhdra), and the Kp-ar (camphor) Taldo. The mosque, built of spoils from Paramdra
temples by Dilivar Khan (1392-1405), the durbar hall (Hindola Mahal) and the public recep-
tion rooms lie to the north of the Munja Talho. Along its northern and western sides there are
hot baths, underground rooms for the summer (Champa Ba6li), remnants of gardens, and
balconies overlooking them, and a water palace, all built by Mahmad I. On its eastern side and
around the KIptar Taldo are the ruins of the Zenana, especially the Jahdz (ship) Mahal with its
many halls and bath basins, built between the two lakes likewise in Mahmad's last years or
under his peaceloving successor Ghiyvs-ud-din (1469-1500) who had been completely under
the influence of his numerous zenina, especially of RMni Khurshid, princess of Baglana.
The architecture of the Milwa sultanate is one of the purest in India. Like that of all the
states which about the time of Tamerlane's invasion had broken away from the all-Indian
empire of the Tughluq emperors of Delhi, it represents a reaction against the art of Delhi. But
whereas art in the Bahmani kingdom of the Deccan turned to contemporary Persia, and that

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of Gujardt and Bengal to the Hindu tradition as a source of new inspiration, the Mdlwa style
might be defined rather as a reinterpretation of the Tughluq style in a completely different spirit.
Gone are the oppressive heaviness, the sloping "fortress" walls constructed of rubble and mor-
tar and coated with sandstone slabs or painted plaster, the low domes and vaults. Only occasion-
ally some vestiges of the past turn up: in the very early Delhi Gate the many-cusped ogival
arches of Khilji architecture (preceding that of the Tughluqs); in the likewise early lower
storey of "Ripmati's Pavilions" (once a watch-post and barracks for the defence of the southern
bastion line of the town) the sloping walls, arches and battlements of Tughluq architecture, and
in the Hindola Mahal (built by Mahmiad I) and "Gada Shah's shop" (a Muslim nickname for
Medini Rsi's durbdr hall) massive sloping buttresses of Tughluq type, in this case, however,
made necessary because of the lateral pressure of the huge arches supporting the roof of those
vast audience rooms.

But apart from these few buildings, Mdlwa architecture is the very antithesis of the spirit of
Tughluq art: slim, elegant buildings of dressed sandstone or even white (and black) marble,
with vertical walls and domes supported by higher and higher drums. And yet its initial stock
of forms hardly differed from that of late Tughluq architecture in the reign of Fir6z Shdh
(1351-88): the cube of the pavilion or tomb, with four arched doors in slight central projec-
tions on each side, battlement friezes, domes and turrets at the corners or on both sides of the
projecting wall parts, and arcades ending in similar corner turrets or domes. The Hindu ele-
ments are hardly more than in Delhi architecture, lintels supported by simplified Hindu pillars,
broad eaves of limestone slabs supported by brackets (especially interesting in H6shang Shdh's
tomb) and "jdli" windows (of perforated stone slabs).
Generally speaking, the Islamic architecture of Mdlwa differed from that of contemporary
Delhi in that it did not imitate the innovations common under the Sayyid and L6di sultans
(e. g. the tomb of octagonal groundplan, the depressed keel arches, the exuberant inscription
and ornament friezes of carved and painted stucco, and the baroque distortion of most orna-
ment motives). Instead, there was a certain infiltration of Gujardti-Muslim forms, especially of
the detached ogival arch used as a bracket (porch of the Lat Mdsjid at Dhar 1405; Malik Mughis'
mosque 1432, pulpit of the Jami' Masjid, under Mahmad I, at M~ndd). In the later period a
rich organization of the walls into many arches and arched niches and windows is found (e. g.
Gadd Shah's shop, Daryd Khan's funeral mosque) which reminds of L6di architecture, but may
be no more than a parallel development, and natural expression of a late style. Mdlwa architec-
ture, thus, excels not by originality, but by the purity and harmony of its forms, by a taste much
more sure than in any of the other Indo-Islamic states of the time.
And yet, in the buildings of the reign of Mahmad I around the Munja Talho one finds many
features otherwise unknown in Indo-Islamic art. At the western end of the south facade of the

royal palace, opposite the water palace, there is a now walled-up, former brick gateway (fig. I),
a hall of ogival arches and vaults resting on very heavy pillars with capitals wherein the trans-
ition from the (in this case slightly varied) cross section of the shaft to the rectangle of the wall
above is achieved by simple squinches. Similar short and thick pillars appear in the north gallery
of the water palace (fig. 2), constructed, howeve, in stone, some in a sort of "rustica". Such pil-
lars are found nowhere in India (except in the Sola Khamba mosque at Bidar 1423/4); the first
has a - not less isolated - counterpart in the mosque of Aqsunqur (i347) in Cairo. But both

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 Fig. I Fig. 2
Southwestern gateway o
at the Mun

Fig. 3
Balcony of the royal palace overlooking the Munja Talio

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 Fig. 5
Fig. 4 Corner of a banqueting hall in the royal palace
Doors and windows of a roof pavilion of the Jahdz Mahal with ogival and octagonal windows

Fig. 6
Window "rosette" in the water palace,
exactly like in the crusadcr church of Fig. 7
St. John, Ibail (Byblos) Lotus pond near the water palace

Fig. 8
Bath in the Jah~z Mahal

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arouse the memory of Gothic churches, or of the colonnades of the Palace of the Doges at
Venice. Likewise in the south wall of the palace facing the Munja Taldo is a pavilion (fig. 3)
with a former balcony of semi-octagonal groundplan, resting on a lower storey of three arched
openings divided by a lintel into a rectangular door and an ogival window on top. Though the
octagonal arrangement of arches was not quite new, though rather rare (Lit Masjid and mosque
of Malik Mughis), the bipartition into a door and a window is otherwise almost unknown,
whereas the whole arrangement, especially the slim, light proportions of the whole structure
remind of the apsis of some Gothic chapel. An even slimmer balcony "tower" embellishes the
front of "Bdz-Bahddur's Palace" built by Ndsir-ud-din (1500oo-15 I o). Doors of a similar type,
however, are found also in the roof pavillions of the Jahdz Mahal (fig. 4) and in a water kiosk
projecting into the Kdp-ar Taldo. The roof pavilions and the staircase of the Jahdz Mahal, the
ruins of a banqueting hall (?) in the royal palace and the water palace have quite extraordinary
windows (figs. 4-6) likewise alien to Indo-Islamic, in fact to Indian art, but again reminiscent
of the rosette windows of Gothic churches. In the banqueting hall the window is octagonal, in
the Jahdz Mahal and water palace they are oval, two segments of cusped arches confronting
each other, in the water palace there are round ones and others (fig. 6) of very complicated
shape (eight cusps, each shaped like the later trifoliated roof-battlements of Indo-Islamic art).
And last of all, one has to mention the water basins of the Jahaz Mahal (fig. 8) and of the water
palace (fig. 7), polygonal, with sides cut out in complicated courves, with steps and seats. They
are evidently related to the ancient Indian lotus ponds (good examples are at Polonndruva in
Ceylon), a variety of the Hindu "kunds". They turn up here for the first time in Indo-Islamic
art. For similar basins in the buildings of Bidar (Lil Bagh: Barid period) and Fathpur-Sikri are
later, and evidently inspired by the MIndi monuments here discussed. However, the lotus
pond was not unknown in Islamic art, either; for we have similar basins in early Mamlak
houses in Cairo (one now in the Museum of Islamic Art) and their tradition can be tracked back
at least to FRtimid times. In view of the whole attitude of Mdlwa architecture, it seems more
probably that Egypt, and not Hindu art, had in this case provided the direct model. But the
shapes of the basins in the Jahdz Mahal cannot be derived at all from the lotus pond, and seem
to be rather free inventions inspired by the similar many-curved windows.
How can we explain this crop of novel motives in the architecture of Mdlwa? They are
obviously of non-Indian origin. And the only country from which they can have been imported
is Mamlik Egypt. This, however, is most probable because in 1465 Sultan Mahmtid received a
patent of sovereignty, together with many presents, from the 'Abbdsid Caliph al-Mustanjid-
billah Ylsuf, through a special envoy, Sharaf-ul-Mulk. Though the caliphs then had been re-
duced to obsequious courtiers of the Mamlk sultans of Egypt, such patents still were highly
prized by the Indian sultans, as they were granted only on rare occasions. Long negotiations
and costly presents to the needy "commanders of the faithful" must have preceded this embassy.
It is thus not suprising that sultan Mahmtd would have given expression to his pleasure over
this honour by having "Egyptian" motives incorporated into the architecture of his palaces at

However, this explanation is not quite satisfactory. For only a few motives, i.e. the lotus
pond, the brick pillars of the southwestern palace gateway and perhaps also the round window
might be derived from Mamlik-Egyptian art. The Aqsunqur mosque at Cairo was erected more

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than a century before Mahmid's time and, likewise an isolated case, is not likely to have been
the prototype of the brick pillars (the 'Abbdsid brick pilasters can be discarded as being of a
very different type). The parallel which imposes itself more forcefully, is that with the Gothic
architecture of Europe. For both the round and trefoil window and the (so rare) thick brick
pillars rather seem to be Egyptian loans from the art of the crusaders. Such loans are not sur-
prising if one keeps in mind that whole Gothic doorways have been built into some Cairo
mosques and palaces. When the crusades collapsed and many Christians were made prisoners
by the Muslims, a certain amount of Gothic art infiltrated into Islamic art, as, conversely,
Islamic civilization had a strong influence on Europe.
However, it is rarely realized how many Christians were brought also to India by the Muslim
slave-dealers. Already in the 14th century the harems of the Bahmani sultdns were full of
Frankish and Russian women, and the remarkable progress of fortification technique under
these same sultans is attributed to Frankish slaves acquainted with the architecture of the formi-
dable crusaders' castles. The pillars of the Sola Khamba mosque at Bidar may go back to the
same influence. Frankish rule in the Holy Land had disappeared already between 1263 and 1303.
The imports of Frankish slaves in the 14th and I 5th centuries must, therefore, be connected
with later wars or with persecutions of the Christians by the Mamlik sultdns. Such a war not
long before Mahmiad's reign was the conquest of Cyprus in I424-26 by Sultan Barsbdy, when
the Lusignan king Janus was paraded through the streets of Cairo in the company of over a
thousand captured Frankish knights. And such a persecution occurred during Mahmad's reign,
in 1444, in reaction to the propagation of a new crusade by Pope Eugene IV. Many Christian
churches and holy places were desecrated, the Holy Sepulchre just escaped destruction, and
especially the Latins suffered violent persecution, torture, imprisonment, even enslavement and
execution. Might it be possible that some such slaves had been brought to Mdnda in connection
with the caliph's embassy or the preceding negotiations? And that, being skilled and educated
persons, they had been asked to provide sultan Mahmad with "Egyptian" designs? Such
fantastic "foreign" structures in order to satisfy the exotic whim of some ruler are not so un-
known in India, e. g. the "Turkish Sultdna's house" at Fathpur-Sikri, the Chinoiserie buildings
or the "RAml" Darwdza at Lucknow, the Mekka Masjid at Bijdpur, etc. None of these buildings
is an exact copy of its foreign model. The local artists who had to execute the design adapted it
as far as possible to their accustomed stock of motives. The same situation we find at Mdnda.
The general impression is foreign although the execution in detail fits into the local tradition. In
any case, I cannot find a better explanation for these strange motives than an irruption of Gothic
art forms through Christian slaves brought from Mamlhk Egypt.

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