The Sultans of Ahmedabad did what the Muhammadan conquerors have always done wherever their victorious arms have reached ; they oppressed their infidel subjects, forbade their worship, destroyed their temples and con verted the material to their own uses. In Gujarat they stole not only the materials for building their mosques and tombs, but also the architectural style of the Jains—the adherents of one of the two great heresies from Brahmanism, which arose in the sixth century. Mahavira, the founder or reformer of Jainism, with his elevep chief disciples, may be regarded as the first open seceders from Brahmanism, unless one assigns the same date to the revolt of Buddha. " The two schisms have so much in common," says Hopkins in The Religions of India," especially in outward features, that for long it was thought that Jainism was a sub-sect of Buddhism. In their legends, in the localities in which they flourished, and in many minutia: of observances they are alike. Nevertheless, their differences are as great as the resemblance between them, and what Jainism at first ap peared to have got of Buddhism seems now rather the com mon loan made by each sect from Brahmanism." Mahavira, the reputed founder of his sect, was, like Buddha, of aristocratic birth. At the age of twenty-eight he set forth on his mission and betook himself to asceticism. He wandered as an ascetic into many lands, preaching, con verting and enduring the scorn of the wicked. " He was beaten and set upon by sinful men, yet he was never moved to anger." Thus it was that he became the Arhat (vener able), the Jina (victor), the Kivalin (perfect sage). The teaching of the founder became known as Jainism, as Buddhism is the teaching of Buddha the Enlightened. Jainism and Buddhism were merely two out of the dozen heretical sects of importance agitating the region about Benares at the same time. The Jains, as Hopkins says, " drifted westward, while the Buddhist stronghold re mained in the east (both of course being represented in the south as well) ; and so, whereas Buddhism eventually re treated to Nepal and Tibet, the Jains are found in the very centres of old and new (sectarian) Brahmanism, Delhi, Mathura, Jeypur Ajmer." Jainism however never became a dominant creed. Like Quakerism, it found its chief sup porters among the rich middle class and to the Peases and Barclays of Western India we owe the costly Jain temples. The faith is still followed by the great banking families of Gujarat. When the Muhammadan conquered the pro vince and built their Mosques they insisted on the essential features of their own style, the minaret and pointed arch, but as they had to employ Hindu architects they adopted the pillared halls and the traceries and rich surface orna ment of the vanquished people. But the confounding two distinct and opposite styles of architecture is not a com plete success. The Hindu worked out in rock-hewn cavern and dark-pillared hall those ideas of fear and gloom with which his religion associates the divinity. The Muhamma dans expressed the simple ideas of glory and praise to an all powerful Jehovah. All the Muslim wants is a courtyard with a tank for ablution, roofed cloisters to shelter the worshippers, a niche in the east wall to indicate the direction of Mecca, a pulpit for the Friday sermon and a tribune or raised platform from which the Koran is re cited and prayers intoned. There must be, if possible, a minaret from which to call the faithful to prayer, but the dome is not an essential feature. The first mosque which Ahmed Shah built (14r4) illustrates the Moslem's desire to destroy the temples of the heathen and to use their materials to erect his own fane. The mosque itself is founded on the site of ancient temples, and the rows of pillars supporting the dome were taken from infidel shrines. The very carving on the balustrade is Hindu. Nine years after he had built his own private chapel, Ahmed Shah enriched his new capital with the Jumma Musjid, which Fergusson considers to be one of the most beautiful mosques in the east. Quit ting the crowd that blocks the streets, we pass through a mean portal into the courtyard of the Jumma Musjid, paved with fine white marble. The first vision overpowers and captivates, but the enchantment does not endure. It has not the special lasting charm which attaches to a build ing which has some feature peculiar to itself. The three hundred lofty columns supporting the domes are too crowded and their fantastic sculpture seems out of place. It is a Hindu temple converted into a mosque and the soul has gone. On the marble wall opposite the entrance are the words which represent the pride and the humility of the Muslim : " This spacious mosque was erected by Ahmed Shah, a faithful slave of Allah, seeking the mercy of God. He alone is good, He alone is to be worshipped ! " We may however admire the exquisite finish of the delicate fretwork and the ornament of the tower, all that is left of the famous shaking minarets. "A little force at the arch of the upper gallery," an ancient traveller states, made both of them shake " though the roof of the mosque remained un changed." Forbes, in his Oriental Memoirs, describes them " as elegantly proportioned and richly decorated " and " each minaret contains a circular flight of steps leading to a gallery near the summit for the purpose of convening the people to prayer, no bells being in use among the Muhammadans. From these you command an extensive
view of Ahmedabad and the Saburmali winding through a wide campaign." The minarets were thrown down by a great earthquake in 1819, " both of them breaking off at the sill of the window whence the call to prayers used to be chanted." A door in the east wall of the Jumma Musjid leads to the tomb of its royal founder and his two sons. It is a massive structure surmounted by a dome and lighted at intervals by windows of fine fretwork. Beyond Ahmed's stately mausoleum is the burying ground of his favourite sultanas. A narrow and dirty lane leads to it. Mounting some steps we reach a platform, and passing through a lofty gateway enter a rectangular court surrounded by a trellised cloister. In the centre are the tombs of the two queens, one of white marble richly carved, girt with an Arabic inscription in minute relief, the other of black marble inlaid with mother of pearl. And beautiful is the contrast between the black and white marble tombs, the simplicity of the form and the richness and delicacy of the details.
The effect of the Jumma Musjid may be more over whelming, hut there is no building in Ahmedabad which is more pleasing to the eye, none which more thoroughly com mends itself to the critical judgment, than Rani Sipri's mosque.' It is a Hindu building and it carries out logically the principles of Hindu architecture. No arch, as Fer gusson points out, is employed anywhere either construc tively or for ornament, and the minarets, though so ex quisite in design, are not minarets in reality ; they have no internal stairs and no galleries from which the call to prayer could be recited. They are pure ornament of the most graceful kind. The mausoleum, built; like the mosque, of red sandstone, has a substantial grandeur which Fer gusson calls heavy, but there can be no difference of opinion as to the marvellous beauty of the carving of the parapet round it. The Queen's Mosque (in Mirzapur), also built about the same time, has that same wealth of beauty in its details but it is very different in style and general effect. It shows how impossible it is combine the Muhammadan arcuate style with the Hindu trabeate architecture and pre serve harmony. " Although," as Fergusson says, " the architects had got over much of the awkwardness that characterized their earlier efforts in this direction they had not yet conquered them." They did not conquer them until the buildings, though not in every detail, became essentially Muhammadan. Shah Alum's tomb; the Hindu temple of Swamee Nazayen, the windows and the tracery of the niches of the minarets of the Queen's Mosque show how the Hindu sculptor could use his chisel with as free and delicate hand as Raphael could his pencil. It is however from the windows in a desecrated mosque in the Bhadar, or old castle, that we gain the highest conception of his faculties. Upon their construc tion and ornamentation he concentrated all his powers of invention. " It is probably," says Fergusson, " more like a work of nature than any other architectural detail that has yet been designed even by the best architects of Greece or of the Middle Ages." They remind one of the fairy water-works in the poet's enchanted caverns.
" Sometimes like delicatest lattices, Cover'd with crystal vines : their weeping trees Moving about, as in a gentle wind ; Which, in a wink, to wat'ry gauze refined, Pour into shapes of curtain'd canopies Spangled and rich with liquid broderies Of flowers." Nowhere does one feel oneself more thoroughly in an eastern city of past times than in the narrow streets of Ahmedabad, thick with ancient houses, none so poor as not to have a doorway or a window or a wooden pillar carved finely. The wide main street is spanned by the Teen Durwaza or Triple Gateway which the royal founder built. It led into the Maidan Shah or Royal Square, the outer enclosure of the Bandar or Citadel. J. Albert de Mandelslo, who visited Ahmedabad in 1638, and was the guest of the English President, writes : " He brought me to the great market-place called Meydan Schach or the King's Market, which is at least i,600 feet long, and half as many broad, and beset all about with rows of palm-trees and date-trees, intermixed with citron-trees and orange-trees, whereof there are many in the several streets, which is not only very pleasant to the sight, by the delightful prospect it affords, but also makes the walking among them more con venient, by reason of the coolness." Not far from the Royal Square was the King's Palace. " Over the gate there was a kind of curtain or stage, for the music, consisting of violins, haw- boys and bagpipes which play there in the morning, at noon, in the evening and at midnight, as they do in Persia and all other places where the prince professes the Mahumetan religion. All the apartments of the house were sumptuous, gilt and adorned with painting, according to the mode of the country ; but more to their satisfaction, who are pleased with diversity of colours, than theirs, who look for invention, and stand upon the exactness of inven tion." The palace has been converted into a jail and the apartments have been covered with whitewash according to the mode of our civilized government. The gate yet stands, and over it in Persian are the words : " The House of Goodness and Favour," a strange inscription for a jail.