DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9541#0582
558 INDIAN SAKACENTC ARCHITECTURE. Hook. VII.
tained the struggle against the Hindu principalities of the south for
nearly a century and a half, with very little assistance from either
the central power at Delhi or their cognate .states in the Dekhan.
Before the end of the loth century, however, they began to feel that
decay inherent in all Eastern dynasties; and the Hindus might have
recovered their original possessions, up to the Vindhya at least, but
for the appearance of a new and more vigorous competitor in the
field in the person of Yusaf Khan, a son of Amurath II. of Anatolia.
He was thus a Turk of pure blood, and, as it happens, born ill Con-
stantinople, though his mother was forced to fly thence while he
was still an infant. After a varied career he was purchased for the
body-guard at Bidar, and soon raised himself to such pre-eminence
that on the defeat of Dustur Dinar, in 1501, he was enabled to
proclaim his independence and establish himself as the founder of
the Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur.
For the first sixty or seventy years after their accession, the
struggle for existence was too severe to admit of the Adil Shahis
devoting much attention to architecture. The real building epoch
of the city commences with Ali, a.d. 1557, and all the important
buildings are crowded into the 100 years which elapsed between his
accession and the wars with Aurungzebe, which ended in the final
destruction of the dynasty.
During that period, however, their capital was adorned with a
series of buildings as remarkable as those of any of the Mahomedan
capitals of India, hardly excepting even Agra and Delhi, and showing
a wonderful originality of design not surpassed by those of such
capitals as Jaunpore or Ahmedabad, though differing from them in
a most marked degree.
It is not easy now to determine how far this originality arose
from the European descent of the Adil Shahis and their avowed
hatred of everything that belonged to the Hindus, or whether it
arose from any local circumstances, the value of which we can now
hardly appreciate. My impression is, that the former is the true
cause, and that the largeness and grandeur of the Bijapur style
is owing to its quasi-Western origin, and to reminiscences of the
great works of the Roman and Byzantine architects.
Like most Mahomedan dynasties, the Adil Shahis commenced
their architectural career by building a mosque and madrissa in
the fort at Bijapur out of Hindu remains. How far the pillars used
there by them are in situ, or torn from other buildings, we are not
informed. From photographs, it would appear that considerable
portions of them are used at least for the purposes for which they
were intended; but this is not incompatible with the idea that they
were removed from their original positions and readapted to their
present purposes. Be this as it may, as soon as the dynasty had
tained the struggle against the Hindu principalities of the south for
nearly a century and a half, with very little assistance from either
the central power at Delhi or their cognate .states in the Dekhan.
Before the end of the loth century, however, they began to feel that
decay inherent in all Eastern dynasties; and the Hindus might have
recovered their original possessions, up to the Vindhya at least, but
for the appearance of a new and more vigorous competitor in the
field in the person of Yusaf Khan, a son of Amurath II. of Anatolia.
He was thus a Turk of pure blood, and, as it happens, born ill Con-
stantinople, though his mother was forced to fly thence while he
was still an infant. After a varied career he was purchased for the
body-guard at Bidar, and soon raised himself to such pre-eminence
that on the defeat of Dustur Dinar, in 1501, he was enabled to
proclaim his independence and establish himself as the founder of
the Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur.
For the first sixty or seventy years after their accession, the
struggle for existence was too severe to admit of the Adil Shahis
devoting much attention to architecture. The real building epoch
of the city commences with Ali, a.d. 1557, and all the important
buildings are crowded into the 100 years which elapsed between his
accession and the wars with Aurungzebe, which ended in the final
destruction of the dynasty.
During that period, however, their capital was adorned with a
series of buildings as remarkable as those of any of the Mahomedan
capitals of India, hardly excepting even Agra and Delhi, and showing
a wonderful originality of design not surpassed by those of such
capitals as Jaunpore or Ahmedabad, though differing from them in
a most marked degree.
It is not easy now to determine how far this originality arose
from the European descent of the Adil Shahis and their avowed
hatred of everything that belonged to the Hindus, or whether it
arose from any local circumstances, the value of which we can now
hardly appreciate. My impression is, that the former is the true
cause, and that the largeness and grandeur of the Bijapur style
is owing to its quasi-Western origin, and to reminiscences of the
great works of the Roman and Byzantine architects.
Like most Mahomedan dynasties, the Adil Shahis commenced
their architectural career by building a mosque and madrissa in
the fort at Bijapur out of Hindu remains. How far the pillars used
there by them are in situ, or torn from other buildings, we are not
informed. From photographs, it would appear that considerable
portions of them are used at least for the purposes for which they
were intended; but this is not incompatible with the idea that they
were removed from their original positions and readapted to their
present purposes. Be this as it may, as soon as the dynasty had