DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27192#0288
Chap. VII.
BENGAL.
253
CHAPTER VII.
BENGAL.
CONTENTS.
Bengali roofing—Qadam-i-Rasul Mosque, Gaur—Sona, Adinah and Eklakbi
Mosques, Malda—Minar—Gateways.
Capital—Gaur.
It is not very easy to understand why the architects of Malwa
should have adopted a style so essentially arcuate as that which
we find in the capital, while their brethren, on either hand, at
Jaunpur and Ahmadabad, clung so fondly to a trabeate form
wherever they had an opportunity of employing it. The Mandu
architects had the same initiation to the Hindu forms in the
mosque at Dhar ; and there must have been innumerable Hindu
and Jaina temples to furnish materials to a far greater extent
than we find them utilised, but we neither find them borrowing
nor imitating, but adhering steadily to the pointed-arch style,
which is the essential characteristic of their art in foreign
countries. It is easy to understand, on the other hand, why in
Bengal the trabeate style never was in vogue. The country
is practically without stone, or any suitable material for forming
either pillars or beams. Having nothing but brick, it was
almost of necessity that they employed arches everywhere, and
in every building that had any pretensions to permanency. The
Bengal style being, however, the only one wholly of brick in
India Proper, has a local individuality of its own, which is
curious and interesting, though, from the nature of the material,
deficient in many of the higher qualities of art which
characterise the buildings constructed with larger and better
materials. Besides elaborating a pointed-arched brick style of
their own, the Bengalis introduced a new form of roof, which
has had a most important influence on both the Muhammadan
and Hindu styles in more modern times. As already mentioned
in describing the Chhatri at Alwar (ante, p. 169), the Bengalis,
taking advantage of the elasticity of the bambu, universally
BENGAL.
253
CHAPTER VII.
BENGAL.
CONTENTS.
Bengali roofing—Qadam-i-Rasul Mosque, Gaur—Sona, Adinah and Eklakbi
Mosques, Malda—Minar—Gateways.
Capital—Gaur.
It is not very easy to understand why the architects of Malwa
should have adopted a style so essentially arcuate as that which
we find in the capital, while their brethren, on either hand, at
Jaunpur and Ahmadabad, clung so fondly to a trabeate form
wherever they had an opportunity of employing it. The Mandu
architects had the same initiation to the Hindu forms in the
mosque at Dhar ; and there must have been innumerable Hindu
and Jaina temples to furnish materials to a far greater extent
than we find them utilised, but we neither find them borrowing
nor imitating, but adhering steadily to the pointed-arch style,
which is the essential characteristic of their art in foreign
countries. It is easy to understand, on the other hand, why in
Bengal the trabeate style never was in vogue. The country
is practically without stone, or any suitable material for forming
either pillars or beams. Having nothing but brick, it was
almost of necessity that they employed arches everywhere, and
in every building that had any pretensions to permanency. The
Bengal style being, however, the only one wholly of brick in
India Proper, has a local individuality of its own, which is
curious and interesting, though, from the nature of the material,
deficient in many of the higher qualities of art which
characterise the buildings constructed with larger and better
materials. Besides elaborating a pointed-arched brick style of
their own, the Bengalis introduced a new form of roof, which
has had a most important influence on both the Muhammadan
and Hindu styles in more modern times. As already mentioned
in describing the Chhatri at Alwar (ante, p. 169), the Bengalis,
taking advantage of the elasticity of the bambu, universally