Ancient Indian architecture was lush and ornate, with sculptures small and big, adorning the gates, the walls and the tall conical roofs of sprawling temple complexes. However, with the Turkic invasions and Sultanate rule in North India from the 12th century, there was suddenly a totally new style in vogue.
Calligraphy replaced statues, and single roomy buildings replaced many smaller ones, topped by the larger curved arches and domes we associate with Islamic architecture in India, and indeed, across the world. Well, this is the story of how the arch and dome first came to India!
Part of Islamic culture
The arch was extensively used across their empire by the Romans, and could be seen everywhere, from their gigantic aqueducts to triumphal arches and the Colosseum. Its popularity spread to pre-Islamic Persia. Like other aspects of Persian culture – calligraphy, geometric designs and so on – arches eventually became an essential part of Islamic culture.
When Qutb-ud-din Aibak became the governor of Delhi in 1192 AD many centuries later, he ordered a brand new mosque to be built to mark his victory. He naturally wanted to have it look like the mosques of his homeland…except, Indian stonemasons, talented and skilled as they were, did not know how to construct ‘true’ arches and domes at all!
Many attempts
What they did know was a common technique used in Hindu architecture called ‘corbelling’, in which successively overhanging layers of bricks rose up to cover the span of the doorway. However, this method did not have the load-bearing capacity to support very large openings. Thus Indian temple gates were very tall, but narrow. Aikbak’s Indian stone-masons decided to improvise – they continued to build arch-like openings using the stacked corbelling (i.e. the ‘fake’ arch). However, they simply chiselled away the inner surfaces of the protruding brick corbels into curved shapes, so it would look a true arch!
Now because they were not ‘true’ load-bearing arches, the gates were still much narrower than the ones found in Central Asia, but happily enough, the Sultans were happy with it! Early tombs like those of Sultan Ghari and Iltutmish are good examples of this fake-but-true arch style.
Now, it’s perfected
It was only with the tomb of Balban in 1287 CR, nearly fifty years later, that the first true arch was employed in India, after the Indian stone-masons had learned the technique from their foreign counterparts! Other early examples were the Alai Darwaza in the Qutb complex, and the Jamat Khana Masjid in Nizamuddin, built during Khilji times.
The arch technique was soon honed and expanded, and by Mughal times, we see large exquisite arches, such as in Humayun’s tomb and of course, the Taj Mahal.
Picture Credit : Google