Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/229

CHAP. I. INTRODUCTORY. 187 effect a settlement in Sindh. It proved a barren conquest, how- ever ; for though a Muhammadan dynasty was established there, it soon became independent of the Khalifat, and eventually died out. The supremacy of the Khalifat was as brief as it was brilliant. Its hour of greatest glory was about the year A.D. 800, in the reign of Harun a/-Rashtd. From that time decay set in ; and after two centuries more the effeminacy and corruption inherent in Eastern dynasties had so far progressed as to encourage the Northern hordes to move. During the course of the nth century the Tartar hordes, who were hitherto only known as shepherds pasturing their herds on the steppes of Central Asia, made their appearance south of the Paropamisan range as conquerors ; and for six centuries their progress was steadily onwards, till, in the year A.D. 1683, we find the Turks encamped under the walls of Vienna, and the Mughal Aurangzib lord paramount of the whole of India Proper, while Egypt and all the intervening countries owned the rule of sovereigns of Turanian race. The architecture of the nations under the Arab Khalifat has been elsewhere described, and is of very minor importance. 1 The ruling people were of Semitic race, and had no great taste for architectural magnificence ; and unless where they happened to govern a people of another stock, they have left few traces of their art. With the Northern hordes the case was widely different ; they were of Turanian blood, more or less pure, and wherever they went their mosques, and especially their tombs, remain to mark their presence, and to convey an idea of their splendour. In order to understand what follows, it is necessary to bear in mind that the Semitic conquest, from Mecca as a centre, extended from the mouths of the Guadalquivir to those of the Indus, and left but little worthy of remark in architecture. The Turanian conquest, from Bukhara and Balkh as centres, extended from Constantinople to Katak, and covered the whole intervening space with monuments of every class. Those of the west and centre have been described in speaking of Turkey and Persia ; 2 the Eastern branch remains to be dis- cussed, and its monuments are those of which this work purports to be a description. The Saracenic architects showed in India the same pliancy in adopting the styles of the various people among whom they 1 Egypt showed little taste for archi- tectural display till she fell under the sway of the Mamluk Sultans, A.D. 1250, and Saracenic architecture in Persia practi- cally commences with the Saljuqides, A.D. 1036. 2 ' History of Ancient and Medieval Architecture,' 3rd ed. vol. ii. pp. 556fTg.