Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/272

228 INDIAN SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE. BOOK VII. ings belonging to the Moslims, which are singularly pleasing specimens of the Jaunpur style, and certainly belong to the same age as those just described. The kingdom of Jaunpur is also rich in little tombs and shrines in which the Moslims have used up Hindu and Jaina pillars, merely rearranging them after their own fashion. These, of course, will not bear criticism as architectural designs, but there is always something so indescribably picturesque about them as fairly to extort admiration. The principal example of this compound style is a mosque at Kanauj known popularly as " Sita-ki Rasot," " Sita's Kitchen." It seems to be a Jaina temple, rearranged as a mosque, in the manner described at pp. 68,69. It measures externally 133 ft. by 120 ft. The mosque itself has four rows of fifteen columns each, and three domes. The cloisters surrounding the courts are only two rows in depth, and had originally sixty-eight pillars, smaller than those of the mosque. Externally it has no great beauty, but its pillared court is very picturesque and pleasing. According to an in- scription over its principal gateway, its conversion was effected by Ibrahim Shah of Jaunpur, A.D. I4O6. 1 At a later age, and even after it had lost its independence, several important buildings were erected in the capital and in other towns of the kingdom in the style of the day ; but these are perhaps scarcely of sufficient importance to require notice in such a work as the present. 1 General Cunningham's ' Reports,' vol. i. p. 287. From this I learn that shortly before 1857 the pillars surround- ing the court on three sides had been removed since I saw them in 1836.