Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/287

CHAP. V. GUJARAT : PROVINCIAL BUILDINGS. 243 open arcades on three sides, now much ruined, and was entered from minor porches on the north and south with a larger and richly carved one on the east front. The mosque itself is in tolerable preservation and of large size, being 169 ft. 6 in. in length by 81 ft. inside the walls, and, like that at Ahmadabad, it has three rows of domes but quite differently arranged. There are, as will be seen from the plan (Woodcut No. 399), four domes in the front and back rows and in the middle only three, but disposed opposite the spaces separating the domes in the other rows. By this peculiar arrangement these eleven domes, each 20 ft. 6 in. in diameter, provide for seven mihrabs or qiblas in the west wall. There are five arched entrances the central one, as usual, being the loftiest and double the width of the others. On each side of it rise the minars to a height of 100 ft., and the fagade wall, for a width of 5 1 ft, is raised to a height of nearly 50 ft. The central dome, with the area within the entrance, rises behind this to a height of three storeys with their two galleries. At the four corners of the mosque are turrets 50 ft. high, carved up to the roof level, but above they are plain and have a rather clumsy appearance. 1 There are also two very beautiful mosques at Dholka, a city 23 miles south-west from Ahmadabad. One of them, known as Hilal Khan Qazi's, measures inside the walls 142 ft. from north to south, by 147 ft, inclusive of the Masjid, which is 35 ft deep. It has three arches in the central and higher part of the facade, and a smaller opening for a per- forated stone window, in each wing. It was erected in 1333, and has two small turrets over the front, a fine marble mimbar or pulpit, a beautiful roof of panels taken from Hindu temples, and a remarkably fine a 11 M H H [ 400. Plan of Tomb of Mubarak Sayyid, near Mahmudabad. Scale 50 ft. to i in. porch and doorway at the entrance to the court. 2 The second is the Jami' Masjid, measuring 142 ft. from north to south inside, 1 For an illustrated account of this mosque, see ' Archeeological Survey of Western India,' vol. vi. pp. 39ff. and plates 56-65. 2 ' Archaeological Survey of Western India,' vol. vi. pp. 3of., and plates 25 to 34.