period was a great opportunity for the Indian builder, and he made full use of it.
Mogul architecture, so-called, can hardly be said to have commenced until the founding of the present city of Agra by Akbar in 1558, opposite to the old city on the left bank of the river which Bābur had made his capital. The latter, who was the first of the Indian Mogul line, expresses in his memoirs a profound contempt for all things Indian, and it is said that he employed architects from Constantinople to carry out his numerous building projects.[1] This may possibly be true, for out of the many buildings erected by Bābur at Agra, Delhi, and Kabul, apparently only two have lasted to the present day—a result which might be expected from the importation of foreign builders unused to Indian technical conditions. In the sixteenth century, moreover, the Indian master-builder had nothing to learn from European methods. Dr. Vincent Smith suggests vaguely[2] that there is some reason for thinking that the grandeur of the proportions of buildings in the north of India and Bijāpur may be partly due to the teaching of this foreign school; but grandeur of proportion was not a monopoly of the Western schools, and excepting the radiating arch, with which Indian builders of the sixteenth century were perfectly familiar,[3] there is
- ↑ Vincent Smith, History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, p. 406.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 406.
- ↑ Fergusson's theory that the Muhammadans taught Indian builders to use the radiating arch is by no means proved. It was used in Babylon before Rome was built, and it is impossible to believe that Indian builders should not have observed its use during the many centuries of India's close commercial intercourse with Mesopotamia, both in early times and in the days of the Roman Empire. It was probably used in brick-building countries, like Bengal, long before the Muhammadan conquest. In other places Indian builders avoided the arch for very good technical reasons.
