Bayana in Rajasthan and its monuments challenge the perceived but established view of the develop... more Bayana in Rajasthan and its monuments challenge the perceived but established view of the development of Indo-Muslim architecture and urban form. At the end of the 12th century the Ghurid conquerors took the mighty Hindu fort, building the first Muslim city below on virgin ground. It was the centre of an autonomous region during the 15th and 16th centuries and was even considered by Sikandar Lodī for the capital of his sultanate before he decided on Agra, then a mere village of Bayana. A peculiarity of historic sites in India is that whole towns with outstanding remains can, through political change or climatic events, be either built over by modern developments or fall into obscurity. The latter is the case with Bayana, abandoned following an earthquake in 1505. Going beyond a simple study of the historic, architectural and archaeological remains ‒ surveyed and illustrated in detail ‒ the book takes on the wider issues of how far the artistic traditions of Bayana, which developed independently from those of Delhi, later influenced North Indian architecture and were the forerunners of the Mughal architectural style, which draw many of its features from innovations developed first in Bayana.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, Mar 12, 2002
... on one side, Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh to the north and east, and Uttar Pradesh to the ... Th... more ... on one side, Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh to the north and east, and Uttar Pradesh to the ... The type is not very common in Himachal Pradesh, but more commonly seen in Nepal, and examples ... two types are local and their roots can be traced in the vernacular architecture of the ...
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Oct 1, 1984
is a translation and exposition of a passage comprising over 150 sutras which describe ' havi... more is a translation and exposition of a passage comprising over 150 sutras which describe ' haviryajhuh somuh '. They enjoin the performance of supernumerary one-day soma sacrifices based on simple fire-oblations (agnihotra, agnyddheya, darsapfirnamusa, cdturmdsya, etc.). Calami's draft translation, posthumously published, of the relevant iSdnkh. &r. text had been neither checked against the commentary nor correctly transcribed from his handwritten copy. More than half of the monograph is devoted to an examination of the ' interrelations ' of the Vedic sacrifices, i.e. the modifications which affect individual components when they are combined in a major ritual ceremony. All this will certainly ' have helped the reader to enlarging his comprehension of the intricacies and complications of the Vedic rites ' (p. 79), for, with a judicious blend of detail and summary Gonda surveys the whole field of s'rauta ritual, with more critical attention to and faith in the commentatorial tradition than previous exponents have generally been able to muster. Whether the haviryajiiah somuh have been definitively assigned ' to their proper place in the frame of the ritual system ' may be less certain. The phrase is rendered in the text (somewhat in defiance of grammar) as ' haviryajiias (performed as) soma sacrifices ' and further explained as ' nonsoma rites performed as soma rites ', ' sacrifices of a nonsoma type performed as, and in the frame of, a soma ritual '. The phrase havirynjiiah somdh figures only as a heading and colophon ; the Sutra text proper seems to be satisfied with the term ekdhasoma. Thus the commentator's usage liaviryajnasoma{yuga) may well be more original, akin to the notion of an alcoholic offering surdsoma in what the same commentator calls sautramana somaydga (see 14.2.1, n. 2 ; 14.12.1, n. 1). It is preferable to conclude that the phrase haviryajiiah somdh is intended to generalize the notion of surasoma as surumaya soma (14.13.4, n. 3), i.e. to convey the sense ' soma-offerings where the soma consists of alcohol, etc.'. Tn Gonda's important companion volume The savayajiias (same series, 1965), various nonsoma savas, including a non-soma somasava, were discussed. It is thus easy to understand why the developed tradition, having identified soma (and occasionally sava) with the Elixir of Immortality, found itself at a loss to equate this with any known substance distinct from ordinary haviryajiia products; and why the effects of soma seem on occasion to resemble those of alcohol. Gonda's new material encourages the belief that (like sava) soma basically meant anv ' stimulating' substance, rather than a ' pressing ' of juice in particular. j . c. WBIGHT
As an early fourteenth-century capital of the Delhi Sultanate, Tughluqabad is a significant histo... more As an early fourteenth-century capital of the Delhi Sultanate, Tughluqabad is a significant historical site of Delhi and also a prototype for many of the later towns in India. The ruins of Tughluqabad represent the advances in architectural design and engineering skills of their time, and the well-preserved town walls, street layout and other urban features provide us with the earliest example of Indo-Muslim urban planning and its architectural components: a key to understanding the morphology behind later Indian cities
Shokoohy, M. and N.H. Shokoohy, <em>Tughluqabad: A Paradigm of Indo-Islamic Urban Planning ... more Shokoohy, M. and N.H. Shokoohy, <em>Tughluqabad: A Paradigm of Indo-Islamic Urban Planning and its Architectural Components</em> (London: Araxus Books, 2007)
An excerpt from Ibn Baṭṭūṭa introduces the challenges of surviving in this arid region. All the e... more An excerpt from Ibn Baṭṭūṭa introduces the challenges of surviving in this arid region. All the existing Indian methods for harnessing and storing monsoon rain were employed in Bayana, adapted and enhanced by the Muslims, resulting in a variety of dams, wells and reservoirs. The reservoirs vary from enhanced natural depressions, such as the “Peacock Lake” planned to supply the Fort, to the more elaborate reservoirs with steps at all sides (bā’olīs). All significant remains are surveyed, notably the Jhālar Bā’olī, an elegant walled and colonnaded structure built in 1318 by the Khaljī governor, Kāfur Sulṭāni, possibly for the army campground but exceptional in its design and creation of a micro-climate. The deep rectangular bā’olīs with a well at one end and steps at the other could also have shady underground arcades and colonnades as places of resort from the heat: the Bā’olī of Khān-i Khānān built for the use of Hindus in the Fort has a hierarchy of space and ornament anticipating ...
... The site is situated over one kilometre north of the present coast, 36 kilometres east of Man... more ... The site is situated over one kilometre north of the present coast, 36 kilometres east of Mandvi and 20 kilometres north-east of Mundra. ... In anotner place19 al-BTrunT explains that Kachh is located to the east of Daybul and on the way to Summit ( oL&amp;gt;^&amp;lt; = Somnath). ...
In South Asian archaeology, Buddhist and Hindu sites and monuments dominate, while Muslim ones, w... more In South Asian archaeology, Buddhist and Hindu sites and monuments dominate, while Muslim ones, with the exception of a few grand edifices, have never been given the priority they deserve. In India, there has been little significant excavation of any Muslim sites, but during the British period the major ones were gradually identified, some of the better-preserved monuments were restored, while the ruins, if regarded as significant, were cleared of debris and rudimentary efforts made to preserve the standing remains. After Partition, the Archaeological Survey of India continued to maintain Muslim sites such as those in Delhi; the forts and monuments of Bidar, Bijapur, Daulatabad, and Gulbarga in the Deccan; scattered remains in Gaur and Pandua (the site of Laknautī, the Muslim capital of Bengal); and the monuments in Jaunpur (Uttar Pradesh) and Sasaram in Bihar. The monuments of Ahmadabad and some other towns of Gujarat have been more extensively studied. Whatever has been undertaken...
The variety and role of the mosques and the evolution of materials and design are discussed with ... more The variety and role of the mosques and the evolution of materials and design are discussed with surveys and photographs beginning with mosques with traditional plans in the town and fort, including the Auḥadī Jāmi‘, to the impact of the Lodī Jāmi‘ of Sikandra where a massive domed structure in the Delhi style, with a shrine included in the courtyard to give it a special status, displays Delhi’s new dominance. Small three-bayed mosques and their patrons, where known, are studied, as is the emergence of a new mosque plan. In these the prayer hall extrudes into the walled courtyard, explained through the surveys of the Tāletī Masjid, the ‘Īdgāh Masjid and two mosques at Sikandra. This plan, first seen in Bayana, was adopted on a grand scale by the Mughal Emperors, exemplified in the Mosque of Shaikh Salīm Chishtī at Fathpūr Sikrī, the Jāmiʿ of Shāhjahānābād at Delhi and the Bādshāhī (Pādshāhī) Masjid at Lahore. Minarets as landmarks and symbols of power, beginning with that of Dāwūd K...
Bayana and its region preserves monuments of the Ghurid conquerors of India, among them Muḥammad ... more Bayana and its region preserves monuments of the Ghurid conquerors of India, among them Muḥammad ibn Sām’s army commander Bahāʾ al-dīn Ṭughrul. The Chaurasī Khamba Mosque at Kaman and the Ukhā Mandīr Mosque (the Jāmiʿ of Bayana, now converted to a temple) and the ʿĪdgāh – the earliest surviving prayer wall in India – where the army or whole town could congregate are surveyed and the concept of the ʿīdgāh or namāzgāh in the Iranian world (Khurāsān) is discussed with examples from Amul, Shiraz, Bukhara, Yazd, Isfahan, Bust, Turuq and Mashhad as well as in India at Nagaur, Badaon, Delhi, Rapri and Jalor. The extension of the Jāmiʿ in the Khaljī period (the Ukhā Masjid) as well as the Tughluq remains outside the town are surveyed and illustrated, and the development of technology from trabeate to arcuate elements is discussed, along with how purpose-built elements were favoured over temple spoil once power was established.
Shokoohy, Mehrdad and Natalie H. Shokoohy, <em>Nagaur: Sultanate and Early Mughal History a... more Shokoohy, Mehrdad and Natalie H. Shokoohy, <em>Nagaur: Sultanate and Early Mughal History and Architecture of the District of Nagaur, India</em> (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1993)
Bayana in Rajasthan and its monuments challenge the perceived but established view of the develop... more Bayana in Rajasthan and its monuments challenge the perceived but established view of the development of Indo-Muslim architecture and urban form. At the end of the 12th century the Ghurid conquerors took the mighty Hindu fort, building the first Muslim city below on virgin ground. It was the centre of an autonomous region during the 15th and 16th centuries and was even considered by Sikandar Lodī for the capital of his sultanate before he decided on Agra, then a mere village of Bayana. A peculiarity of historic sites in India is that whole towns with outstanding remains can, through political change or climatic events, be either built over by modern developments or fall into obscurity. The latter is the case with Bayana, abandoned following an earthquake in 1505. Going beyond a simple study of the historic, architectural and archaeological remains ‒ surveyed and illustrated in detail ‒ the book takes on the wider issues of how far the artistic traditions of Bayana, which developed independently from those of Delhi, later influenced North Indian architecture and were the forerunners of the Mughal architectural style, which draw many of its features from innovations developed first in Bayana.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, Mar 12, 2002
... on one side, Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh to the north and east, and Uttar Pradesh to the ... Th... more ... on one side, Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh to the north and east, and Uttar Pradesh to the ... The type is not very common in Himachal Pradesh, but more commonly seen in Nepal, and examples ... two types are local and their roots can be traced in the vernacular architecture of the ...
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Oct 1, 1984
is a translation and exposition of a passage comprising over 150 sutras which describe ' havi... more is a translation and exposition of a passage comprising over 150 sutras which describe ' haviryajhuh somuh '. They enjoin the performance of supernumerary one-day soma sacrifices based on simple fire-oblations (agnihotra, agnyddheya, darsapfirnamusa, cdturmdsya, etc.). Calami's draft translation, posthumously published, of the relevant iSdnkh. &r. text had been neither checked against the commentary nor correctly transcribed from his handwritten copy. More than half of the monograph is devoted to an examination of the ' interrelations ' of the Vedic sacrifices, i.e. the modifications which affect individual components when they are combined in a major ritual ceremony. All this will certainly ' have helped the reader to enlarging his comprehension of the intricacies and complications of the Vedic rites ' (p. 79), for, with a judicious blend of detail and summary Gonda surveys the whole field of s'rauta ritual, with more critical attention to and faith in the commentatorial tradition than previous exponents have generally been able to muster. Whether the haviryajiiah somuh have been definitively assigned ' to their proper place in the frame of the ritual system ' may be less certain. The phrase is rendered in the text (somewhat in defiance of grammar) as ' haviryajiias (performed as) soma sacrifices ' and further explained as ' nonsoma rites performed as soma rites ', ' sacrifices of a nonsoma type performed as, and in the frame of, a soma ritual '. The phrase havirynjiiah somdh figures only as a heading and colophon ; the Sutra text proper seems to be satisfied with the term ekdhasoma. Thus the commentator's usage liaviryajnasoma{yuga) may well be more original, akin to the notion of an alcoholic offering surdsoma in what the same commentator calls sautramana somaydga (see 14.2.1, n. 2 ; 14.12.1, n. 1). It is preferable to conclude that the phrase haviryajiiah somdh is intended to generalize the notion of surasoma as surumaya soma (14.13.4, n. 3), i.e. to convey the sense ' soma-offerings where the soma consists of alcohol, etc.'. Tn Gonda's important companion volume The savayajiias (same series, 1965), various nonsoma savas, including a non-soma somasava, were discussed. It is thus easy to understand why the developed tradition, having identified soma (and occasionally sava) with the Elixir of Immortality, found itself at a loss to equate this with any known substance distinct from ordinary haviryajiia products; and why the effects of soma seem on occasion to resemble those of alcohol. Gonda's new material encourages the belief that (like sava) soma basically meant anv ' stimulating' substance, rather than a ' pressing ' of juice in particular. j . c. WBIGHT
As an early fourteenth-century capital of the Delhi Sultanate, Tughluqabad is a significant histo... more As an early fourteenth-century capital of the Delhi Sultanate, Tughluqabad is a significant historical site of Delhi and also a prototype for many of the later towns in India. The ruins of Tughluqabad represent the advances in architectural design and engineering skills of their time, and the well-preserved town walls, street layout and other urban features provide us with the earliest example of Indo-Muslim urban planning and its architectural components: a key to understanding the morphology behind later Indian cities
Shokoohy, M. and N.H. Shokoohy, <em>Tughluqabad: A Paradigm of Indo-Islamic Urban Planning ... more Shokoohy, M. and N.H. Shokoohy, <em>Tughluqabad: A Paradigm of Indo-Islamic Urban Planning and its Architectural Components</em> (London: Araxus Books, 2007)
An excerpt from Ibn Baṭṭūṭa introduces the challenges of surviving in this arid region. All the e... more An excerpt from Ibn Baṭṭūṭa introduces the challenges of surviving in this arid region. All the existing Indian methods for harnessing and storing monsoon rain were employed in Bayana, adapted and enhanced by the Muslims, resulting in a variety of dams, wells and reservoirs. The reservoirs vary from enhanced natural depressions, such as the “Peacock Lake” planned to supply the Fort, to the more elaborate reservoirs with steps at all sides (bā’olīs). All significant remains are surveyed, notably the Jhālar Bā’olī, an elegant walled and colonnaded structure built in 1318 by the Khaljī governor, Kāfur Sulṭāni, possibly for the army campground but exceptional in its design and creation of a micro-climate. The deep rectangular bā’olīs with a well at one end and steps at the other could also have shady underground arcades and colonnades as places of resort from the heat: the Bā’olī of Khān-i Khānān built for the use of Hindus in the Fort has a hierarchy of space and ornament anticipating ...
... The site is situated over one kilometre north of the present coast, 36 kilometres east of Man... more ... The site is situated over one kilometre north of the present coast, 36 kilometres east of Mandvi and 20 kilometres north-east of Mundra. ... In anotner place19 al-BTrunT explains that Kachh is located to the east of Daybul and on the way to Summit ( oL&amp;gt;^&amp;lt; = Somnath). ...
In South Asian archaeology, Buddhist and Hindu sites and monuments dominate, while Muslim ones, w... more In South Asian archaeology, Buddhist and Hindu sites and monuments dominate, while Muslim ones, with the exception of a few grand edifices, have never been given the priority they deserve. In India, there has been little significant excavation of any Muslim sites, but during the British period the major ones were gradually identified, some of the better-preserved monuments were restored, while the ruins, if regarded as significant, were cleared of debris and rudimentary efforts made to preserve the standing remains. After Partition, the Archaeological Survey of India continued to maintain Muslim sites such as those in Delhi; the forts and monuments of Bidar, Bijapur, Daulatabad, and Gulbarga in the Deccan; scattered remains in Gaur and Pandua (the site of Laknautī, the Muslim capital of Bengal); and the monuments in Jaunpur (Uttar Pradesh) and Sasaram in Bihar. The monuments of Ahmadabad and some other towns of Gujarat have been more extensively studied. Whatever has been undertaken...
The variety and role of the mosques and the evolution of materials and design are discussed with ... more The variety and role of the mosques and the evolution of materials and design are discussed with surveys and photographs beginning with mosques with traditional plans in the town and fort, including the Auḥadī Jāmi‘, to the impact of the Lodī Jāmi‘ of Sikandra where a massive domed structure in the Delhi style, with a shrine included in the courtyard to give it a special status, displays Delhi’s new dominance. Small three-bayed mosques and their patrons, where known, are studied, as is the emergence of a new mosque plan. In these the prayer hall extrudes into the walled courtyard, explained through the surveys of the Tāletī Masjid, the ‘Īdgāh Masjid and two mosques at Sikandra. This plan, first seen in Bayana, was adopted on a grand scale by the Mughal Emperors, exemplified in the Mosque of Shaikh Salīm Chishtī at Fathpūr Sikrī, the Jāmiʿ of Shāhjahānābād at Delhi and the Bādshāhī (Pādshāhī) Masjid at Lahore. Minarets as landmarks and symbols of power, beginning with that of Dāwūd K...
Bayana and its region preserves monuments of the Ghurid conquerors of India, among them Muḥammad ... more Bayana and its region preserves monuments of the Ghurid conquerors of India, among them Muḥammad ibn Sām’s army commander Bahāʾ al-dīn Ṭughrul. The Chaurasī Khamba Mosque at Kaman and the Ukhā Mandīr Mosque (the Jāmiʿ of Bayana, now converted to a temple) and the ʿĪdgāh – the earliest surviving prayer wall in India – where the army or whole town could congregate are surveyed and the concept of the ʿīdgāh or namāzgāh in the Iranian world (Khurāsān) is discussed with examples from Amul, Shiraz, Bukhara, Yazd, Isfahan, Bust, Turuq and Mashhad as well as in India at Nagaur, Badaon, Delhi, Rapri and Jalor. The extension of the Jāmiʿ in the Khaljī period (the Ukhā Masjid) as well as the Tughluq remains outside the town are surveyed and illustrated, and the development of technology from trabeate to arcuate elements is discussed, along with how purpose-built elements were favoured over temple spoil once power was established.
Shokoohy, Mehrdad and Natalie H. Shokoohy, <em>Nagaur: Sultanate and Early Mughal History a... more Shokoohy, Mehrdad and Natalie H. Shokoohy, <em>Nagaur: Sultanate and Early Mughal History and Architecture of the District of Nagaur, India</em> (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1993)
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