18470 Some account of the " Kalan Musjeed." 581 



(Translation.) 



" In the name of God the merciful, the clement, and in the reign of 

 the devout king, strong by the help of the merciful God, Ab-ool- 

 Moozuffer Feeroz, Shah-ul-Sultan ; may his reign continue ; this 

 Mosque was built by the son of the slave waiting at the threshold, 

 Junah Shah, exalted with the title of Khan Jehan, son of Khan Jchan ; 

 may God he merciful to him. Any one coming to this Mosque is 

 required to pray for the chief of the Mussulmans, and for this slave 

 with the Fateha, with earnestness, and with the hope that God may 

 forgive him at the day of judgment. By the grace of Mahomet and 

 his posterity this mosque has been finished on the 10th of Jumda ool- 

 akheer in the year of the Hijra 789." 



It appears that the letters were first cut into the marble with small 

 deep round holes in each letter, or limb of a letter, and that subsequent- 

 ly lead was poured into the cavities, and then polished off even with 

 the surface of the marble, the small deep holes assisting in keeping the 

 lead firm in its place. The greater part has, however, fallen out, with 

 the exception of that in the vowel points, which are almost all perfect, 

 and of two or three of the letters in the first and second lines. The 

 entrance to the main body of the building is through a square vestibule 

 with a domed roof, to which there were an outer and an inner pair of 

 doors moving in sockets of a singular description, but common in the 

 architecture of the times. The latter have disappeared, the former are 

 still in existence, and to judge from their antique appearance, their 

 most rude construction, and the very coarse iron work about them, it is 

 fair to infer that they are of a very ancient date, if not coeval with the 

 mosque itself. The famous Somnath gates must be at least 800 years 

 old, these would be only 459, and though sal is probably not as durable 

 as sandal-wood, to any one who may see these doors it would afford no 

 great stretch of the imagination to believe that they were put up when 

 the mosque was built. On passing the second doorway you enter a 



