1870.] Notes on Old Delhi. 87 



- figure. On the roof is an octagonal cupola ; the supporting 



- pillars of red sandstone have their shafts richly carved with 

 chevron work, and the bases are also worked with an elegant 

 pattern. 



Proposed Criteria towards fixing the dates of Pat'han buildings at 



Delhi. 



Although there is a very wide difference indeed between the 

 barbarous simplicity of the Sultan Ghari mosque, and the stately 

 Jami' Masjid of Sher Shah's days, a very little observation will 

 show that these changes have taken place in successive periods and 

 not arbitrarily, and so regularly as to enable the date of any 

 building of size to be very closely approximated to. 



One of the most conspicuous parts of Pat'han building is the 

 dome, and in the shape and fashion of the dome, these successive 

 developments of Pat'han architecture are very clearly marked. 

 I have already pointed out that the first conquerors were compelled 

 to use Hindu builders ; accordingly, the dome of the early slave - 

 kings is constructed of successive concentric rings of stone, the 

 diameter of each layer being somewhat less than that of the layer 

 below it, the whole being capped by a circular stone, covering the 

 small remaining aperture. This Hindu looking dome, which is 

 of small height and usually of trifling base-diameter also, is coated 

 on the outside with masonry and stucco. Instances are the domes 

 on the Qutb mosque and in the tomb of Nacirud-din at Sultan 

 Ghari. 



I conceive it was the coating just mentioned which taught the 

 Dihli Pat'hans the secret of building their domes on truer principles. 

 They found that this masonry coating would stand without the 

 layers of projecting stones below ; and then I assume that all 

 subsequent advances were mere questions of the natural develop- 

 ment of the secret just obtained. Accordingly in the lower part of 

 Mihrauli is now standing an old mosque rudely built, in which the 

 domes resemble in diminutiveness those of the Qutb mosque, but 

 are constructed without any under-coating of stone-work. 



Towards the end of the slave dynasty and in that of the Khilji 

 princes, the dome is broader and higher in a considerable degree. 

 It springs, however, still directly from the flat roof, without any 

 intervening cylinder. The remains of Balban's tomb and the 



