blending of the decorative forms in use among Hindu and Jaina
sculptors with the main lines of Mohammedan art is generally to be
found. The great open quadrangle, the pointed arch, the dome, the
minaret, all appear, but they are all made out of Indian materials.
Perhaps not the least noteworthy feature of mosques and tombs in India
is the introduction of perforated slabs of marble in the place of the
bar-tracery which filled the heads of openings in Cairo or Damascus.
These are works of the greatest and most refined beauty: sometimes
panels of thin marble, each pierced with a different pattern, are
fitted into a framework prepared for their reception; at others we
meet with window-heads where upon a background of twining stems and
leaves there grow up palms or banian-trees, their lithe branches and
leaves wreathed into lines of admirable grace, and every part standing
out, owing to the fine piercings of the marble, as distinctly as a
tree of Jesse on a painted window in a Gothic cathedral.

The dome at Bijapur, a tomb larger than the Pantheon at Rome, and the
Kutub at Delhi, a tower not unfit to be compared with Giotto's
campanile at Florence, are conspicuous among this series of monuments,
and at Delhi one of the grandest mosques in India (Fig. 194) is also
to be found. The series of mosques and tombs at Ahmedabad, however,
form the most beautiful group of buildings in India, and are the only
ones of which a complete series of illustrations has been published.
These mosques are remarkable for the great skill with which they are
roofed and lighted. This is done by means of a series of domes raised
on columns sufficiently above the general level of the stone ceilings,
which cover the intervening spaces, to admit light under the line of
their springing. The beauty of the marble tracery and surface
decoration is very great. Pointed arches occur here almost invariably,
and in most cases the outline of the opening is very slightly turned
upwards at the apex so as to give a slight increase of emphasis to the
summit of the arch. The buildings are not as a rule lofty; and though
plain walls and piers occur and contrast well with the arched
features, pains have been taken to avoid anything like massive or
heavy construction. Great extent, skilful distribution, extreme
lightness, and admirably combined groupings of the features and
masses, are among the fine qualities which lend to Mohammedan
architecture in Ahmedabad a rare cha