History of Indian and Eastern Architecture

The interior of the court is represented in Woodcut No. 309, and for simple grandeur and expression of power it may, perhaps, be taken as one of the very best specimens now to be found in India. It is, however, fast falling to decay, and a few years more may deprive it of most of that beauty which so impressed me when I visited it in 1839.

The tomb of the founder, which stands behind the mosque, though not remarkable for size, is a very grand specimen of the last resting-place of a stern old Pathan king. Both internally and externally it is reveted with white marble, artistically, but not constructively, applied, and consequently in many places peeling off. The light is only admitted by the doorway and two small windows, so that the interior is gloomy, but not more so than seems suitable to its destination.

On one side of the mosque is a splendid Dharmsala, or hall, 230 ft. long, supported by three ranges of pillars, twenty-eight in each row. These are either borrowed from a Hindu edifice, or formed by some native architect from stones originally Hindu, and on the north side is a porch, which is avowedly only a re-erection of the pillars of a Jaina dome.

The palaces of Mandu are, however, perhaps even more remarkable than its mosques. Of these the principal is called Jehaj Mehal, from its being situated between two great tanks—almost literally in the water, like a “ship.” It is so covered with vegetation that it is almost impossible to sketch or photograph it,[521] but its mass and picturesque outline make it one of the most remarkable edifices of its date; very unlike the refined elegance afterwards introduced by the Moguls, but well worthy of being the residence of an independent Pathan chief of a warrior state.

The principal apartment is a vaulted hall, some 24 ft. wide by twice that length, and 24 ft. in height, flanked by buttresses massive enough to support a vault four times its section. Across the end of the hall is a range of apartments three storeys in height, and the upper ones adorned with rude, bold, balconied windows. Beyond this is a long range of vaulted halls, standing in the water, which were apparently the living apartments of the palace. Like the rest of the palace they are bold, and massive to a degree seldom found in Indian edifices, and produce a corresponding effect.

On the brink of the precipice overlooking the valley of the Nerbudda is another palace, called that of Baz Bahadur, of a lighter and more elegant character, but even more ruined than the northern palace, and scattered over the whole plateau are ruins of tombs and buildings of every class and so varied as almost to defy description. In their solitude, in a vast uninhabited jungle, they convey as vivid an impression of the ephemeral splendour of these Mahomedan dynasties as anything in India, and, if illustrated, would alone suffice to prove how wonderfully their builders had grasped the true elements of architectural design.

CHAPTER VII.

BENGAL.

It is not very easy to understand why the architects of Malwa should have adopted a style so essentially arcuate as that which we find in the capital, while their brethren, on either hand, at Jaunpore and Ahmedabad, clung so fondly to a trabeate form wherever they had an opportunity of employing it. The Mandu architects had the same initiation to the Hindu forms in the mosques at Dhar; and there must have been innumerable Jaina temples to furnish materials to a far greater extent than we find them utilised, but we neither find them borrowing nor imitating, but adhering steadily to the pointed-arch style, which is the essential characteristic of their art in foreign countries. It is easy to understand, on the other hand, why in Bengal the trabeate style never was in vogue. The country is practically without stone, or any suitable material for forming either pillars or beams. Having nothing but brick, it was almost of necessity that they employed arches everywhere, and in every building that had any pretensions to permanency. The Bengal style being, however, the only one wholly of brick in India Proper, has a local individuality of its own, which is curious and interesting, though, from the nature of the material, deficient in many of the higher qualities of art which characterise the buildings constructed with larger and better materials. Besides elaborating a pointed-arched brick style of their own, the Bengalis introduced a new form of roof, which has had a most important influence on both the Mahomedan and Hindu styles in more modern times. As already mentioned in describing the chuttrie at Alwar (ante, p. 474), the Bengalis, taking advantage of the elasticity of the bambu, universally employ in their dwellings a curvilinear form of roof, which has become so familiar to their eyes, that they consider it beautiful (Woodcut No. 310). It is so in fact when bambu and thatch are the materials employed, but when translated into stone or brick architecture, its taste is more questionable. There is, however, so much that is conventional in architecture, and beauty depends to such an extent on association, that strangers are hardly fair judges in a case of this sort. Be this as it may, certain it is, at all events, that after being elaborated into a feature of permanent architecture in Bengal, this curvilinear form found its way in the 17th century to Delhi, and in the 18th to Lahore, and all the intermediate buildings from, say A.D. 1650, betray its presence to a greater or less extent.

It is a curious illustration, however, of how much there is in architecture that is conventional and how far familiarity may render that beautiful which is not so abstractedly, that while to the European eye this form always remains unpleasing, to the native eye—Hindu or Mahomedan—it is the most elegant of modern inventions.[522]

Even irrespective, however, of its local peculiarities, the architecture of Gaur, the Mahomedan capital of Bengal, deserves attention for its extent and the immense variety of detail which it displays. Bengal, apparently because it was so distant from the capital, was erected into a separate kingdom almost simultaneously with Delhi itself. Mahommad Bakhtiar Khilji, governor of Berar under Kutub ud-dîn, became first king of the dynasty in A.D. 1203, and was succeeded by a long line of forty-eight kings, till the state was absorbed into Akbar’s vast kingdom in A.D. 1573, under Daud Khan ben Suleiman. Though none of these kings did anything that entitles them to a place in general history, they possessed one of the richest portions of India, and employed their wealth in adorning their capital with buildings, which, when in a state of repair, must have been gorgeous, even if not always in the best taste. The climate of Bengal is, however, singularly inimical to the preservation of architectural remains. If the roots of a tree of the fig kind once find a resting-place in any crevice of a building, its destruction is inevitable; and even without this, the luxuriant growth of the jungle hides the building so completely, that it is sometimes difficult to discover it—always to explore it. Add to this that Gaur is singularly well suited to facilitate the removal of materials by water-carriage. During the summer inundation, boats can float up to any of the ruins, and after embarking stones or bricks, drop down the stream to any new capital that may be rising. It thus happens that Moorshedabad, Hoogly, and even Calcutta, are rich in spoils of the old Pathan capital of Bengal, while it has itself become only a mass of picturesque but almost indistinguishable ruins.

The city of Gaur was a famous capital of the Hindus long before it was taken possession of by the Mahomedans. The Sên and Bellala dynasties of Bengal seem to have resided here, and no doubt adorned it with temples and edifices worthy of their fame and wealth. These, however, were probably principally in brick, though adorned with pillars and details in what used to be called black marble, but seems to be an indurated potstone of very fine grain, and which takes a beautiful polish. Many fragments of Hindu art in this material are found among the ruins; and if carefully examined might enable us to restore the style. Its interest, however, principally lies in the influence it had on the Mahomedan style that succeeded it. It is neither like that of Delhi, nor Jaunpore, nor any other style, but one purely local, and not without considerable merit in itself; its principal characteristic being heavy short pillars of stone supporting pointed arches and vaults, in brick—whereas at Jaunpore, for instance, light pillars carried horizontal architraves and flat ceilings.

The general character of the style will be seen in the example from a mosque called the Kudam ul Roussoul at Gaur, and is by no means devoid of architectural merit (Woodcut No. 311). The solidity of the supports go far to redeem the inherent weakness of brick architecture, and by giving the arches a firm base to start from, prevents the smallness of their parts from injuring the general effect. It also presents, though in a very subdued form, the curvilinear form of the roof, which is so characteristic of the style.

In Gaur itself there are two very handsome mosques—the Golden and the Barah Durwaza, or twelve-doored. Both their façades are in stone, and covered with foliaged patterns in low-relief, borrowed evidently from the terra-cotta ornaments which were more frequently employed, and continued a favourite mode of adorning façades down to the time of the erection of the Kantonuggur temple illustrated above (Woodcut No. 263). In the interior their pillars have generally been removed, and the vaults consequently fallen in, so that it is not easy to judge of their effect, even if the jungle would admit of the whole area being grasped at once. Their general disposition may be judged of, however, by the plan on page 549 (Woodcut No. 312) of the Adinah mosque at Maldah, which formed at the time it was erected the northern suburb of the capital. From inscriptions upon it, it appears that this mosque was erected by Sikander Shah, one of the most illustrious of his race (A.D. 1358-1367), with the intention of being himself buried within its precincts, or in its immediate neighbourhood. Its dimensions are considerable, being nearly 500 ft. north and south, and nearly 300 ft. east and west. In the centre it contains a courtyard, surrounded on all sides by a thick wall of brick, divided by eighty-eight similar arched openings, only one of which, that in the centre of the west side facing Mecca, is wider and more dignified than the rest. The roof in like manner is supported by 266 pillars of black hornblende, similar in design to those represented in Woodcut No. 311. They are bold and pleasing in design, but it must be confessed wanting in variety. These with the walls support no less than 385 domes, all similar in design and construction. The only variation that is made is where a platform, called the Padshah ka Takht, or King’s Throne, divides a part of the building into two storeys.[523]

A design, such as that of the Adinah mosque, would be appropriate

for a caravanserai; but in an edifice where expression and beauty were absolutely required it is far too monotonous. The same defect runs through the whole group; and though their size and elegance of details, joined with the picturesque state of richly foliaged ruin in which they are now found, make them charming subjects for the pencil, they possess all the defects of design we remarked in the great halls of a thousand columns in the south of this country.[524] It seems, indeed, almost as if here we had again got among the Tamil race, and that their peculiarities were reappearing on the surface, though dressed in the garb of a foreign race.

One of the most interesting of the antiquities of the place is a minar, standing in the fort (Woodcut No. 313). For two-thirds of the height it is a polygon of twelve sides; above that circular, till it attains the height of 84 ft. The door is at some distance from the ground, and altogether it looks more like an Irish round-tower than any other example known, though it is most improbable that there should be any connexion between the two forms. It is evidently a pillar of victory—a Jaya Stambha—such as the Kutub Minar at Delhi, and those at Coel, Dowlutabad, and elsewhere. There is, or was, an inscription on this monument which ascribed its erection to Feroze Shah. If this is so, it must be the king of that province who reigned in Gaur A.H. 702-715, or A.D. 1302-1315,[525] and the character of the architecture fully bears out this adscription.[526] The native tradition is, that a saint, Peer Asa, lived, like Simon Stylites, on its summit!

Besides these, there are several of the gateways of Gaur which are of considerable magnificence. The finest is that called Dhakhal, which, though of brick, and adorned only with terra-cotta ornaments, is as grand an object of its class as is to be found anywhere. The gate of the citadel, and the southern gate of the city, are very noble examples of what can be done with bricks, and bricks only. It is not, however, in the dimensions of its buildings or the beauty of their details that the glory of Gaur resides; it is in the wonderful mass of ruins stretching along what was once the high bank of the Ganges, for nearly twenty miles, from Maldah to Maddapore—mosques still in use, mixed with mounds covering ruins—tombs, temples, tanks and towers, scattered without order over an immense distance, and half buried in a luxuriance of vegetation which only this part of India can exhibit. What looks poor, and may be in indifferent taste, drawn on paper and reduced to scale, may give an idea of splendour in decay when seen as it is, and in this respect there are none of the ancient capitals of India which produce a more striking, and at the same time a more profoundly melancholy, impression than these ruins of the old Pathan capital of Bengal.

CHAPTER VIII.

KALBURGAH.

The campaigns of Ala ud-dîn and of Tugluck Shah in the beginning of the 14th century extended the fame and fear of the Moslem power over the whole peninsula of India, as far as Cape Comorin and the Straits of Manaar. It was almost impossible, however, that a state in the semi-barbarous condition of the Pathans of that day could so organise a government as to rule so extensive and varied an empire from one central point, and that as remote as Delhi. Tugluck Shah felt this, and proposed to establish the capital at Dowlutabad. If he had been able to accomplish this, the whole of the south might have been permanently conquered. As it was, the Bellala dynasty of Hullabîd was destroyed in A.D. 1311,[527] and that of Worangul crippled but not finally conquered till some time afterwards,[528] while the rising power of Vijayanagar formed a barrier which shielded the southern states—the Chera, Chola, Pandya—against Mahomedan encroachment for some centuries after that time; and but for the establishment of Mahomedan kingdoms independent of the central power at Delhi, the Dekhan might have been lost to the Moslems, and the Hindus held their own for a long time, perhaps for ever, to the south of the Vindhya range.

The first of those dynasties that successfully established its independence was that called the Bahmani, from its founder, Hasan Ganju, being the servant of a Brahman in Mahamud Tugluck’s court, and owing his rise to his master, he adopted his name as a title in gratitude. He established himself at Kalburgah, an ancient Hindu city of the Dekhan, and with his immediate successors not only held in check the Hindu sovereigns of Worangul and Vijayanagar, but actually forced them to pay him tribute. This prosperous state of affairs lasted for nearly a century, when Ahmad Shah I. (A.D. 1422-1425), for some reason not explained, transferred the seat of power to Bidar. They lingered on for another century or more, latterly known as the Berid Shahis, till they were absorbed in the great Mogul empire in A.D. 1609. Long before that, however, their place in the Dekhan had been taken by the Bijapur Adil Shahis, who established themselves there A.D. 1489.

During the short supremacy of Kalburgah as capital of the Dekhan (A.D. 1347-1435), it was adorned with several important buildings, among which was a mosque, one of the most remarkable of its class in India (Woodcuts Nos. 314, 315). Its dimensions are considerable, though not excessive: it measures 216 ft. east and west, and 176 ft. north and south, and consequently covers 38,016 sq. ft. Its great peculiarity, however, is that, alone of all the great mosques in India, the whole of the area is covered over. Comparing it, for instance, with the mosque at Mandu, which is the one in other respects most like it, it will be observed that the greater part of its area is occupied by a courtyard surrounded by arcades. At Kalburgah there is no court, the whole is roofed over, and the light is admitted through the side walls, which are pierced with great arches for this purpose on all sides except the west (Woodcut No. 316).

Having only one example of the class, it is not easy to form an opinion which of the two systems of building is the better. There is a repose and a solemnity which is singularly suited to a place of prayer, in a courtyard enclosed by cloisters on all sides, and only pierced by two or three doors; but, on the other hand, the heat and glare arising from reflection of the sun’s rays in these open courts is sometimes most painful in such a climate as India, and nowhere, so far as I know, was it ever even attempted to modify this by awnings. On the Kalburgah plan, on the contrary, the solid roof covering the whole space afforded protection from the sun’s rays to all worshippers, and every aisle being open at one or both ends, prevented anything like gloom, and admitted of far freer ventilation than was attainable in the enclosed courts, while the requisite privacy could easily have been obtained by a low enclosing wall at some distance from the mosque itself. On the whole, my impression is that the Kalburgah plan is the preferable one of the two, both for convenience and for architectural effect, so much so indeed, that it is very difficult to understand why, when once tried, it was never afterwards repeated. Probably the cause of its being abandoned was the difficulty of draining so extensive a flat roof during the rains. Any settlement or any crack must have been fatal; yet this mosque stands in seemingly good repair, after four centuries of comparative neglect. Whichever way the question is decided, it must be admitted that this is one of the finest of the old Pathan mosques of India, at least among those which are built wholly of original materials—and in the arcuate style—of Mahomedan art. Those at Delhi and Ajmir are more interesting of course, but it is from adventitious circumstances. This owes its greatness only to its own original merits of design.[529]

Besides the mosque, there is in Kalburgah a bazaar, 570 ft. long by 60 ft. wide, over all, adorned by a range of sixty-one arches on either hand, supported by pillars of a quasi-Hindu character, and with a block of buildings of a very ornamental character at either end. I am not aware of anything of its class more striking in any part of India. The arcades that most resemble this are those that line the street called the Street of the Pilgrims, at Vijayanagar, which may be contemporary with this bazaar.[530]

There are other buildings, especially one gigantic archway, in the city of Kalburgah, the use of which is not apparent, and some very grand old tombs, with sloping walls; but we must wait for further information before they can be utilised in a history of Indian architecture.

After the seat of government was removed to Bidar by Ahmad Shah, A.D. 1422-1435, the new capital was adorned by edifices worthy of the greatness of the dynasty, but now all apparently ruined. Among these the most magnificent appears to be the madrissa erected by Mahomet Gaun, the faithful but unfortunate minister of the tyrant Mahmúd II. It appears to have been finished two years before his death, in A.D. 1481, and in Ferishta’s time was one of the most complete and flourishing establishments of its class in India.[531] Unfortunately, when the place was besieged by Aurungzebe, a quantity of gunpowder was stored in its vaults, and exploded, either accidentally or by design, so as to ruin one wing. Since then the building has been disused, but so far as can be judged from such imperfect information as is available, it must have been one of the most splendid buildings of its day.[532] The tombs too of the Berid Shahi dynasty, which reigned in Bidar from A.D. 1492-1609, are of considerable splendour, and rival those of Golcondah in extent. Bidar, however, has not yet been visited by anyone who has had the power or opportunity of drawing or describing its monuments in such a manner as to enable another to utilise them for historical purposes, and till this is done, a knowledge of them must remain among the many desiderata in Indian art.

CHAPTER IX.

BIJAPUR.

As mentioned above, the Bahmani dynasty of Kalburgah maintained the struggle against the Hindu principalities of the south for nearly a century and a half, with very little assistance from either the central power at Delhi or their cognate states in the Dekhan. Before the end of the 15th century, however, they began to feel that decay inherent in all Eastern dynasties; and the Hindus might have recovered their original possessions, up to the Vindhya at least, but for the appearance of a new and more vigorous competitor in the field in the person of Yusaf Khan, a son of Amurath II. of Anatolia. He was thus a Turk of pure blood, and, as it happens, born in Constantinople, though his mother was forced to fly thence while he was still an infant. After a varied career he was purchased for the body-guard at Bidar, and soon raised himself to such pre-eminence that on the defeat of Dustur Dinar, in 1501, he was enabled to proclaim his independence and establish himself as the founder of the Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur.

For the first sixty or seventy years after their accession, the struggle for existence was too severe to admit of the Adil Shahis devoting much attention to architecture. The real building epoch of the city commences with Ali, A.D. 1557, and all the important buildings are crowded into the 100 years which elapsed between his accession and the wars with Aurungzebe, which ended in the final destruction of the dynasty.

During that period, however, their capital was adorned with a series of buildings as remarkable as those of any of the Mahomedan capitals of India, hardly excepting even Agra and Delhi, and showing a wonderful originality of design not surpassed by those of such capitals as Jaunpore or Ahmedabad, though differing from them in a most marked degree.

It is not easy now to determine how far this originality arose from the European descent of the Adil Shahis and their avowed hatred of everything that belonged to the Hindus, or whether it arose from any local circumstances, the value of which we can now hardly appreciate. My impression is, that the former is the true cause, and that the largeness and grandeur of the Bijapur style is owing to its quasi-Western origin, and to reminiscences of the great works of the Roman and Byzantine architects.

Like most Mahomedan dynasties, the Adil Shahis commenced their architectural career by building a mosque and madrissa in the fort at Bijapur out of Hindu remains. How far the pillars used there by them are in situ, or torn from other buildings, we are not informed. From photographs, it would appear that considerable portions of them are used at least for the purposes for which they were intended; but this is not incompatible with the idea that they were removed from their original positions and readapted to their present purposes. Be this as it may, as soon as the dynasty had leisure to think really about the matter, they abandoned entirely all tendency to copy Hindu forms or Hindu details, but set to work to carry out a pointed-arched, or domical style of their own, and did it with singular success.[533]

The Jumma Musjid, which is one of the earlier regular buildings of the city, was commenced by Ali Adil Shah (A.D. 1557-1579), and, though continued by his successors on the same plan, was never completely finished, the fourth side of the courtyard with its great gateway not having been even commenced when the dynasty was overthrown. Even as it is, it is one of the finest mosques in India.

As will be seen from the plan (Woodcut No. 317), it would have been, if completed, a rectangle of 331 ft. by 257 ft. The mosque itself is perfect, and measures 257 ft. by 145 ft., and consequently covers about 37,000 sq. ft. It consequently is in itself only a very little less than the mosque at Kalburgah; but this is irrespective of the wings, which extend 186 ft. beyond, so that if complete it would have covered about 50,000 sq. ft. to 55,000 sq. ft., or about the usual size of a mediæval cathedral. It is more remarkable, however, for the beauty of its details than either the arrangement or extent of its plan. Each of the squares into which it is divided is roofed by a dome of very beautiful form, but so flat (Woodcut No. 318) as to be concealed externally in the thickness of the roof. Twelve of these squares are occupied in the centre by the great dome, 57 ft. in diameter in the circular part, but standing on a square measuring 70 ft. each way. The dimensions of this dome were immensely exceeded afterwards by that which covers the tomb of Mahmúd, constructed on the same plan and 124 ft. in diameter; but the smaller dimensions here employed enabled the architect to use taller and more graceful outlines, and if he had had the courage to pierce the niches at the base of his dome, and make them into windows, he would probably have had the credit of designing the most graceful building of its class in existence.

If the plan of this mosque is compared with that of Kalburgah (Woodcut No. 314), it will be seen what immense strides the Indian architects had made in constructive skill and elegance of detail during the century and a half that elapsed between the erection of these two buildings. If they were drawn to the same scale this would be more apparent than it is at first sight; but on half the present scale the details of the Kalburgah mosque could hardly be expressed, while the largeness of the parts, and regularity of arrangement can, in the scale adopted, be made perfectly clear in the Bijapur example. The latter is, undoubtedly, the more perfect of the two, but there is a picturesqueness about the earlier building, and a poetry about its arrangements, that go far to make up for the want of the skill and the elegance exhibited in its more modern rival.

The tomb which Ali Adil Shah commenced for himself was a square, measuring about 200 ft. each way, and had it been completed as designed would have rivalled any tomb in India. It is one of the disadvantages, however, of the Turanian system of each king building his own tomb, that if he dies early his work remains unfinished. This defect is more than compensated in practice by the fact that unless a man builds his own sepulchre, the chances are very much against anything worthy of admiration being dedicated to his memory by his surviving relatives.

His successor Ibrahim, warned by the fate of his predecessor’s tomb, commenced his own on so small a plan—116 ft. square—that as he was blessed by a long and prosperous reign, it was only by ornament that he could render it worthy of himself. This, however, he accomplished by covering every part with the most exquisite and elaborate carvings. The ornamental inscriptions are so numerous that it is said the whole Koran is engraved on its walls. The cornices are supported by the most elaborate bracketing, the windows filled with tracery, and every part so richly ornamented that had his artists not been Indians it might have become vulgar. The principal apartment in the tomb is a square of 40 ft. each way, covered by a stone roof, perfectly flat in the centre, and supported only by a cove projecting 10 ft. from the walls on every side. How the roof is supported is a mystery which can only be understood by those who are familiar with the use the Indians make of masses of concrete, which, with good mortar, seems capable of infinite applications unknown in Europe. Above this apartment is another in the dome as ornamental as the one below it, though its only object is to obtain externally the height required for architectural effect, and access to its interior can only be obtained by a dark narrow stair in the thickness of the wall.

Besides the tomb there is a mosque to correspond; and the royal garden, in which these are situated, is adorned, as usual, internally with fountains and kiosks, and externally with colonnades and caravansaries for strangers and pilgrims, the whole making up a group as rich and as picturesque as any in India, and far excelling anything of the sort on this side of the Hellespont.

The tomb of his successor, Mahmúd, was in design as complete a contrast to that just described as can well be conceived, and is as remarkable for simple grandeur and constructive boldness as that of Ibrahim was for excessive richness and contempt of constructive proprieties. It is constructed on the same principle as that employed in the design of the dome of the great mosque (Woodcut No. 319), but on so much larger a scale as to convert into a wonder of constructive skill what, in that instance, was only an elegant architectural design.

As will be seen from the plan, it is internally a square apartment, 135 ft. each way; its area consequently is 18,225 sq. ft., while that of the Pantheon at Rome is, within the walls, only 15,833 sq. ft.; and even taking into account all the recesses in the walls of both buildings, this is still the larger of the two.

At the height of 57 ft. from the floor-line the hall begins to contract, by a series of pendentives as ingenious as they are beautiful, to a circular opening 97 ft. in diameter. On the platform of these pendentives the dome is erected, 124 ft. in diameter, thus leaving a gallery more than 12 ft. wide all round the interior. Internally, the dome is 175 ft. high, externally 198 ft., its general thickness being about 10 ft.

The most ingenious and novel part of the construction of this dome is the mode in which its lateral or outward thrust is counteracted. This was accomplished by forming the pendentives so that they not only cut off the angles, but that, as shown in the plan, their arches intersect one another, and form a very considerable mass of masonry perfectly stable in itself; and, by its weight acting inwards, counteracting any thrust that can possibly be brought to bear upon it by the pressure of the dome. If the whole edifice thus balanced has any tendency to move, it is to fall inwards, which from its circular form is impossible; while the action of the weight of the pendentives being in the opposite direction to that of the dome, it acts like a tie, and keeps the whole in equilibrium, without interfering at all with the outline of the dome.

In the Pantheon and most European domes a great mass of masonry is thrown on the haunches, which entirely hides the external form, and is a singularly clumsy expedient in every respect compared with the elegant mode of hanging the weight inside.

Notwithstanding that this expedient gives the dome a perfectly stable basis to stand upon, which no thrust can move, still, looking at the section (Woodcut No. 323), its form is such that it appears almost paradoxical that such a building should stand. If the section represented an arch or a vault, it is such as would not stand one hour; but the dome is itself so perfect as a constructive expedient, that it is almost as difficult to build a dome that will fall as it is to build a vault that will stand. As the dome is also, artistically, the most beautiful form of roof yet invented, it may be well, before passing from the most extraordinary and complex example yet attempted anywhere, to pause and examine a little more closely the theory of its construction.

Let us suppose the diagram to represent the plan of a perfectly flat dome 100 ft. in diameter, and each rim consequently 10 ft. wide.

Further assuming for convenience that the whole dome weighs 7850 tons, the outer rim will weigh 2826 tons, or almost exactly as much as the three inner rims put together; the next will weigh 2204, the next 1568, the next 942, and the inner only 314; so that a considerable extra thickness might be heaped on it, or on the two inner ones, without their preponderance at all affecting the stability of the dome; but this is the most unfavourable view to take of the case. To understand the problem more clearly, let us suppose the semicircle A A A (Woodcut No. 324) to represent the section of a hemispherical dome. The first segment of this, though only 10 ft. in width, will be 30 ft. in height, and will weigh 9420 tons; the next, 10 ft. high and 10 ft. wide, will weigh 3140; the third, 10 ft. by 6 ft., will weigh only 1884; the fourth will weigh 942; and the central portion, as before, 316.