The Sinking Brick Mosques of Bengal; ciudad de aguas
| Título | The Sinking Brick Mosques of Bengal |
|---|---|
| Del Curso | Poética de las Aguas |
| Carreras | Náutico y Marítimo"Náutico y Marítimo" is not in the list (Arquitectura, Diseño, Magíster, Otra) of allowed values for the "Carreras Relacionadas" property. |
| Alumno(s) | Arijit Chatterjee |
Introduction
The cultural zone of Bengal holds its own spatial location between two worlds -the Himalayas in the north and the Indian Ocean in the south forming a territorial discontinuity. It’s Bengal,where the land-bulge of the Indian sub-continent contracts….And the same time, forms the western edge of the other complex racial and cultural continuity. As such a monocultural point of view would restrict an understanding of the historical layering and the diversity within.
Islam was a direct component of Turko-Persian culture in India, specifically in the North because of its proximity in terms trade and military operations to unsettle the existing powers. In Bengal the process of Islamic spread was much less a political and societal upheaval, it involves a different dynamics mainly because of the cultural identity of the Bengali spoken Muslims and its completely different geo-climatic setting. In such circumstances there were ample chances of a transformation of the ancient consciousness of place than a total obliteration.
For example, why did the Muslim Builders prefer to build the most number of small pavilion-like mosques although having have had constructed the ambitious Adina Mosque? The builders of the first mosques who converted to Islam had an understanding of construction in brick. Architectural elements like vaults, arches and domes were not an invention of the time but the Islamic builders understanding of an architectural schemata was experiential and stood deep in the local sensitivity, causing in an iconographic shift in the typology of mosques in the Islamic world.
The term ‘Bengal’ was first used in the travel descriptions of Marco Polo which literally means an ancient group of people who lived in the southern part of Bangladesh. About 1330, in the time of Delhi emperor Tughlag, Bengal was divided into three sub-provinces, Lakhnawti(Gaur) in the north, Sonargaon in the east and Satgaon in the south West. Tughlag unified the three provinces and declared the first independent sultanate free from Delhi Sultanate.
During these independent Muslim occupation of Bengal,some Sufis and saints came and settled in different parts of Bengal for their missionary activities to propagate Islam,for example Khan Jahan ‘Ali at Bagerhat,Shah Jalal at Sylet,Baba Adam at Rampal-Dhaka,Makhdum Shahdaullah Shahid at Shahjadpur etc. Over time, the Sufis earned significant social importance and were further encouraged by Sultans to built social institutions.
Processes and Context of Power
The term ‘Bengal’ as a territory was first defined by the Muslim rulers that stretches from the Brahmaputra , the Kangsa, the Surma and the Sajjuk river in the east to the Nagar, the Barakar and the lower reaches of Suvarnarekha in the west. A major description of the context involves the description of rivers and its flood lands, the formation of nomad islands and the changing course of the mother river and displacement of landmasses. The alluvial basin formed by sediments deposited by the Ganges and Brahmaputra and their numerous associated streams and distributors is also the most fertile naturally irrigated landmass on earth. It is therefore obvious that the monsoon rains, the rise and fall of river levels, floods, alluvion, diluvion and changes in river courses form the substance of both cultural and physical geography of the area. As well as constructing the traumatic memory of existence, it also supplies necessary nutrients for cultivation. The rural settlements are scattered and temporarily inhabited. The nature of a dwelling, its construction and dismantling is very much analogous to rice cultivation in shifting alluvial planes. An average agricultural family in the delta changes their habitat (bhita) 14 times in a lifetime. As such, the ‘fertility’ of soil is of less value than its ‘fluidity’. The nomad islands (chars) and the southern edge of the delta are prone to serious flooding, imposing climatic constraint to cope with a nomadic sense of existence. The region between Jessore and Khulna to Bagerhat is low and covered with swamps, the population is sparse, and the places suitable for dwellings are the high lands along the banks of rivers. Further south where the tracts begin to merge in the Sundarbans, we find very few villages with a shifting boundary and rich rice fields and scattered houses in groups as grams. Sluggish creeks (khals) and rivers wind about the rice clearings, and their course can be traced by the fringe of brushwood that lines their banks. The above description of the context involves a very rich diversity governed by the dynamics of water and land. The description of an agricultural village and the processes that construct the memory of existence in a transitory and traumatic landscape opposed by a sense of permanence defines the freestanding singular representation of a mosque. The rural settlement pattern consists of grams, usually nucleated type, not the single farm type living in compact groups and not in widely scattered habitations, to adapt to an agrarian system. The villages consist of very well defined parts: a)Vastu,the habitat b)Kshetra,agricultural land c)Go-chara,natural meadow land. Usually located at the corner of the village (gramas) along the boundaries. d)Garta/nala, pits and canals for drainage. e)Ushara,barren tracts f)go-parha/go-maga,catle tracts g)patha, path
The rich alluvial deposit is used as the most available raw material to make bricks and other everyday objects establish a contextual relationship with the attitudes of Muslim builders. For example, the ‘chala’ and its different variants, mainly found in roofs of Bengal temples and Sultanate mosques is an appropriate example of an instrumental inheritance of local crafts into building practices. George Michell appropriately points out that the use of bamboo in the making of chouchala vaults is conducive to the pliability of bamboo and hence the patterns are still observed which shows a structural scaffolding pattern of its construction. Although the hut roof forms are inspirational and imitation in terms of modified representation is arguable, the use of bamboo for generating a curved surface in response monsoon water shows the inventiveness in the thought process of the builders. More than understanding the ‘usefulness’ and ‘appropriateness’ in building techniques, the Muslim builders attended to the need of a contextual resolution in brick and later in stone to find a language closer to existing practices in everyday life . Thus the hut is not a mere representation of the laukik(vernacular/folk) that is monumentalized by any means but the adaptive practice of making a ‘chala’ convinced the builders to represent its reality as an expressive element specific to the laukik and hence the chouchala roof form in the Sultanate mosques. Here one can obeserve that the context is shaped by processes that inform its functional domain of acceptance as well as its relation to ever-changing relation to external forces that generate new meaning(s), of which the Muslim occupation in Bengal is no exception.
The Bengali Mosque and the Deltaic Condition
In terns of making, the mosques in the city of Bagerhat are very similar to the brick kilns found in the aquatic landscape of the delta. The rich deposit of clay makes these kilns function in the dry season and are left abandoned in the monsoon, creating a landscape of power submerged in flood wáter. The mosques give shape to such an imagination in a concrete way. The smallest of the mosques, the Cunkhola Mosque to the grand 60-domed mosque appeal to ones imagination of how a house of God withstands time to immortalize itself. Its architecture reflects a robust understanding of resources that immortlaizes itself as a temporal construct. A city with soft ground seeking permanance and protecting itself from the rising sea and the swelling rivers suddenly transforms into a dramatic landscape of anticipation over centuries. The Muslim builders had the genius to seek order in such a fragile geo-climatic context .
Over time they experimented with brick to house domes over an octaginal base with lessons from their precedents. The builders not only mastered the craftsmanship but understood the essence of Bengali psyche, which is tactile and sensorial rather than an iconic representation of their religious belief. The diversity involved in the procees is equally varied and arguably one of the most significant acievement of the Independent Sutanate in Bengal .
Functional Diversity and Evolution in the Brick School of Bengal: Tracing the Roots
The earliest evidence of monumental architecture roots in Bengal comes from the Buddhist tradition. The early monumental architecture marks a moment of conscious creation,
"pointing to the transition from an unselfconscious architecture-the domain of traditional, vernacular practice to a more metaphorical and symbolic construction,"
.(REF)
This was the result of a more consolidated political and social structure by means of a stable Pala reign with their artistic maturity. Other ruins between 3rd and 12th century include the Buddhist viharas and stupas found in Mainamati at Comilla district in Bangladesh Few number of Hindu Temples (9th -12th century) of north-Indian influence remain in Bankura and Burduan districts, the westernmost districts of West Bengal. Thus to reflect on the building tradition of ancient Bengal one finds the viharas as a type. The Paharpur complex in the Pala domain is one of the largest in the sub-continent and comprises of stupas, minor chapels, water tanks amongst other structures. It’s enclosed by a quadrangular ring of one hundred seventy five cells. The conceptualization and construction of the cells for monks around a courtyard, the combination of vihara and ‘stupatemple’ types within a complex is the first configuration of any religious institution in the delta.
Within a short period of time the Muslims became rulers of the entire landmass and for the next 100 years, Bengal was a province ruled by governors appointed by the Delhi sovereigns. The arrival of Turks introduced a Turko-Persian culture with a totally new religious ethos. In 1338, Fakhr al Din Mubarak Shah declared independence for eastern part of Bengal and in a few years (1342) Ilyas Shah succeeded in unifying the whole of Bengal and founded an independent kingdom. His successors preserved the unity and independence of Bengal for more than 185 years to come. Based on an existing culture and tradition of building, new building types were introduced, such as mosques and mausoleums. A large number of mosques were built during the independent Sultanete (1338-1538), “Of the total number of dated mosques constructed in Bengal during the entire Muslim period(1204-1757); almost three-quarters were built between the mid-fifteenth and the mid sixteenth century” 10.The major sites of building were around the city of Gaur,Pandua,Bagerhat and Sonargaon.
The most important architectural phenomenon of this period is introduction of the mosque as a new building type-the ‘Bengali mosque’.These mosques elaborate a singular idea instead of a pavilion and had adaptive resemblance to laukik(vernacular) practices in its own expressive ways in brick.
Apart from the efforts made by the Delhi Sultans, the isolation of Bengal from rest of the Indian subcontinent led the Muslims to be closer to the indigenous culture and literature. The translation of Ramayana in Bengali, construction of numerous Hindu temples under direct patronage of Bengali Sultans and development of Bengali language in several literary forms is seen during this time. Until the coming of the Mughals, the Bengali Sultans are seen painstakingly involved in experimentation with local materials, craftsmanship and building techniques to find an indigenous response to built religious institutions with characteristic variation in the language of building, and a response to the land-water condition.
