Bayana in Rajasthan and its monuments challenge the perceived but established view of the development of Indo-Muslim architecture and urban form. At the end of the 12th century the Ghurid conquerors took the mighty Hindu fort, building the first Muslim city below on virgin ground. It was the centre of an autonomous region during the 15th and 16th centuries and was even considered by Sikandar Lodī for the capital of his sultanate before he decided on Agra, then a mere village of Bayana. A peculiarity of historic sites in India is that whole towns with outstanding remains can, through political ... More

Bayana in Rajasthan and its monuments challenge the perceived but established view of the development of Indo-Muslim architecture and urban form. At the end of the 12th century the Ghurid conquerors took the mighty Hindu fort, building the first Muslim city below on virgin ground. It was the centre of an autonomous region during the 15th and 16th centuries and was even considered by Sikandar Lodī for the capital of his sultanate before he decided on Agra, then a mere village of Bayana. A peculiarity of historic sites in India is that whole towns with outstanding remains can, through political change or climatic events, be either built over by modern developments or fall into obscurity. The latter is the case with Bayana, abandoned following an earthquake in 1505. Going beyond a simple study of the historic, architectural and archaeological remains ‒ surveyed and illustrated in detail ‒ the book takes on the wider issues of how far the artistic traditions of Bayana, which developed independently from those of Delhi, later influenced North Indian architecture and were the forerunners of the Mughal architectural style, which draw many of its features from innovations developed first in Bayana.