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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(JULY, 1885.
BULANDUL, HISTORIC Indian Cirihu Press, 18
which the others should be held to be deviations. | with which no doubt he is acquainted,'pañich By this means the vagaries of rustio pronuncia- pañch mil kljá kedj, hard jitá na dve ldj: when tion might by degrees be reduced into manageable a company does business no one is blamed if limits.
it succeed or fail,' and which so aptly expresses Specially noteworthy is the attempt to indicate the hopelessness of trying to fasten blame on several fine distinctions in vowel sounds by signs a corporate body. However, it must be as gratify. borrowed from the Gurmukhi character, a measure ing to him as it is to us, to see that his repeated in which Dr. Hoernle took the lead, and which, it hammering at the folly of holding up ourselves may be hoped, will become general.
to the Indian public as official approvers of all John BEAMES. that is ugly and tasteless, is at last bearing reful
fruit, and that the Pañjab Government has
lately officially disapproved of plans submitted BULANDSHAHR; OR SKETCHES OP AN INDIAN DISTRICT, SOCIAL, HISTORICAL AND ARCHITECTURAL. BY F.S.
by the Lahore Municipality, merely on the GROWBE, C.I.E., Indian Civil Service. With illus- ground that they are ugly. It was admitted that trations. Benares. Medical Hall Press, 1834.
the plans proposed had been largely adopted This short quarto of some 90 pages is divided elsewhere, but the Government in effect hoped into three distinct portions. Part I. describes that the Municipality would be able to prepare the District of Bulandshahr, Part II. gives an plans of a more ornamental kind without mateaccount of its history from ancient times to the rially adding to the cost of the buildings. Mutiny, and Part III. an account of the rebuild. If we have read Mr. Growse's pages aright it ing of its towns under the auspices of the artistic would seem that he is of opinion that the Natives author.
are likely to largely copy the warehouse style of Mr. Growse's qualifications for the first two
architecture adopted by the Public Works Dedivisions of his subject are so well known and partment in our public buildings. Here we have been so well illustrated in his model think that his enthusiasm has carried him too district memoir on Mathura that it is almost far. Here and there an 'advanced' Native of the superfluous to say that both are treated with noble' class may do so, but it is our opinion, consummate skill and scholarship, and are safe after careful examination of many a building, guides for those who may have to study the that as architecture in India is still a living art, locality.
there is no servile copying to be found in the The main interest in the book lies in the third majority of buildings; and that even in British part, which describes how he set to work to im. Cantonmen: towns, where British influence prove the towns over which chance had given him is strongest and the very builders are nearly all control; a duty to which he evidently gave his trained in the Public Works Department, British whole heart and performed with all the enthu. influence in native buildings is mainly to be seen siasm of the artist. The key to the spirit which in adaptations of European ideas and materials animated him throughout is to be found in the to native architectural requirementa in reasonable quotation on the title-page :-"Our western civi. subordination, lization is perhaps not absolutely the glorious thing we like to imagine it." Accordingly we do not find him improving the city of Buland. A COMPREHENSIVE COMMENTARY ON THE QURAN
comprising Sale's Translation and Preliminary shahr by the erection of European buildings on
Discourse, with additional notes and emendations. European models for purposes considered desirable By the Rev. E.M. WHERRY, M.A., Vol. II. (Lone by Europeans, but by taking the city and the
don: Trubner and Co.) people as he finds them and inducing the latter to In noticing the first volume of this work (ante, satisfy their wants, as they feel them, by buildings Vol. XI. p. 304), we have pointed out its importance after their own hearts: Indian listlessness having to the student of Islam, and sketched its plan. been hitherto content with mere mud and un. This volume contains chapters III. to XIII, tidiness.
inclusive, or about one-third of the total contents This method of prooeeding brought him into of the Quran, so that two more volumes will be more or less direct collision with the powers that required to complete the work. We could wish be, especially in the Public Works Department, that, in what still remains, and in the promised and accordingly with all the courage of his opi. index to the text, Sale's Discourse, and notes, nions that has distinguished the author in other the author would, as far as possible, rectify his publications he runs full tilt at the Department transcriptions of Arabic and Persian names and without any mincing of words or beating about words-which is not scholarly, and is the worst, if the bush: inmindful of the native proverb not the only fault we have to find with the book.
