Tantipara Mosque, Gaur

The Tantipara mosque is one of the earliest examples of the oblong multi-domed type in Bengal; Cunningham called it the finest of all the buildings remaining at Gaur. It stands between the small Sagar Dighi and the Bhagirathi, a mile north of the citadel's eastern wall, between the Lattan and Chamkatti mosques. ¹ Its name comes from its quarter — tanti, weaver, and para, ward — as Creighton, who painted it in 1801-07, explains. ¹ It was built by Sultan Yusuf Shah in AH 885/1480. ^{2 3}

It is an oblong brick building, 78 by 31 feet inside and 91 by 44 outside, divided into two aisles by an arcade on four stone pillars with square bases, which the author holds to be contemporary rather than taken from a temple as Brown thought. ¹ The qibla wall has five pointed mihrabs in rectangular frames of rich stucco; the stone facing is finely finished; it is entered by five arches on the east with no verandah; its walls are 6½ feet thick. ⁴ It has four octagonal corner towers, a mihrab buttress on the outside of the qibla wall, and a double curved cornice. ⁵

Its most conspicuous feature was the women's (zenana) gallery, shown by a small niche high in the qibla wall above the northern mihrab and entered from the north through a porch — hence the two small arched openings in the north wall instead of jali windows, and a single door instead of two. ^{4 5} The author sees it as the forerunner of the mosque of Firuz Shah II at Guamalti, the Jahaniyan mosque at Gaur and the Bagha mosque. ^{5 6}