Iron pillar of Delhi
The iron pillar of Delhi is a metal structure high with a diameter that was constructed by Chandragupta II, and now stands in the Qutb complex at Mehrauli in Delhi, India.
The metals used in its construction have a rust-resistant composition. The pillar weighs more than six tonnes and is thought to have been erected elsewhere, possibly outside the Udayagiri Caves, and moved to its present location by Anangpal Tomar in the 11th century.
Physical description
The height of the pillar, from the top to the bottom of its base, is, of which is below ground. Its bell pattern capital is. It is estimated to weigh more than.The pillar has attracted the attention of archaeologists and materials scientists because of its high resistance to corrosion and has been called a "testimony to the high level of skill achieved by the ancient Indian iron smiths in the extraction and processing of iron". The corrosion resistance results from an even layer of crystalline iron hydrogen phosphate hydrate forming on the high-phosphorus-content iron, which serves to protect it from the effects of the Delhi climate.
Inscriptions
The pillar carries a number of inscriptions of different dates.Inscription of King Chandra or Chandragupta II
The oldest inscription on the pillar is that of a king named Chandra, generally identified as the Gupta emperor Chandragupta II.Inscription
The inscription covers an area of 2′9.5″× 10.5″. The ancient writing is preserved well because of the corrosion-resistant iron on which it is engraved. However, during the engraving process, iron appears to have closed up over some of the strokes, making some of the letters imperfect.It contains verses composed in Sanskrit language, in shardulvikridita metre. It is written in the eastern variety of the Gupta script. The letters vary from 0.3″ to 0.5″ in size, and resemble closely to the letters on the Allahabad Pillar inscription of Samudragupta. However, it had distinctive s, similar to the ones in the Bilsad inscription of Kumaragupta I. While the edges of the characters on the Allahabad inscription are more curved, the ones on the Delhi inscription have more straight edges. This can be attributed to the fact that the Prayagraj inscription was inscribed on softer sandstone, while the Delhi inscription is engraved on the harder material.
The text has some unusual deviations from the standard Sanskrit spelling, such as:
- instead of : the use of dental nasal instead of anusvāra
- instead of : omission of the second t
- instead of : omission of the second t
- instead of śatru : an extra ''t''
Studies
Decades later, Bhagwan Lal Indraji made another copy of the inscription on a cloth. Based on this copy, Bhau Daji Lad published a revised text and translation in 1875, in Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. This reading was the first one to correctly mention the king's name as Chandra. In 1888, John Faithfull Fleet published a critical edition of the text in Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum.
In 1945, Govardhan Rai Sharma dated the inscription to the first half of the 5th century CE, on paleographic grounds. He observed that its script was similar to the writing on other Gupta-Era inscriptions, including the ones discovered at Bilsad, Baigram, and Kahanum. R. Balasubramaniam noted that the characters of the Delhi inscription closely resembled the dated inscriptions of Chandragupta II, found at Udayagiri in Madhya Pradesh.
Issuance
The inscription is undated, and contains a eulogy of a king named Candra, whose dynasty it does not mention. The identity of this king, and thus the date of the pillar, has been the subject of much debate. The various viewpoints about the identity of the issuer were assembled and analyzed in a volume edited by M. C. Joshi and published in 1989.The king is now generally identified with the Gupta King Chandragupta II. This identification is based on several points:
- The script and the poetic style of the inscription, which point to a date in the late fourth or early fifth century CE: the Gupta period.
- The inscription describes the king as a devotee of the God Vishnu, and records the erection of a dhvaja of Vishnu, on a hill called Viṣṇupada. Other Gupta inscriptions also describe Chandragupta II as a Bhagavata. The names of the places mentioned in the inscription are also characteristic of the Gupta Era. For example, and .
- The short name 'Candra' is inscribed on the archer-type gold coins of Chandragupta II, while his full name and titles appear in a separate, circular legend on the coin.
- A royal seal of Chandragupta's wife Dhruvadevi contains the phrase .
Text
Following is the Roman script transliteration of the text:J. F. Fleet's 1888 translation is as follows:
Due to the tablets installed on the building in 1903 by Pandit Banke Rai, the reading provided by him enjoys wide currency. However, Bankelal's reading and interpretation have been challenged by more recent scholarship. The inscription has been revisited by Michael Willis in his book Archaeology of Hindu Ritual, his special concern being the nature of the king's spiritual identity after death. His reading and translation of verse 2 is as follows:
The Sanskrit portion given above can be translated as follows:
Willis concludes:
Samvat 1109 inscription
One short inscription on the pillar is associated with the Tomara king Anangpal, although it is hard to decipher. Alexander Cunningham read the inscription as follows:Based on this reading, Cunningham theorized that Anangpal had moved the pillar to its current location while establishing the city of Delhi. However, his reading has been contested by the later scholars. Buddha Rashmi Mani read it as follows:
History of the Iron Pillar
The pillar was installed as a trophy in building the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque and the Qutb complex by Sultan Iltutmish in the 13th century. Its original location, whether on the site itself or from elsewhere, is debated.According to the inscription of king Chandra, the pillar was erected at Vishnupadagiri. J. F. Fleet identified this place with Mathura, because of its proximity to Delhi and the city's reputation as a Vaishnavite pilgrimage centre. However, archaeological evidence indicates that during the Gupta period, Mathura was a major centre of Buddhism, although Vaishnavism may have existed there. Moreover, Mathura lies in plains, and only contains some small hillocks and mounds: there is no true giri in Mathura.
Based on paleographic similarity to the dated inscriptions from Udayagiri, the Gupta-era iconography, analysis of metallurgy and other evidence, Meera Dass and R. Balasubramaniam theorized that the iron pillar was originally erected at Udayagiri. According to them, the pillar, with a wheel or discus at the top, was originally located at the Udayagiri Caves. This conclusion was partly based on the fact that the inscription mentions Vishnupada-giri. This conclusion was endorsed and elaborated by Michael D. Willis in his The Archaeology of Hindu Ritual, published in 2009.
The key point in favour of placing the iron pillar at Udayagiri is that this site was closely associated with Chandragupta and the worship of Vishnu in the Gupta period. In addition, there are well-established traditions of mining and working iron in central India, documented particularly by the iron pillar at Dhar and local place names like Lohapura and Lohangī Pīr. The king of Delhi, Iltutmish, is known to have attacked and sacked Vidisha in the thirteenth century and this would have given him an opportunity to remove the pillar as a trophy to Delhi, just as the Tughluq rulers brought Asokan pillars to Delhi in the 1300s.
It is not certain when the pillar was moved to Delhi from its original location. Alexander Cunningham attributed the relocation to the Tomara king Anangpal, based on the short pillar inscription ascribed to this king. Pasanaha Chariu, an 1132 CE Jain Apabhramsha text composed by Vibudh Shridhar, states that "the weight of his pillar caused the Lord of the Snakes to tremble". The identification of this pillar with the iron pillar lends support to the theory that the pillar was already in Delhi during Anangpal's reign.
Another theory is that the relocation happened during the Muslim rule in Delhi. Some scholars have assumed that it happened around 1200 CE, when Qutb al-Din Aibak commenced the construction of the Qutb complex as a general of Muhammad of Ghor.
Finbarr Barry Flood theorizes that it was Qutb al-Din's successor Iltutmish, who moved the pillar to Delhi. According to this theory, the pillar was originally erected in Vidisha and that the pillar was moved to the Qutb complex, by Iltutmish when he attacked and sacked Vidisha in the thirteenth century.