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Art. I.—The Iron Pillar of Delhi (Mihraulī) and the Emperor Candra (Chandra)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Vincent A. Smith
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Extract

The project of writing the “Ancient History of Northern India from the Monuments” has long occupied my thoughts, but the duties of my office do not permit me, so long as I remain in active service, to devote the time and attention necessary for the execution and completion of so arduous an undertaking. There is, indeed, little prospect that my project will ever be fully carried into effect by me. Be that as it may, I have made some small progress in the collection of materials, and have been compelled from time to time to make detailed preparatory studies of special subjects. I propose to publish these studies occasionally under the general title of “Prolegomena to Ancient Indian History.” The essay now presented as No. I of the series is that which happens to be the first ready. It grew out of a footnote to the draft of a chapter on the history of Candra Gupta II.

Type
Original Communications
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , January 1897 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1897

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References

page 1 note 1 I use the conventional form Delhi for the name of the imperial city, though Dihlī is the more accurate spelling according to Muhammadan usage. The ordinary Hindī spelling is Dillī.

The best account of the numerous cities now known collectively as Delhi is that given by the late Mr. Carr Stephen in his excellent work entitled “The Archaeology and Monumental Kuins of Delhi” (Ludhiana and Calcutta, 1876). A general sketch-map of the ruined cities will be found in that book and in Cunningham's “Reports,” vol. i, pi. xxxv. The true date of the capture of Delhi by the Muhammadans is A.D. 1191 (ibid., p. 160, note).

On several matters the guidance of Carr Stephen is to be preferred to that of Cunningham.

page 1 note 2 Cunningham, , “Reports,” i, 186Google Scholar.

page 3 note 1 The fact of the destruction of the twenty-seven temples is stated in the inscription over the eastern entrance of the courtyard of the mosque, and is fully corroborated by an examination of the pillars, one of which bears the date 1124 (V.S.), equivalent to A.D. 1067–1068. (Cunningham, , “Reports,” vol. i, pp. 175, 177, 179Google Scholar; and vol. v, Preface, p. v; Carr Stephen, p. 41.)

page 3 note 2 Cunningham, , “Reports,” vol. v, Preface, p. iiGoogle Scholar.

page 3 note 3 Ibid., p. 27. This passage is written by Mr. Beglar. By “inner inclosure” the writer means the original mosque of Qutb-ud-dln, as distinguished from the later additions of Iltitmish (Iyaltamisli, Altamsb.) and of 'Alā-ud-dīa.

page 3 note 4 “Reports,” vol. v, p. 32; Carr Stephen, p. 40.

page 4 note 1 “Reports,” vol. i, pi. xxxviii.

page 4 note 2 Ibid., p. 170.

page 5 note 1 Cunningham, , “Reports,” vol. i, p. 169Google Scholar; vol. v, p. 28, pi. v. The plate gives a plan and section of the base of the pillar drawn to scale. See also Fergusson, , “Eastern and Indian Architecture,” p. 508Google Scholar; Ball, V., “Economic Geology of India,” pp. 338, 339Google Scholar; Carr Stephen, p. 16.

page 5 note 2 My description of the capital of the Delhi pillar is based on a good photograph and personal knowledge. The Eran pillar has been described by Cunningham, whose plate is lithographed from a photograph (“Reports,” vol. x, p. 81, pi. xxvi). A facsimile of the Iron Pillar is in the Indian Museum at South Kensington.

page 5 note 3 E.g., the Kahāom and Bhitarī pillars of Skanda Gupta's reign, and the Lauṛiyā pillar of Aśōka. (Cunningham, , “Reports,” vol. i, pls. xxv and xxix.)Google Scholar

page 6 note 1 “Gupta Inscriptions,” p. 140.

page 6 note 2 The document consists of six lines, or three stanzas, of the Çārdūlavīkrīṛita metre.

page 6 note 3 A pun, as usual in Sanskrit verse.

page 6 note 4 This translation is based on that of Dr. Fleet, who has been so anxious to secure verbal accuracy that his meaning is difficult to grasp. In ordev that my readers may not feel doubts as to the accuracy of my version, Dr. Fleet's is here appended.

“He, on whose arms fame was inscribed by the sword, when in battle in the Vaṅga countries, he kneaded (and turned) back with (his) breast the enemies who, uniting together, came against (him);—he, by whom, having crossed in warfare the seven mouths of the (river) Sindhu, the Vahlikas were conquered;—he, by the breezes of whose prowess the southern ocean is even still perfumed;—

(Line 3.) “He, the remnant of the great zeal of whose energy, which utterly destroyed (his) enemies, like (the remnant of the great glowing heat) of a burnedout fire in a great forest, even now leaves not the earth; though he, the king, as if wearied, has quitted this earth, and has gone to the other world, moving in (bodily) form to the land (of paradise) won by (the merit of his) actions, (but) remaining on (this) earth by (the memory of his) fame;—

(Line 5.) “By him, the king—who attained sole supreme sovereignty in the world, acquired by his own arm, and (enjoyed) for a very long time; (and) who, having the name of Candra, carried a beauty of countenance like (the beauty of) the full moon—having in faith fixed his mind upon (the god) Viṣṇu, this lofty standard of the divine Viṣṇu was set up on the hill (called) Viṣṇupada.”

The translation of the words abhilikhitā khaḍgēna Kīrttirbhujē, “fame was written on [his] arm by the sword,” is plain enough, but the meaning is obscure. Prinsep, who used an inaccurate text, supposed the pillar itself to be referred to as “the arm,” and that “the letters cut upon it are called the typical cuts inflicted upon his enemies by his sword, writing his immortal fame” (J. A. S. B., vii, 630, quoted in cunningham, “Reports,” i, 170). The poet probably did intend to suggest that the pillar was the uplifted arm Candra, as well as the standard of viṣṇu. The Allāhābād Pillar is called “an arm of the earth” (“Gupta Inscriptions,” p. 10). I have suggested another interpretation in the text.

page 7 note 1 “I read his name preferably as Bhāva, the letter bh having got closed by the accidental slip of the punching chisel. The letter is different from every other dh in the inscription.” (Cunningham, , “Reports,” i, 171Google Scholar.) This observation is correct. The letter dh occurs in six other places.

page 10 note 1 “Gupta Inscriptions,” p. 28.

page 10 note 2 Namely, the Mathurā and Gaḍhwa inscriptions (Nos. 4 and 7 of “Gupta Inscriptions”); the Javelin, Horseman to Right, and Horseman to Left types of the gold, and the Vikramāditya types of the silver coinage. The silver coins belong to a period subsequent to the conquest of Surāṣṭra.

page 10 note 3 “Gupta Inscriptions,” p. 9, note, where instances are given.

page 11 note 1 Smith, V. A., “Coinage,” pp. 143, 144Google Scholar.

page 11 note 2 I reject absolutely the suggestion of Bābū Nagēndra Nātha Vāsu that Candra of the Iron Pillar is to be identified with the Mahārāja Candravarman, son of Mahārāja Siddhavarman, who recorded a brief dedicatory inscription in characters of the Gupta period on the Susuniā hill, seventeen miles SSW. of the Rāuīgānj railway station in the Bānkurā District of Bengal. That chieftain, who is styled “lord of the Puskara lake,” was probably the Candravarman mentioned in the Allāhābād pillar inscription as one of the kings of Āryavarta conquered by Samudra Gupta (Proe. A.S.B. for 1895, p. 177). He may have been king of Kāmarūpa, or Assam. It is very improbable that the Puṣkara lake in Ajmīr can be that referred to in this inscription from Lower Bengal, as the Bābū assumes that it is.

page 11 note 3 Ball, Valentine, “Economic Geology of India,” p. 338Google Scholar.

page 12 note 1 “Gupta Inscriptions,” p. 140, note 2. No detailed description of this pillar is known to me. Dr. Fleet observes that “there is no ancient inscription on it; unless it is completely hidden under, and destroyed by, a Persian inscription that was engraved on it when the Musulmans conquered that part of the country.”

page 12 note 2 Crooke, , “An Introduction to the Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India,” p. 191. Allāhābād, 1894Google Scholar.

page 13 note 1 These traditions are discussed by Cunningham, , “Reports,” i, p. 137 seqqGoogle Scholar., and Carr Stephen, p. 11 seqq. The inscription on the Iron Pillar, which is said to give the date for Ānanga Pāla I as Samvat 419, has not been published. Abūl Fazl (Gladwin's, “Ayeen Akbari,” ii, 96Google Scholar) refers the date 429 to the Vikrama era, but Cunningham is probably right in interpreting the date as referable to the Gupta-Valabhi era.

page 13 note 2 Chand is said to connect the legends of the Iron Pillar with Ānanga Pāla II. (Carr Stephen, p. 17.)Google Scholar

page 13 note 3 Cunningham, , “Reports,” i, 151Google Scholar.

page 13 note 4 Cunningham assigns him a reign of thirty years, A.D. 1051 to 1081; but the exact limits are not known. (Ibid., p. 149.)

page 17 note 3 Mathurā Stone Inscription of Candra Gupta II (No. 4, “Gupta Inscriptions); Inscription dated G.E. 113 (No. 39, Epigraphia Indica, ii, 198).