Question

Write a few lines on the Iron Pillar located in Mehrauli, Delhi.

Answer 1

Hint:
The iron pillar of Delhi is an edifice 23 ft 8 inches high with 16 inches’ width that was built by Chandragupta II and now exists in the Qutb complex at Mehrauli in Delhi, India. It is well-known for the corrosion-resilient configuration of the metals used in its creation. The pillar weighs over 6 tonnes and is believed to have been created somewhere else, possibly outside the Udayagiri Caves, and transferred to its current site initially in the Delhi Sultanate.

Complete Answer:
In 1831, the East India Company officer William Elliott made a duplicate of the engraving. Based on this copy, in 1834, James Prinsep issued a lithograph in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Still, this lithograph did not signify every single expression of the engraving appropriately. Some years far along, British engineer T. S. Burt made an ink imprint of the engraving. Based on this, in 1838, Prinsep issued an enhanced lithograph in a similar paper, with his interpretation of the writing and paraphrase of the transcript. Years later, Bhagwan Lal Indraji made another duplicate of the engraving on a cloth. Based on this duplicate, Bhau Daji Lad issued a reviewed transcript and paraphrase in 1875, in the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. This interpretation was the first one to appropriately state the king's name as Chandra. In 1888, John Faithfull Fleet issued an analytical version of the transcript in Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum. In 1945, Govardhan Rai Sharma dated the engraving to the first half of the 5th century CE, on palaeographic grounds. He detected that its writing was parallel to the inscription on other Gupta-Era writings, counting the ones revealed at Bilsad (415 CE), Baigram (449 CE), and Khanum (449 CE). R. Balasubramaniam (2005) observed that the typescripts of the Delhi writing meticulously bear a resemblance to the dated writings of Chandragupta II, discovered at Udayagiri in Madhya Pradesh.

Note:
It is not positive when the pillar was transferred to Delhi from its unique site. Alexander Cunningham accredited the transfer to the Tomara king Anangpal, based on the short pillar engraving credited to this ruler. Pasanaha Chariu, an 1132 CE Jain Apabhramsha transcript written by Vibudh Shridhar, affirms that "the mass of his pillar instigated the Lord of the Snakes to quake". The documentation of this pillar with the iron pillar gives sustenance to the concept that the pillar was previously in Delhi throughout Anangpal's rule.