KOTĪLA OF FEROZE SHĀH.
Feb. 21st.—We mounted our horses and rode to a ruin, beyond the Delhi Gate, called the Kotīla of Feroze Shāh. This is an old Fort completely in ruins. In the centre some arches still remain, on the top of which is a platform, on which is erected a lāt, a pillar of a single stone of great height, which is said to be of granite; a number of inscriptions are on the pillar. It measures at the base upwards of twelve feet in circumference. The top is broken, apparently shivered by lightning.
The following extracts, from Captain William Franklin’s Memoirs of Mr. George Thomas, and his Visit to Delhi in 1793, are interesting:—
“A mile to the southward of the city are the remains of the fort, palace, and mosque of the Patan emperor, the first Feroze. These ruins embrace a considerable extent. The walls of the fort are of immense thickness, and the prodigious quantity of granite, with other stones, spread in heaps over the whole of the interior of the inclosure, denote it to have been a grand and splendid edifice. This fort was built Anno Hijirah 755, and was destroyed by the Mogul conqueror Timoor, in his invasion of Hindostan. Toward the centre of the place, is a building, of an ancient style, flanked with round pillars, and crowned with turrets of three stories. At the top of this building, on an ample terrace of stone, about forty feet in height, is a column of brown granite. On this column is an inscription, in the ancient character before-mentioned, as discernible on the pillar in the Fort of Allahabad, and composed of the same materials. This pillar is called by the natives Feroze Cotelah, the staff of Feroze; and from the construction of the building on which it is placed, I should conjecture it has been a monument of Hindoo grandeur prior to the irruptions of the Musulmans. Adjoining to the Cotelah is a very large building, differing in the style of its architecture from those mosques built subsequent to the establishment of the Moguls. This mosque is square, has four extensive aisles, or cloisters, the roofs of which are stone, and supported by two hundred and fifty columns of stone, about sixteen feet high. The length of the cloisters gives a grand appearance to the building. An octangular dome of stone and brickwork, about twenty-five feet high, rises from the centre of the mosque. In the western cloister, is a kibla, or niche in the wall, in the direction of Mecca. Of this mosque, the Emperor Timoor took a model, and carrying it with him on his return to Samarcand, his capital, accompanied at the same time by artificers and workmen of every description, he, shortly after his arrival, built a magnificent temple.
“In the northern aisle of this mosque, at the upper end, is a small window, from which was thrown the body of the late Emperor Allumgeer, who had been assassinated at the instigation of his Vizier, Gaziodeen Khan. The assassins were two Mahomedan devotees, whom he had invited under the pretence of their working miracles. The body of this unfortunate prince, unburied, for two days lay on the sands of the Jumna. At last it was taken up by the permission of Gaziodeen, and interred in the sepulchre of Humaioon. To me it appears that the style of building in this mosque refers to a period in the architecture of the Hindoos prior to the Mogul conquests. The mosque at Paniput, erected by the Emperor Baber, may be looked upon as the model of all the succeeding Mogul buildings.”
The Akbārābādee Masjid, which we next visited, is a large mosque, not very remarkable; perhaps this is the Masjid of the Akbārābādee Begam, whose tomb is near the Tāj at Agra.
Thence we went to the Zeenut-al-Masjid, on the side of the Jumna, erected by a daughter of Aurangzeb, by name Zeenut-al-Nissa; it is a very beautiful mosque, the minarets remarkably elegant, and two of the pillars in front of the entrance, beautifully carved, are of elegant form. “It is of red stone, with inlayings of marble, and has a spacious terrace in front, with a capacious reservoir, faced with marble. The princess who built it, having declined entering into the married state, laid out a large sum of money in the above mosque; and on its completion, she built a sepulchre of white marble, surrounded by a wall of the same, in the west corner of the terrace. Here she was buried, in the year of the Hijerah 1122, corresponding to the year of Christ, 1710.”
We called on Colonel Skinner, and saw his sister, an old lady very like her brother, with a dark complexion and white hair. The Chandnī Chauk is a fine street, and its bazār the best in the city; we rode through it about 4 P.M.; it was filled with crowds of gaily-dressed natives.