22. This is correct. The Hindoo 'towers of victory' are in a totally different style.
23. On the misnomer 'Pathāns', see ante, previous note 6.
24. The Kutb mosque was constructed from the materials of twenty- seven Hindoo temples. The colonnades retain much of their Hindoo character. (Fanshawe, p. 259 and plate.)
25. The author's description of the unfinished tower is far from accurate. The tower was begun, not by Shams-ud-dīn Īltutmish, but by Alā-ud-dīn Muhammad Shāh, in the year A.H. 711 (A.D. 1311). It is about 82 feet in diameter, and when cased with marble, as was intended, would have been at least 85 feet in diameter, or nearly double that of the Kutb Mīnār, which is 48 feet 4 inches. The total height of the column as it now stands is about 75 feet above the plinth, or 87 feet above the ground level. (A.S.R., vol. i, p. 205; vol. iv, p. 62, pl. vii; Thomas, Chronicles, p. 173, citing original authorities.) Carr Stephen (p. 67) gives the circumference as 254 feet, and the height as about 80 feet.
26. Alā-ud-dīn's additions were never completed. The sack of Delhi by Tīmūr Lang (Tamerlane) took place in December 1398. The Delhi sacked by him was the city known as Fīrōzābād.
27. The glory of the mosque is . . . the great range of arches on the western side, extending north and south for about 385 feet, and consisting of three greater and eight smaller arches; the central one 22 feet wide, and 53 feet high; the larger side-arches, 24 feet 4 inches, and about the same height as the central arch; the smaller arches, which are unfortunately much ruined, are about half these dimensions.' The great arch 'has since been carefully restored by Government under efficient superintendence, and is now as sound and complete as when first erected. The two great side arches either were never completed, or have fallen down in consequence of the false mode of construction.' (Fergusson, Hist. of I. and E. Archit., ed. 1910, vol. ii, pp. 203, 204). The centre arch bears an inscription dated in A.H. 594, or A.D. 1198 (Thomas, Chronicles, p. 24).
28. Most of the description of the Iron Pillar in the text is erroneous. The pillar has nothing to do with Prithī Rāj, who was slain by the Muhammadans in A.D. 1192 (A.H. 588). The earliest inscription on it records the victories of a Rājā Chandra, probably Chandra-varman, chief of Pokharan in Rājputāna in the fourth century A.C. (E.H.I., 3rd ed., 1914, p. 290, note). The pillar is by no means 'small' when its material is considered; on the contrary, it is very large. That material is not 'bronze, or a metal which resembles bronze', but is pure malleable iron, as proved by analysis. It has been suggested that this pillar must have been formed by gradually welding pieces together; if so, it has been done very skilfully, since no marks of such welding are to be seen. . . . The famous iron pillar at the Kutb, near Delhi, indicates an amount of skill in the manipulation of a large mass of wrought iron which has been the marvel of all who have endeavoured to account for it. It is not many years since the production of such a pillar would have been an impossibility in the largest foundries of the world, and even now there are comparatively few where a similar mass of metal could be tumed out. . . . The total weight must exceed six tons.' (V. Ball, Economic Geology of India, pp. 338, 339.) The metal is uninjured by rust, and the inscription is perfect. An exact facsimile is set up in the Indian Section of the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington, The pillar is shown, with the smaller arches of the mosque, in H.F.A. fig. 232. See also Fanshawe, pp. 260, 264, and plates. The inscription was edited by Fleet (Gupta Inscriptions, 1888, No. 32). The dimensions of the pillar are as follows: Height above ground (total), 22 ft,; height below ground, 1 ft. 8 in.; diameter at base, 16.4 in.; diameter at the capital, 12.05 in.; height of capital, 3½ ft. At a distance of a few inches below the surface it expands in a bulbous form to a diameter of 2 ft. 4 in., and rests on a gridiron of iron bars, which are fastened with lead into the stone pavement. (A.S.R., vol. iv, p. 28, pl. v.)
This last prosaic fact, established by actual excavation, destroys the basis of all the current local legends and spurious traditions.
29. This name is printed Ouse in the author's text. The saint referred to is the celebrated Kutb-ud-dīn Bakhtyār Kākī, commonly called Kutb Shāh, who died on the 27th of November, A.D. 1235. Īltutmish died in April, A.D. 1236 (Beale).
30. The royal tombs are in the village of Mihraulī, close to the Kutb. See Carr Stephen, op. cit., pp. 180-4, and Fanshawe, pp. 280-4.