# The Seven Cities of Delhi/Chapter 3

CHAPTER III
THE SEVEN CITIES OF DELHI
The traditional Indraprastha — Hindu history — Hindu rajas — Mahomedan conquest — The seven cities — Dates and circumstances of their foundation — Reasons for successive abandonment — Vagaries of the river — Climatic conditions altered.
Map of the Seven Cities of Delhi, p. 132.
The plains to the south of the modern city of Delhi certainly present an extraordinary aspect. In fact, we have only to imagine London deserted, the houses pulled down, and the materials removed; St. Paul's Cathedral, the Nelson Column in Trafalgar Square, and a few other buildings standing in solitary grandeur; hamlets scattered about here and there; and we have some idea of the havoc which has been wrought. The walls of Old Delhi and of Tughlukabad, it is true, have not been entirely removed; but of the other four cities next to nothing remains to show their limits. Much the same thing may be seen at Old Goa, where ​churches stand scattered about on a plain, without a house at hand to shelter a worshipper.
It may well be asked, "Why did they abandon a city which had been surrounded by walls, and was therefore secure ; why pull down those walls to build others not so very far off ?" Many a city in India still occupies the same site which it has occupied for many a century ; at least, the inhabitants have but very slightly shifted their houses. The explanation of this will be attempted later ; but first let us consider the seven cities of Delhi in the order in which they were built.
If Hindu tradition is to be believed, the city of Indraprastha, sung of in the great Indian epic, the "Mahabharata," was situated on these plains ; over the possession of this city were waged the wars, described in such detail in that tremendous poem, in comparison with which the "Iliad" of Homer and the "AEneid" of Virgil shrink to small dimensions. Strange to say, this earliest city also is said to have been abandoned by the Pandus, headed by King Yudisthira; and their reason for doing so was that, one day, when the cover of a dish was removed, the king found on the food a fly. Dwellers in modern Delhi would not consider this a matter of importance — indeed, find it an everyday occurrence ; but the ​king saw in this impertinence of a small insect a hint that the glory had departed, and at once abandoned the city, to perish in the Himalayas. The natives of Delhi have for years believed, and still believe, that the "Purana Kila" occupies the site of Indraprastha ; but on what facts this tradition may be founded cannot be stated. Most writers on the subject of Delhi appear, if somewhat doubtfully, to have accepted this tradition, although rejecting the idea that the walls of "Purana Kila" belong to Hindu times, which they certainly do not. At least one writer goes further, and accepts the modern tradition that the Nigambodh Ghat of the "Mahabharata" was situated outside the Nigambodh Gate of Shahjahanabad. But there is every reason to believe that this site, not so many centuries ago, was covered by the waters of the Jumna. That the city of Indraprastha stood on the traditional site is not altogether impossible, as will be seen ; but there is no sign to-day of such a city. The probable date of its foundation, wherever it may have stood, was 1450 B.C.
Hindu history is practically non-existent, for we are now in the epoch known as the Iron Age, the deeds performed in which are not considered worthy of record ; all we have are certain inscriptions on pillars or copper-plates, and these usually ​concern themselves only with religious matters, such as the resolutions of Buddhist councils, or grants of land to temples. The earliest mention of Delhi, as a city of that name, occurs in the songs of Hindu bards; there is a story, in one of these lays, of the site having been abandoned for 792 years before it was repeopled. We know, from an inscription on the Iron Pillar, that "Ang Pal built Delhi in a.d. 1052," but the best authorities give to the pillar itself an antiquity which extends to the third or fourth century of the Christian era : this conclusion is obtained by the form of the writing of the earliest inscription on the pillar. A century, more or less, does not matter much, and the difference of these two figures, 1052 and (say) 300, is not so very far out from 792, all things considered, so the Hindu bard may have sung correctly. The presence of the Iron Pillar argues that the city really had been previously occupied, for the pillar is so heavy that it cannot be far from the place where it was first set up. It is possible, therefore, that the word translated as "built" should be rendered "rebuilt." But when we turn to ancient historians for light on this point, we find them silent.
The Greek historians, who took their accounts from those who accompanied Alexander the ​Great In 327 B.C., mention Muttra, but not Delhi, or any name like it : the historians were, it is true, only able to obtain hearsay evidence, for Alexander was not able to march further than the Hyphasis (the modern Beas) ; but this goes to show the unimportance of Delhi at that time. One suggestive remark by Arrian, who got his information from Megasthenes, an ambassador of Seleucus (the successor of Alexander), to Chandra Gupta, King of Magadha or Behar, must be quoted ; this has to do with the question of the abandonment of traditional Indraprastha. He says, " Such cities as are situated on the banks of rivers . . . are built of wood, instead of stone, so destructive are the heavy rains, which pour down, and the rivers also, when they overflow their banks and inundate the plains."
Between 181 and 161 B.C., India was invaded by Graeco-Bactrian armies, and mention is made of Muttra as one of the places taken ; but there is not a word of Delhi, although it must have lain in the route to the former place. Three Chinese pilgrims visited India, between a.d. 390 and 645, to visit the Buddhist shrines, among which those at Muttra were prominent; but there is not a single mention in their writings of Delhi. This, however, may only prove that Delhi was not a stronghold of Buddhism, for only those ​places find record. Nevertheless, the last pilgrim, Hwen Thsang, must have passed close to the site of Delhi, for he retraced his steps from Muttra to Thanesar, and, had Delhi been a very large or important city, he would surely have taken some notice of it. Again, we have accounts of India dating from about a.d. 1000, when Mahmud of Ghazni invaded the country, sacked Kanauj and Muttra, and other places of importance ; but there is no mention of Delhi, which can-not have been a tempting prey for the rapacious invader.
We may, therefore, with some confidence suppose (and it is generally agreed) that Delhi was first occupied somewhere about the year A.D. 300, that the city was afterwards abandoned, for some cause which we do not know, and that it was not repeopled until a.d. 1052, after the final retirement of Mahmud of Ghazni. Anang Pal was a Tuar, which tribe had been forced to leave Kanauj, which was sacked by Mahmud ; possibly it was this forced migration which led him to think of Delhi as his new capital. He must, however, have had a considerable force at his disposal, for Delhi lay direct in the route of foreign invaders, the incursions of whom were still fresh in men's minds, although they had for the time being ceased. ​ In Old Delhi the Tuar kings, Anang Pal and his successors, reigned undisturbed, as we may suppose, for a century, during which time they were able to build the city walls, and con- struct certain masonry dams and tanks, about eight miles to the south-east : it is true that the reputed dates of these works would make their construction date from about the middle of the eighth century, but this can be explained by a mistake in the era from which the dates are counted. In a.d. 1151 there was an irruption of Chohan Rajputs, who conquered Delhi, but an arrangement was come to, by which the Tuar should marry a Chohan princess, and their off- spring be King of Delhi. We have evidence of this Chohan conqueror in an inscription on the pillar of Asoka, which stands in the Kotlla of Firoze Shah: this inscription is dated a.d. 1164, and records the power of Visala Deva, whose kingdom extended from the Himalaya mountains to the Vindhya Range, bordering the Nerbudda River. This king probably was the grandfather of Prithwi Raja, who built the citadel of Lalkot, in Old Delhi, and who, after once defeating the Mahomedan invaders, in his turn met with adverse fortune, being killed by them in 1193 on the battlefield of Tilauri. And so Old Delhi passed into Mahomedan hands, and became the ​capital of the invaders; here the first Mahomedan kings of India ascended the throne, and erected those monuments, prominent among which is the wonderful Kutb Minar. We must presume that Delhi was then the most important Hindu city, at all events in this part of India, for twenty-seven temples had been built within its limits ; it was retained as their principal city by the victorious Mahomedans.
A century later, the confined area of Old Delhi was not able to accommodate the growing population, and suburbs stretched out into the plains to the north-east. A great horde of Moghals now invaded India, penetrated as far as Delhi, and plundered the defenceless suburbs. Ala-ud-din, therefore, in 1303, had to entrench his army at Siri to cover them, and, when the Moghals retired, he there constructed the second city.
In A.D. 1320, Tughlak Shah came to the throne, the whole of the princes of the previous dynasty having disappeared. He was a stern old warrior, accustomed to the constant attacks of enemies whom he had met in the frontier province, where he had been "Warden of the Marches," and he was not content with the comparatively low walls of Old Delhi, which gave less security than he considered desirable. So ​he built a city, five miles to the eastward, round a rocky hill, which gave the isolation which he required. Rocky hills, however, do not give facilities for obtaining water, and, although reservoirs might store a certain amount for emergencies, nevertheless the inhabitants would prefer to remain in the plains, where wells or tanks could easier supply their wants. The traditional cause for the desertion of Tughlukabad is a curse uttered against the place by the saint Nizam-ud-din. He was engaged, at the time of the building of the city, in building his own dwelling, and we may suppose that the king wanted every mason available, at all events he forbade them to work for the saint. The latter had to get them to work for him at night ; but the king heard of it, and ordered that no oil should be supplied to him. This difficulty was got over by the use of his miraculous powers, but the saint was very much annoyed, and cursed the new city. "May it remain deserted, or may it be a habitation for Gujars," said he ; and in that state is Tughlukabad to this day.
The large population, which resided on the open plain between Old Delhi and Siri, was naturally in a very insecure position, and so
WALLS OF TUGHLUKĀBĀD.
[To face p. 76.
When Firoze Shah had firmly seated himself on the throne, in succession to Mahomed Tughlak, he also constructed a city, Firozabad, four or five miles to the north-east of Siri, in 1354. The exact extent of this city is not quite certain, but it covered a portion of the modern city, and perhaps extended up to and round the Ridge, to the north.
After the Moghal conquest, Humayun built the Purana Kila in 1534. When he was turned out, Sher Shah, or his son Islam, built the walls of a sixth city, which occupied a part only of Firozabad. Only a few hundred feet of the walls of this city remain, and even that short length is considered by some not to have belonged to the outer walls at all.
Finally, the seventh, and last, city was built in 1648 by Shah Jahan, the third great Moghal emperor, who pulled down what was left of Firozabad, and of the walls of Sher Shah's city, to build the walls of his own. No doubt the nobles followed suit, and quarried a great quantity of the stone walls for their own houses ; but however that may be, the greater part of those walls have gone.
So we have traced, in chronological order, the ​seven cities of Delhi. Now we come to the question, "What were the reasons which induced these monarchs to build new cities, instead of being content with the walls of the first, extended, if necessary, to contain a larger population ?" To this, for answer, we may quote a native proverb, "Three things make a city — Daria, Badal, Badshah." That is to say, a river, rain-bringing clouds, or an emperor (who can enforce his wishes). Two of these three causes emphasize the necessity for water, without large quantities of which life in a hot country would soon become unendurable. The storage of rain- water In tanks may prove sufficient for ordinary purposes, but the river comes first In the estimation of the Hindu, because It is sacred, and In it he must bathe on festival days. All the great cities of Hindustan are situated on the banks of a river ; Muttra, Kanauj, Allahabad, and Benares are examples, which might easily be supplemented. It Is, therefore, suggested that it was found necessary to move the cities of Delhi to the north-east, to follow the river, which once flowed not so very far from Old Delhi, but has gradually set further and further east — a process which is going on to-day, the extent of which has been considerable, even during the last century. In Daniell's "Oriental ​Scenery," published in 1793, there is a plate, showing the river close up to the Kudsia Bagh ; now, even during the rainy season, it flows at a considerable distance.
The rivers of Northern India, in comparison with which the Thames is a mere rivulet, flow through plains of alluvial soil, and wander very considerably. It is often a matter of difficulty to keep them in their courses, and to prevent their leaving the large railway-bridges high and dry and finding a new course elsewhere ; the soil is quite powerless to resist the cutting of the river, which is liable to sudden floods during the melting of the snows on the mountains and the heavy downpour of the periodical rains. In the cold weather, however, the volume of water is comparatively small, and the river is unwilling to give itself unnecessary trouble in cutting its banks, but follows a meandering course, loop following loop ; it thus flows at a lesser velocity, and lives at peace with the banks. This condition of quiet is yearly disturbed. As the summer heats melt the snows, the river, which has been sluggishly flowing in its tortuous bed, begins to rise, and to spread itself over the spits, or spurs, which jut out at each bend ; rising still further, it covers them entirely, and the channel becomes, it may be, a mile wide. Then ​come the rains, and a great flood comes down, invading a still greater area ; but this is probably covered with brushwood and vegetation, and the river is prevented from cutting away the soil, but encouraged to deposit its silt, so that, as the supply of melted snow and rain-water ceases, these lands are left by the subsiding river higher than they were before. In succeeding years, unless an exceptionally high flood should come down, the river will be less liable to cover these lands, and the general effect, therefore, of the annual rise of the river is to confine it within narrower limits, for the banks on either side are gradually raised. The Indus, however, not only raises its banks, but also raises its bed, and flows at a higher level than the surrounding country ; it has, therefore, to be confined for many miles between artificial banks, the duty of preserving which is one of the most unpleasant, which may fall to the lot of a canal engineer in Sind.
Now, while the river is in flood, it flows in a straight course and in short cuts across its loops. At the lower end of each short cut there is a sudden drop in the bed, and a greater velocity, the result of which is the erosion of the alluvial mud to such an extent that the projecting spur (now under water) may be cut right through, and the main channel of the river entirely altered. ​The previous state of peace is brought to an end, there is a rapid in this part of the river, and the banks are cut away. The river, as it subsides, tries to resume a meandering course, but in order to do so has to change its course for miles above and below the rapid ; rich fields may be swept away, the villagers may see their unripened crops disappear in the waters ; their houses may follow suit ; new lands may be left high and dry, which formerly were covered by the river, and in the abandoned bends are formed those "jheels," so well known to sportsmen. To use the words of Mr. F. J. E. Spring, C.I.E., an authority on this subject, "In the course of years there is scarcely an acre within the valley limits which will not, sooner or later, be eroded quite away, and in turn re-formed."
Shall we be very far wrong in assuming that this state of affairs existed in the Jumna valley, near Delhi, and that the liability of the plains to be flooded caused the founder of Old Delhi, whoever he may have been, to choose a site for his city on the rocky hills near the Kutb Minar ? Is it not possible, even, that when Indraprastha was founded the river flowed about in its present course, and that gradually it took a more westerly course, encroached little by little, and swept the city away ? Remember that the probable date ​of the foundation of that city was three thousand three hundred years ago : what changes cannot have occurred in that time ? Nowadays the Jumna alters its course very slightly indeed : it is turned to the east by the fort of Salimgarh, and by the modern city, built on ground which centuries ago was at a much lower level, and not safe from flood. The extensive felling of Himalayan forests has caused a diminution of the precipitation of rain ; the withdrawal of the greater part of its volume of water by great canals has rendered the river powerless. We cannot argue from the conditions of to-day in this river, but surely we can apply the results of observation of other rivers to imagine what once took place.
History and observation both suggest to us that the course of the river has altered within the last few centuries. Turkman Shah, the saint, Is said to have lived and to have been buried on the banks of the river, and the Em- press Riziyat was buried in 1240 on the river- bank. The graves of both are near the Turkman Gate, far from the river, as it now flows. Mubarik Shah, whose tomb has been mentioned, founded his incomplete city on the bank, and was buried within it. This tomb is not far from a ravine, which starts between the Ajmere and ​Turkman gates of the modern city, and looks extremely like an old bend of the river. Finch, who saw Delhi in January, 1611, calls this ravine, spanned by the "Barah Palah" bridge, near Nizam-ud-din's shrine, an "arm of the Jumna." Then, again, the ravine which runs near the walls of the enclosure of Roshan Chiragh Delhi, may be part of an old channel — a theory which is to some extent borne out by the fact that the walls of Old Delhi, where they cross the Kutb Road, appear to follow an old river-bank. In addition to this, we have a tradition that a Hindu king built the Kutb Minar in order to enable his daughter to daily see the river without the trouble of taking a fatiguing journey. This also may show that the river had receded. To show the effect of the canals on the river, it is on record that the reopening of the canal of Firoze Shah, about 1820, caused the flood-level at Muttra to fall two feet. It is significant that the founding of Firozabad followed the first opening of that canal.
It may be objected that there is no absolute proof of all this, but as well might it be objected that the scientist is wrong, who attributes an incomplete skeleton to a certain antediluvian animal, because he finds two or three characteristic bones. A regular survey might throw more ​light on this question ; but the processes of nature, slow but sure, have probably obliterated much of the evidence.
Whatever influence the "Daria" had on the shifting of the cities of Delhi, there has certainly been a great change in the climatic conditions, so that the wells in Old Delhi have almost dried up, the tanks and reservoirs are never now filled, and it would be impossible for a large population to exist within the walls. The Hindu proverb thus is justified ; and it was the vagaries of the river, and the failure of the clouds to pour down their waters, rather than the caprice of emperors, which have been the causes of the construction of so many cities, where one would have otherwise sufficed.