The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.484

v3.c20.484

It was not only by lightening the cultivator’s burden that Fīrūz encouraged agriculture. He is still remembered as the author of schemes of irrigation, and traces of his canals yet remain. Of these there were five, the most important being the canal, 150 miles long, which carried the waters of the Jumna into the arid tract in which he founded his city of Hisār-i-Fīrūza (Hissār). He also sank 150 wells for purposes of irrigation and for the use of travellers and indulged a passion for building which equalled, if it did not surpass, that of the Roman Emperor Augustus. The enumeration of three hundred towns founded by him must be regarded as an exaggeration unless we include in the number waste villages restored and repopulated during his reign, but the towns of Fīrūzābād, or New Delhi, Fathābād, Hissār, Fīrūzpūr near Budaun, and Jaunpur were founded by him, and he is credited with the construction or restoration of four mosques, thirty palaces, two hundred caravanserais, five reservoirs, five hospitals, a hundred tombs, ten baths, ten monumental pillars, and a hundred bridges.