Iron in Ancient India c6.s6.18

c6.s6.18

The Moghul Emperor Jehangir in his autobiography writes: "Outside this fort (of Dhar) there is a Jāmi Masjid and a square pillar lies in front of the Masjid with some portions imbedded in the ground. When Bahadur Shah conquered Mālava he was anxious to take the pillar with him to Guzerat. In the act of digging out, it fell down and was broken into two pieces (one piece 22 feet long and the other 13 feet). I (Jehangir) have seen it lying on the ground carelessly and so ordered the bigger piece to be carried to Agra, which I hope to be used as a lamp-post in the courtyard of my father's (Akbar's) tomb."² Obviously Jehangir's orders were not carried out, though we learn that the pillar was broken in the act of uplifting it during Bahadur Shah's invasion of Mālava. Akbar's inscriptions only show that the Emperor approached Dhar at the time of conquering the Deccan. One fact however is certain, viz. that Dilwar Ghori gave the name "lat Masjid" to the mosque erected by him after the "lat" or pillar in front of it. Sultan Dilwar Ghori ascended the throne of Mālava in 1401 A.D., so that the ‘lat’ must have been in existence at least two or three centuries before, so that the approximate date of its erection may be taken as the twelfth century A.D. Fergusson from an examination of its mode of construction holds that it is a work of the tenth or eleventh century.¹ Local tradition points to Raja Vikramaditya or Raja Bhoja of Malava as the King during whose reign the pillar was erected,² whilst Cousens says that Raja Arjunvarma Deb built this pillar with the molten implements of war left in the battlefield by his enemies during his attack on Guzerat as a mark of victory in 1210 A.D. We would not however be far wrong in concluding that the Dhar pillar was erected in the twelfth century.