1866.] Notes on the Topography dec. of Delhi. 211 



his two enemies met publicly to swear a solemn league against him. 

 As for Ferishta's knowledge of Delhi, a glance at his preface, and at the 

 life prefixed to Briggs's translation of his history, will suffice to shew 

 that the first portion of his great work (with which alone we are 

 concerned at present) was composed before he had ever seen the city 

 He commenced to write in A. D. 1596, finishing the whole work in 

 A. D. 1609 : and, if he ever visited Delhi at all, it must have been 

 in A. D. 1606, when proceeding on his embassy to Jahangir's camp at 

 Lahore. But as his history was compiled from no less than fifty-five 

 chronicles, the writers of many of which lived in Delhi and were eye- 

 witnesses of what they wrote about, it is in point of fact their 

 topography, and not his, that we have to do with, and we may accept 

 it as thoroughly reliable in a simple matter like the one under dis- 

 cussion. I see no reason to doubt therefore that Siri was the name 

 of the Kutb citadel : — and judging from the date of its appearance in 

 history, I think we may fairly assume that the name was first given 

 it by Ala-u-din when he rebuilt and strengthened it in A. D. 1304. 



I now come to General Cunningham's* quotation from the Ayin 

 Akhberi, to the effect that " Shir Shah destroyed the city of Ala-u- 

 din which was called Siri, and founded another :" to which Syud Ahmad 

 has added, on whose authority is not stated, that the materials of 

 the former were used in the construction of the latter city. Now 

 without for one moment impugning the accuracy of the General's 

 translation and subsequent deductions, I must call attention to the 

 notorious discrepancies which exist in the various copies of the Ayin 

 Akhberi. In the onef now lying before me, not a word is said about 

 the destruction of Siri ; on the contrary it is Firuzabad| and its palaces 

 which are said to have been demolished by Shir Shah. This is a 

 much more probable statement than the one in General Cunningham's 

 copy, and borrows strength from an argument adduced by him against 

 the likelihood of Shir Shah's bringing his building material all the way 

 from the Kutb citadel, when Shahpoor was only three and a half miles 

 away. Now as Firuzabad lay still nearer, occupying indeed a portion of 



* Page lxviii. 



f A handsome qnarto belonging to the " Delhi Society" (vernacular) and 

 presented to that body by Colonel G. W. Hamilton, Commissioner of Delhi, 

 whose fine collection of Persian MSS. is well known. 



J See extract at the end : note B. 



