Report of the Areheological Survey. xiii 



which is recorded on the Iron Pillar, we shall obtain A. D. 737, which 

 is within one year of the date already fixed by the traditional story 

 of Dilli having lain waste for 792 years, and which agrees also with the 

 date derived from the lengths of reigns by working backwards from 

 A. D. 1193, the period of Muaz-uddin's conquest. I therefore look 

 upon the date of A. D. 786 for the re-building of Dilli under Anang 

 Pal as being established on grounds that are more than usually firm 

 for early Indian history. 



24. Accepting this date of A. D. 736, we have to account for the 

 period of 792 years during which Dilli is said to have lain waste, 

 when it is almost certain that the city must have been occupied at the 

 time when Raja Dhava erected the Iron Pillar. Perhaps the simplest 

 explanation is that which I have already given, viz., that during this 

 period, Dilli was not the metropolis of the kings of Upper India. The 

 silence of the Chinese pilgrims Fa Hian and Hwen Thsang regarding 

 Dilli may perhaps be considered as a strong proof of the smallness of 

 the city from A. D. 400 to 640. Fa Hian, however, does not mention 

 any place between Taxila and Mathura, and Hwen Thsang could only 

 have passed through Dilli once, viz., when he returned from Mathura 

 to Thanesar. It is even possible that he may have travelled by Mirat, 

 which then possessed one of Asoka's Pillars, for, if Dilli was not a 

 famous place amongst the Buddhists, as I believe it was not, it is 

 improbable that he would have visited it. 



25. Dilli must, however, have been the Capital of Anang Pal, and 

 most probably also of several of his successors ; but I have a strong 

 suspicion that the later Eajas of the Tomar dynasty resided at Kanoj. 

 M. Keinaud remarks that Otbi, the historian of Mahmud, makes no 

 mention of the city of Dilli, and that only a single allusion to it is 

 made by Abu Rihan in his Kanun-al-masudi. It is indeed a fact 

 worthy of special notice that Dilli is not once mentioned in Abu Rihan' s 

 geographical chapter, which gives the routes between all the principal 

 places in Northern India. He notices Thanesar, and Mathura, and 

 Kanoj, bat Dilli is never mentioned, an omission which could hardly 

 have happened had Dilli been the Capital of the famous Tomar Rajas 

 at that time. I conclude, therefore, that Dilli was not their residence in 

 the beginning of the eleventh century, and I think that I can show with 

 much probability that Kanoj was the metropolis of the Tomar Rajas 

 for several generations prior to the invasion of Mahmud of Grhazni. 



