Ixvi 



Meport of the Archaeological Survey. 



whole pilar being 82 feet in diameter, as noted above. The total 

 height of the column, as it now stands, is about 75 feet above the 

 plinth, or 87 feet above the ground level. The outer face of the wall 

 is divided into 32 sides of 8 feet and \ inch each. The form of each 

 face or flute is difficult to describe, but it may be likened to the shape 

 of a crown work in fortification, or to that of an old Eoman M, with 

 shallow body and long widely-splayed limbs. I think it probable that 

 the central angle of each face, as it now exists in the rough stone, 

 would have been modified in the red stone facing into a shallow curved 

 flute. The flutes would have been 4 feet wide and 4 feet apart, with 

 a deep angle between them. The plinth is also divided into 32 straight 

 faces, or projections, which are separated by the same number of 

 depressions of equal breadth, the whole being exactly like a gigantic 

 cogwheel. Syad Ahmad states that the building of this Minar was 

 commenced in A. H. 711, or A. D. 1311 ; but as Ala-uddin did not 

 die until A. B. 1316, the work was probably stopped some time before 

 the end of his reign. I suspect, indeed, that the work was actually 

 stopped in the following year, as I find from Ferishta that in A. B, 

 1312 the King became so extremely ill, that his wife and son entirely 

 neglected him, while his Minister exercised all the powers of the State t 

 and even aspired to the throne. As the King never rallied, it seems 

 not improbable that all the expensive works of Ala-uddin then in 

 progress may have been stopped by the Minister, who wished to secure 

 the money for himself. 



SlEI, 0& KlXAH ALAI. 



123. The Tort of Siri, with Ala-uddin's celebrated Palace of " The 

 thousand pillars," has been identified by Messrs. Cope and Lewis, and 

 also by Lieutenant Burgess, the Surveyor of the ruins of Belhi, with 

 the citadel of Bai Pithora's fort, in the midst of which stands the 

 Kutb Minar. But in describing this fort, I have already brought 

 forward strong reasons to show that it was the ancient Ldlkot of 

 Anang Pal, and I now propose to follow up the same argument by 

 proving that the true site of Siri was the old ruined fort to the north- 

 east of Bai Pithora's fort, which is at present called Shahpur. A 

 glance at the Sketch Map of the ruins of Belhi, which accompanies 

 this account, is all that is necessary to make the following argument 

 quite clear. 



