978 Account of the To ton and Palace of Feerosabad. [Sept. 



investigations, for fixing the exact or proximate sites of the successive 

 towns and forts around Dehli, with the precision that has become now- 

 more than ever desirable, because the ruins are rapidly passing away, 

 and may soon not leave a vestige behind of that most important period, 

 where historical light begins to illumine the dimness of tradition, and 

 we are, therefore, compelled to defer the examination of the more anci- 

 ent, and as it happens, more distant remains around us, and to enter, 

 in the first instance, on an investigation of those which, being nearer at 

 hand, have been more easily accessible, since the formation of Arch- 

 aeological Society of Dehli, to whom these researches more especially 

 appertain. 



We have already enumerated, in a previous paper (vide Journal of 

 the Asiatic Society, vol. XVI. page 577, June No. for 1847,) the 

 great works that a long and, comparatively, peaceful reign enabled 

 Feeroz Togluk (or Kootloog as the name ought properly to be written) 

 to erect as monuments of his power, of his munificence, and above all, 

 of his great public spirit. Amongst them are mentioned two hundred 

 towns and twenty palaces ; a number showing pretty clearly that, al- 

 though the general spirit of vanity that seems to have actuated many 

 of his predecessors, and some of his successors, was not altogether 

 dormant in this monarch, the desire of doing good to his people pre- 

 dominated greatly over that of securing to himself handsome dwellings 

 and posthumous fame. He preferred affording security to his subjects 

 within the walls of the towns he built for them himself, or which the 

 prevalence of peace enabled others to build under his auspices, to grati- 

 fying his love of display in edifices appropriated to his own particular 

 use ; and he thereby justified, in a peculiar manner, that celebrated 

 record of his deeds inscribed by himself on the great Musjeed of Dehli, 

 possibly the one which Taimoor, is said to have admired so much as 

 to have induced him to carry away all the masons of Dehli, to erect a 

 similar one at Samarkand on his return to his own capital.* 



* The exact locality of this Musjeed is a most desirable point of investigation. It is 

 said that when Taimoor invaded India (1398) the musjeed at the Kootub was nearly, 

 if not quite, perfect. If so it must have been the great musjeed, and by far the most 

 magnificent edifice in the place : but it was not built by Feeroz whose architecture was 

 very inferior, and it is much more likely he would select one of his own construction, 

 on which to inscribe the record of his undoubted greatness as a liberal, munificent and 

 mild ruler. How interesting too would be, a detailed life of this monarch, for which there 



