This is about the ruins and not the stadium. The place is in the shadow of the modern stadium but lends it name to it. The ruins I visited:
As we were going around the mound looking for steps to take us up to the top, couple of women came around the corner and showed us the way up. But before we could thank them and proceed, one of them stopped us and told us to immediately cover our heads. I thought it must be a religious custom and did as told. As we had entered the citadel of Feroz Shah Kotla we had encountered no. of shrines indifferent alcoves with incense sticks burning all around. Presuming this to be a sacred place we went on with our purpose of visit. It was when I read Darymple's 'City of Djinns' I came to knew the crux of the story. The place is inhabited by djinns just like the whole of Delhi. It is the djinns or the spirits, whose love for Delhi has kept the city alive through centuries. To go back to the start, the ladies were telling us to cover our heads as the djinns get entangled in a girl's long hair! Really!
But this myth hadn't brought me to Feroz Shah Kotla. It was much more definite, the Golden Column of Asoka. The story has two unlikely protagonists - Sultan Feroz Shah of the 14th century A.D and Emperor Asoka of 3rd century B.C.E.
Feroz Shah was Mohammed bin Tughlaq's cousin and succeeded him to become the Sultan of Delhi. This same 'eccentric' Mohammed bin Tughlaq is the one who had started one disasters after other like minting copper coins instead of gold, shifting the capital and it's population to Daulatabad (1200 kms down south) and back or building a welcome pavillion for his father which crushed and killed him. I am always amazed by his personality to manufacture disasters. Moving ahead, when he died of plague near a battlefield, his cousin Feroz Shah was put on the throne. Though Feroz Shah was a mild mannered liberal,born to a Hindu mother, he had to carry out periodical assaults on temples to satisfy the puritans. One of the temples to come under his sword is the famous Jagannath temple in Orissa. But he had many more facets than to be manipulated by the nobels around.
He was a master builder, patron to engineering and architectural works like madrases, hospitals, bridges, canals etc. He was also into restoration. On one of his outings outside Delhi, in today's Haryana he came across a marvellous sight. A pillar of gold! 42 feet in length and weighing 25 tonnes. On making inquiries he was told that it is called Bhim's lath(stick). As always in India any natural or manmade ancient site is always connected to Ramayana or Mahabharata.(Sometimes I wonder at the extent of the length and breadth covered by Ram, Sita and Lakshman. Everywhere I go they have already been there right upto the border of Tibet!) Here, Feroz Shah was so fascinated by this column that he decided to move it to the city he was building in Delhi, Ferozabad. This city was to have a fort named as FirozShah Kotla.
The transfer of this column is another fascinating read, first the column was wrapped in tonnes and tonnes of cotton. Then earth was removed from the base of the column and it gently fell on this bed of cotton. Then it was wrapped in raw so as to avoid any damage to it during transportation. Once horizontal it was carried on a carriage made with 42 wheels to the banks of Yamuna where a barge was specially made to carry this pillar to Delhi.
At Delhi, it was given the most prominent place with a huge base mound, three storied high built to place it. Here the Sultan gathered all his nobels and intellectuals to study it. What they discovered was that the column was actually made of sandstone but was so polished that in bright sunlight it shined to give an illusion of being made of gold. They also discovered that it was covered with inscriptions all over. To satisfy his curiosity about the origin and purpose of the column Feroz Shah invited Hindu pandits from all over the region. But noone could decipher the language written over it, neither was it Sanskrit or Prakrit. This confusion was mainly because of the unknown 'script' of the inscriptions. In the end it was mutually decided that maybe it was Greek afterall and Alexander must have built it to comemorate his victory. Still FirozShah remained so fascinated with it that he even wrote poems about it calling it minara I zarin, 'column of gold'. This was around 1360 A.D.
Many rulers succeeded Feroz Shah and inturn built their own 'Delhi'. Large parts of Feroz Shah's city were dismantled and used as raw materials by them, only the Kotla somehow stayed in, more or less as a ruined symbol. Now in the 17th century as the British started entering India with the East India Company, many British travellers started visiting the Mughal Emperor at Delhi. They went exploring and came across this pillar of gold. There is a long story which follows but slowly and steadily the British came across more samples of the columns and the script- one at Delhi itself on the Ridge, one in the fort of Allahabad, one in northern Bihar etc. When the Asiatic Society was formed in Calcutta this matter was one of the foremost to be investigated. After a lot, and I mean it, a lot of hardwork the script was deciphered as 'brahmi'. It was actually James Princep who deciphered it. There is a famous ghat on the Ganges named as Princep Ghat in his memory in Calcutta.
And the inscriptions were then named as 'Pillar edicts' of Emperor Asoka on the moral code for his subjects.This was around 250 B.C.E.
Asoka had another 'Rock edicts' too. These were inscriptions on rocks placed at strategic locations within his empire. The purpose of both these edicts was served with Asoka's officials reading out the emperor's message for his subjects. The inscription on stone gave the message permanence, and how! They have stayed with us for more than two thousand years. The content of these moral codes is another matter which fascinates me to no end. About that later.
So the pillar is precisely more than 2250 years old, still with the same shine and with same message of Asoka. It represents the feats and ingenuity of both the Emperors, one who created it and the other who brought it in public domain.
I was so fascinated by reading about all this that I was waiting with baited breath to visit Delhi and experiencing it myself. But I was there in July when the sky was cloudy and I couldnt view it in its full glory. It has to be viewed between 12-3 in bright sunlight!
Maybe I'll visit it again and this time meet the djinns too!
Further reading:
City of Djinns by William Darymple
Asoka by Charles Allen
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