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Question 1:- Describe the literary and archaeological evidence forIndraprastha.Answer :-INDRAPRASTHA IN LITERATURE The story of Delhi goes back in time to the Indus Valley civilization. The city of Indraprastha is a glorious presence in legends, folklore and epics. It has also inspired other later d...

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Question 1:- Describe the literary and archaeological evidence for Indraprastha. Answer :-

INDRAPRASTHA IN LITERATURE The story of Delhi goes back in time to the Indus Valley civilization. The city of Indraprastha is a glorious presence in legends, folklore and epics. It has also inspired other later date literary explorations and expressions. Since Indraprastha exists in an indeterminate space between myth and reality, little wonder then that, it has been recreated time and again in the imaginative space. The description of the ‘city’ of Indraprastha in Mahabharta gets implicated of necessity in the same debates which surround the epic itself today, that is, the reiteration of the existence of the city also simultaneously negates the urban, architectural, material and visual culture imbued in the descriptions of the city. The paper examines these literary retellings featuring Indraprastha. Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni’s Palace of Illusions reclaims of the fluid space of Indraprastha froma feminist perspective, Dalrymple’s relocates Indraprastha in his City of Djinns to where he thinks it belongs- to the sites of culture and Trisha Das uses the journey from Indraprastha to heaven and back to New Delhi as a journey of self discovery.

The story of Delhi goes back in time to the Indus Valley civilization. Traces of post-urban stage of Harappan culture dating between 1900 B.C. to 1200 B.C, largely chalcolithic in nature, have been discovered on the banks of the Yamuna stretching from present day Mandoli and Sambhaoli villages and from Gharonda Nimka to Narela. (Babu, 2006) Around 1500 B.C, Aryans entered the Indian subcontinent from Central Asia (Early or Rigvedic phase from 1500 B.C-1000 B.C.). The later Vedic period from 1500 B.C. to 1000 B.C. is documented in texts like Samveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda and the use of Painted Grey Ware (PWG) is common to the peoples of this period residing in the Ganga-Yamuna Doab. (Sharma, 2001, p.8, 9) The Bharatas and the Purus combined to form the Kuru clan who, alongwith the Paanchaals of Middle Doab, are known to have established control in the Upper and the Middle Doab including Delhi, later heading east by 600 B.C. The Purana Qila in Delhi is thought to hold many secrets of these centuries. Finely made Painted Grey Ware and large baked bricks, dug up at the Purana Qila, link it to other sites of the later Vedic age. As A K Narain summarises in his essay ‘ Proto-History of Delhi and its Environs’: All Rights Reserved © Manish Verma | Subscribe on youtube

2 … The earliest reference to ‘Indraprastha’ is recorded in Mahabharata’s Bhishmaparv, Sabhaparv and Adiparv. Bhagvad Puran sings the rule of thirty generations of Arjuna’s descendants in Indraprastha. In the epic Mahabharata, the capital of the Pandavas was Indraprastha. There is little evidence apart from conjectural possibility of Indraprastha being Delhi. This deduction is based on the facts that the war between Pandavas and Kauravas was fought on five ‘pats’- four of which have been established to be Panipat, Sonepat, Baghpat and Tilpat. There is solid ground for indrapat or indraprastha to be the fifth ‘pat’. As Narain states, a village by the name of indrapat existed within the Purana Qila until the beginning of the twentieth century which was later demolished. Archealogical excavations confirm the existence of city life around the first millennia Before Christ, and the area between Firoz Shah Kotla and Humayun’s tomb is the probable site of the city. The ancient Buddhist and Jain literature also corroborates the existence of this settlement. Dated between sixth and fifth centuries Before Christ or the post-Vedic period, these texts proclaim Indraprastha to be an important political domain. Pali Tipitika mentions Indraprastha in several contexts. (Sharma & Tewari, 2012) The existence of Indraprastha has been confirmed by later writers, including Abul Fazal, but there are no confirmatory records about its rise and fall. (Abul-Fazl, 1978 trans. and reprint) The Mahabharata legend has it that when compelled to divide the kingdom between Kauravas and Pandavas, Dhrutrashtra gave Khandavaprastha (a forest area to the right of river Yamuna, for about 80 kms. from Delhi) to Yudhishthara, the eldest Pandava brother, to establish independent reign over which the descendants of Arjuna, Yudhishthara’s younger brother ruled for many years. The Pandavas built their capital, Indraprastha, in this area. The city of Indraprastha is a glorious presence in legends, folklore and epics. It has also inspired other later date literary explorations and expressions. Indraprastha was built where there was a forest Khandavprastha. Dhrutrashtra divided the kingdom into two parts and gave this thorny forest to the Pandavas. They were faced with the daunting task of setting up their kingdom on this barren and arid land. They had to raze the forest by fire to create space for their new capital. As described in Sabhaparv, Maya- an asura who managed to escape from the forest fire, offered to build a magnificent edifice for the Pandavas as a token of his gratitude being a “great artist, a Visvakarman” (Buitenen, 2006, p. 62). Krishna suggested to him to

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3 Fascinated by the spectacular descriptions of Indraprastha in Mahabharata, William Dalrymple in his City of Djinns, finds himself persuaded to probe whether the descriptions are fact or fiction. He meets Prof. B B Lal, an eminent epic archeologist, who has carried out excavations at sites related to Mahabharata. B D Chattopadhyaya specifies that epic archeology endeavors “to correlate archaeology with the epic evidence and to reconstruct the epic milieu in the light of archaeology”. (Chattopadhyaya, 1975, 2006, p.69) Professor B B Lal has been a forerunner in using the archaeological methods in sieving fact from fiction in a work which began as a piece of 8800 shlokas as Vyasa’s Jaya and today is available to with three more reformulations, the last one being the elephantine Mahabharata with 100000 shlokas attributed to Lomaharsana and Ugrasrava.

Prof B B Lal began his excavations on Indraprastha site in 1954-55 with the second season opening in 1971-72. Professor B B Lal has been able to disambiguate the following facts mentioned in the epic archaeologically. First, though different scholars through different methods have proposed a wide range of dates when the Mahabharata war is likely to have been fought, archaeological evidence of discovering PGW culture (dated between 1100-500 BC) existing on all Mahabharata sites in conjunction with Puranic information and dynastic regnal details, tends to fix it between 1000-900 BC. Secondly, the great flood in Hastinapur which forced the Kauravas and Pandavas to shift the capital to Kausambi 3) Habitation of Kausambi by people with PGW culture. To Dalrymple, Prof Lal explains the enormity of the task and limitation of sources for accomplishing a complete analysis of the gigantic work since not only has the work come down to us spiced up with a lot of masala, as he puts it, but also today owing to practical and financial difficulties, extensive excavations on and around probable sites is a far-fetched dream. However, even the limited progress which has been made sheds ample light on the eulogized descriptions of Indraprastha city and its architectural tour de force like the Hall.

The cultural irony surrounding Indraparatha, therefore, is that the reiteration of the existence of the city also simultaneously negates the urban, architectural, material and visual culture imbued in the descriptions of the city. While Divakurni’s novel exemplifies an imaginative reclamation of the fluid space of Indraprastha, Dalrymple’s response to this cultural demolition is to relocate it back to the sites of culture. Historical antiquity and cultural antiquity need not necessarily be synchronous or coterminous. He takes the ‘end’ or ‘beginning’ of Delhi history beyond Indraprastha by taking cognizance of a myth which All Rights Reserved © Manish Verma | Subscribe on youtube

4 predates Indraparatha- how Brahma was able to retrieve the knowledge of the Vedas at the Nigambodh Ghat by taking a holy dip in the waters of the Jumna. The sacred shastras emerged out of the river flooded by the monsoon cloudburst. In this sense, the Nigambodh Ghat is the most ancient site in Delhi and he finds the cultural tradition originating on its Ghats preserved even to date as he sees the doms and sadhus practicing meditation or devotion there on the rainy last day of his visit to India. He writes, “In these wet and disheveled figures sitting cross-legged under the neem and banyan trees of the river bank lay what must be the most remarkable Delhi survival of all”. (Dalrymple, 1993, p.338) Rain is the common thread in this cultural continuity apart from the Sacred Knowledge (Nigambodh). Thus, Dalrymple delinks culture from history as the two can progress on very different trajectories. Since Indraprastha exists in an indeterminate space between myth and reality, little wonder then that, it has been recreated time and again in the imaginative space. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni in her novel The Palace of Illusions recreates the space from a feminist perspective. Reworking the Mahabharata from a woman’s perspective, she makes Draupadi her narrator and protagonist. She writes As Indraprastha continues to be invoked in literature as the deepest layer in the archeology of Delhi’s successive rebuilding, it nevertheless defeats fossilization primarily because of the imaginative space provided by its epical and mythical origin. Learned debates probing its historicity have also been absorbed in its re-recordings but the enchantment and refinement that ensue from its descriptions in Mahabharata are far too appealing and precious to be sacrificed at the altar of factuality and the world of literature has till now preserved it rather than reject it, enshrining it in the self-validating realm art and culture.

Archaeological Survey The Archaeological Survey of India is on an expedition to discover painted grey wares of the Mahabharat period, which will conclusively prove the existence of Indraprastha. The ongoing excavation at the Purana Quila site might lead to discovery of concrete evidence that will help in studying the culture and art patronised by the Pandavas. It is also expected to give a fillip to tourism. In the first excavation in 1954, mounted under the supervision of renowned archaeologist B.B. Lal, who retired as ASI Director General, painted grey wares were discovered.

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“However, the wares were not found in stratified deposit. If they were found in stratified deposit, we could support that there were traces of the Mahabharat period,” said Vasant Swarnkar, superintending archaeologist of ASI’s Delhi Circle. Under his supervision, around 60 labourers have been working six days a week at the project site.

To make things easier for Dr. Swarnkar, nearly 20 post-graduate diploma students of archaeology from the Institute of Archaeology have been assisting him. They have been guiding the labour force where exactly to dig, how to unearth crucial discoveries without damaging them and how to carefully hand them over to the authorities to preserve the artefacts for posterity. Emphasising the site’s significance, Dr. Swarnkar said: “ This site has had continuous cultural deposit from the Mauryan to the Mughal period. The discoveries over the past month have reiterated the fact that there has always been habitation here during the Gupta and Kushan period.” On Monday, a couple of enterprising students from the Institute of Archaeology discovered a terracotta miniature bull. “This bull is of the Gupta period, which was a glorious period as it saw patronisation of art,” said Dr. Swarnkar as he cleaned the mud-filled artefact with a brush. Pottery of the Gupta and Kushan period, semi-precious stones, ear-stud made of terracotta, bowls, miniature pots and sprinklers were also discovered. According to Neelima Vasudevan, one of the students working at the site, the excavation is part of her field training and it gives her satisfaction if after a hard day’s work some artefacts are discovered. Hage Sonia, another student, was delicately arranging bones on a plate. “These bones certainly are not of animals but indicate left over meals. I have also discovered iron pieces. This exercise is teaching us the art of supervising digging and identifying the discoveries,” she said.

Question 2:- Explain the significant shifts and transformations in the cityscape of Delhi in the 13th -14th centuries. Answer:As is well known Delhi was populated several times. Starting from the area presently occupied by the Parana Qila (the Indpath or Indraprastha), the foci of urban development All Rights Reserved © Manish Verma | Subscribe on youtube

6 later shifted to the area now known as Mehrauli (Qila'-i Rai Pithora and Lai Kot), situated on the old (and dead) rocky terrain of the Aravali ranges. From there the foci gradually started its north-easterly movement and shifted, stage by stage, to the area now occupied by Nizamuddin Basti. From there the movement was again towards the north and for sometime, under the Tughluqs, the urban development took place in the area between the modern Bara Hindu Rao (the Civil Lines and the North Campus) and the Bahadurshah Zafar Marg (more precisely the Kotla Firozshah). This period also saw some developments in the area south-east of the Lai Kot, the Tughiuqabad and the Jahanpanah. However most of the urban developments took place in the north, in spite of these two southern pockets. By fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the core area shifted back towards south: the Nizamuddin Basti. By seventeenth century the urban developments again swung north and thus developed the city of Shahjahanabad situated between the Bara Hindu Rao and the Kotla Firozshah, the northern and southern limits of the Tughluq Delhi.' All is to and fro urban movement was constrained by a constant search for a viable site with sufficient quantity of potable water. The city of Shahjahanabad was founded in 1635 A.D. by Shahjahan and was completed in twenty years. The fort itself was completed in the first nine years of the laying of the foundation. It appears that the site chosen by Shahjahan was perfect for the urban development. Situated on the banks of Yamuna, the Shahjahanabad continued to be the foci of urban development during the eighteenth century as well. It acted as the nucleus around which the urban populace settled during the period under discussion. Most of the habitational activity during the eighteenth century, outside Shahjahanabad, appears in the region lying west of it and encompassed areas like the modern Paharganj (known during the period as Shahganj), Connaught Place (Jaisinghpura and Madhoganj), the Panchquian Road (Banskoli) and the area now taken up by the Rashtrapati Bhawan (the Rikabganj). In the north, areas Uke Ashok Vihar and Wazirpur, Civil lines (Malkapur) and Sabzi Mandi near the Bara Hindu Rao also developed outside the city walls of Shahjahanabad. Shahjahanabad, the walled city of Delhi, was 3.8 miles long and along with the gates, enclosed an area of about 1500 acres, with a massive stone wall 27 feet high, 12 feet thick. ^ Writing at the close of eighteenth and beginning of nineteenth century William Franklin, writes:

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Question3:- Write a brief essay on Siri or Ferozabad. Answer:Ferozabad, built by Firuz Shah Tughluq in ca. 1354 A.D Before the foundation of modern Firozabad, the main city in the area was at Chandwar, on the left bank of the Yamuna a short distance southwest of Firozabad. Chandwar was a stronghold of the Chauhan Rajputs from an early date, which was founded by a ruler named Chandrasen according to tradition. Chandwar was conquered several times by the Delhi Sultanate, but its Chauhan rulers seem to have repeatedly asserted their independence over a period of several centuries. One tradition holds that the final defeat of the king Jayachandra by Muhammad of Ghor took place here, at the Battle of Chandwar. According to family traditions of the Bhadaurias, another conquest of Chandwar happened in 1246, which may be corroborated by the records kept by the Sultanate, which mention the capture of an unnamed Hindu stronghold in that same year. Then, after the Delhi Sultan Khizr Khan came to power in 1414, his general Taj ul-Mulk received submission from "the infidels of Chandwar" and then, in 1420, he sacked and looted Chandwar as punishment of some sort. In 1452, Chandwar was the site of a major battle between the Delhi and Jaunpur Sultanates, which led to a three-year truce between the two empires. The modern city of Firozabad was founded c. 1566, when Raja Todar Mal was returning from a pilgrimage to Gaya and stopped at the village of Asafabad (just southeast of modern Firozabad). The villagers insulted him, and when the emperor Akbar heard of this, he sent the eunuch Firoz Khwaja to demolish the town and build a new one. The city was built on lands belonging to several neighboring villages, including Akbarabad, Sukhmalpur, Muhammadpur-Gajmalpur, Rasulpur, and PempurRaipur, and it was named Firozabad in honor of its founder. Firoz Khwaja's tomb, built of white marble, is by the road to Agra. Mr. Peter, a businessman working for the Dutch East India Company visited Firozabad on 9 August 1632, and found the town in good condition. It is written in the gazetteer of Agra and Mathura that in 1596 Faraz was upgraded to a pargana. Faraz was bestowed to Nawab Sadulla Khan as jagir, in the regime of Shahjahan. Jahangir ruled here from 1605 to 1627. Etawah, Budaun, Mainpuri, Faraz were under first class mansabdar of emperor Farrukhsiar. Baji Rao I looted Firozabad and Etmadpur in 1737 in the regime of Mohammad All Rights Reserved © Manish Verma | Subscribe on youtube

8 Shah. Jats of Mahawan attacked Faujdar Hakim Kajim ali bahadur jang at Firozabad and killed him on 9 May 1739. Jats ruled Firozabad for 30 years. Gajuddin, Hidayat Vaksh son of Alamgir second his nephew and Mirza baba the son in law, came to Firozabad. Mirza Nabab Khan stayed here till 1782. In the end of the 18th century, Firozabad was ruled by Himmat Bahadur with co-operation of Marathas. The French Army chief of Marathas, D. Wayan, established an ordnance factory in November 1794. Mr. Thomas Traving also mentioned this fact in his book Travels in India. Marathas appointed his subedar Lakwadads here who made a fort near old tehsil, known at present as garie. General Lek and General Vellajally attacked Firozabad in 1802. In the beginning of British regime Firozabad was in Etawah district but after some time it was attached to Aligarh district. When Sadabad was created as a new district in 1832, Firozabad was attached to it. Later on, in 1833 Firozabad was attached to Agra district. In 1847, the business of lac was flourishing at Firozabad. In 1857, Zamindar of Firozabad with local public took active parts in freedom struggle. Urdu poet Munir Shikohabadi was sentenced to Kala pani by the British East India Company. People of this city took part in "Khilafat Movement", "Quit India Movement", and "Namak Satyagrah" and went to the jail during these national movements. In 1929, Father of Nation Mahatma Gandhi, in 1935 Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, in 1937 Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru and in 1940 Subhas Chandra Bose visited Pandit Banarasi Das Chaturvedi, a two time member of Parliament - said to be the father of Hindi Journalism and the recipient of Padma Bushan. Firozabad district was finally established on 5 February 1989. In 2015 it became a Nagar Nigam.

Siri Siri is the creation of the reign of Alauddin Khalji (1296 –1316). The combination of the Ogetai and Chaghatai hordes in Central Asia under the leadership of Qaidu, gave a new intensity to the Mongol raids into India. There was a sudden increase in the Mongol striking power from Alauddin’s reign and the entire Doab, ...