Iron Pillar of Delhi - Original Location

Original Location

The first location of the pillar has been debated.

While the pillar was certainly used as a trophy in the building the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque and the Qutb complex, its original location, whether on the site itself or from elsewhere, has frequented discussion. A summary of views on this subject and related matters was collected in volume edited by M. C. Joshi and published in 1989. More recently, opinions have been summarised again by Upinder Singh in her book Delhi: Ancient History.

R. Balasubramaniam explored the metallurgy of the pillar and the iconography based on analysis of archer-type Gupta gold coins. In his view, the pillar, with a wheel or discus at the top, was originally located at the Udayagiri caves, situated near Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh. This conclusion was partly based on the fact that the inscription mentions Viṣṇupadagiri (meaning "hill with footprint of Viṣṇu"). This conclusion was endorsed and elaborated by Michael Willis in his Archaeology of Hindu Ritual, published in 2009. The key point in favour of placing the iron pillar at Udayagiri is that this site was closely associated with Candragupta and the worship of Viṣṇu in the Gupta period. In addition, there are well-established traditions of mining and working iron in central India, documented particularly by the iron pillar at Dhar and local place names like Lohapura and Lohangī Pīr (see Vidisha). The king of Delhi, Iltutmish, is known to have attacked and sacked Vidisha in the thirteenth century and this would have given him an opportunity to remove the pillar as a trophy to Delhi, just as the Tughluq rulers brought Asokan pillars to Delhi in the 1300s.