Indian Art and Letters

Author(s): India Society
Publisher: India Society

Page 50

Archaeological Explorations in India, 1932-33 Madura and in the Srirangam temple near Trichinopoly, after Malik Kafur's invasion of South India in A.D. 1310. The precise date of the two Dravidian examples mentioned here is not known. Many years ago Dr. Burgess drew attention to numerous similariues between the Dravidian and Egyptian styles of architecture, and suggested that the thousand-pillared halls of South Indian temples may have been derived from the hypostyle halls of the temples of the ancient Pharaohs. It is noteworthy that the Vedic gods Mitra and Varuna are described in the Rigveda as occupying palaces of similar design.
The Iron Pillar at Dhar, Central India, is one of the largest ancient forgings of wrought iron which have come down anywhere, and which have excited unstinted admiration of eminent scientists and metallurgists of mo lern times. Other works of this nature are the well-known iron pillar at Delhi (circa fifth century A.D); the iron pillars or girders, measuring up to 42 feet in length, employed in the construction of the temple of the sun at Konarak District Puri (thirteenth century A.D); a large-sized trident (tricula) at Mount Abu; similar tridents in the temples at Gopesvara and Barahat, Garhwal.
The Iron Pillar at Dhar (Fig. 9) is broken in three pieces, measuring together more than 43 feet in length, and some writers have opined that a fourth piece of some 7 feet in length has been lost sight of. The date and purpose of this interesting monument have remained uncertain. It was Mr. Henry Cousens who suggested in the year 1902-03 that it must have been set up before a temple either as a special gift to the temple or as a column of victory. It is gratifying to note that this latter view of Mr. Cousens appears to receive considerable support from an inscription, parts of which I was able to put together at my visit to Dhar last summer. These fragments are lying in Kamal Maula's mosque by the side of the two large basalt slabs bearing two odes of the celebrated Paramara king Bhoja (A D. 1018-60) and a panegyric of one of his successors, Arjunavarman. This new inscription had hitherto escaped notice. The slab on which it was engraved must have been more than 5 feet in height, but though the width cannot be determined with equal certainty, it could not have been less than 7 or 8 feet. The inscription consisted of 79 lines containing 585 verses, all in the Prakrit language and in the Arya metre. In the colophon the poem is designated as a kodanda composed by the king Bhoja himself, but may, like the two odes referred to above, have been composed by one of his court poets. The stanza which I believe refers to the Iron Pillar is that numbered 306. It records the setting up of a column to serve as a post to which could be tied the "elephant of victory," which had already been fettered with ropes in the form of the rays of Bhoja's sword. The only pillar at Dhar answering this description is the Iron Pillar, and 120