DELHI: A Heritage City

Nomination to UNESCOs List of World Heritage Cities

Evolution of Delhi
The historic settlement that we know today as Delhi, took shape in a roughly triangular patch
of land. One side of the triangle is made up by the Yamuna River, and the other two consist
of hilly spurs at the northern extreme of the Aravalli range of mountains. At a local level these
two natural features have provided a varied landscape hills well covered with vegetation, as
well as a fertile alluvial plain. The wider regional importance of Delhi has historically
stemmed from its crucial geographical location within the Indian subcontinent. It is located at
the northern end of the Gangetic plain; at a point where the plain narrows to a neck of land
between the great rivers and Himalayas to the north, and the Aravallis and the Thar Desert to
the south. It is therefore a gateway to the fertile Gangetic plain, which empire-builders from
early times have sought to control, and to the Southern peninsula beyond.
The Delhi region was inhabited by tool making hominids, followed by human beings,
probably as far back as 100,000 years ago. In this pre-historic period it was mainly the hilly
regions to the south of Delhi that were occupied. The area was almost certainly covered with
rich vegetation and ample wildlife ideal for the hunting-gathering lifestyle of the Stone Age
people. It is also clear that the river Yamuna at that time flowed through these hills. The
river in fact has changed course several times and at least six old beds have been identified.
Interestingly, the location of Stone Age sites and their sequence suggests that pre-historic
people moved with the river.
When agriculture became the primary source of food for ancient populations there was a shift
in settlements away from the ridge and towards the plains and more particularly along the
Yamuna. There is evidence that Delhi was settled during the Late Harappan period. This was
a phase, sometime between 2000-1000 B.C., when the sophisticated urban Harappan
civilization was past its heyday, and its cities had been replaced by scattered rural settlements.
The Late Harappan phase was followed by the Vedic Age, when the ancient scriptures or the
Vedas were first composed. In the early part of the first millennium B.C. certain events were
taking place that are believed to have formed the basis of one of the great epics of India the
Mahabharata. This is the tale of a rivalry and great war between two sets of cousins The
Kauravas and the Pandavas. The capital city established by the latter, known as Indraprastha,
has in the local tradition been identified with the site of the Purana Qila, beside the Yamuna
in Delhi. Archaeological evidence from the site has been unable to point to anything definite.
Around the 6th century B.C. an active phase of state formation began in North India, with the
rise of several territorial states or Mahajanpadas. At this time Delhi, though not one of the
major political centres, was an important point on the great north Indian trade route, known as
the Uttarapatha. It was thus an ideal place for the emperor Ashoka, who ruled over the a large
territory in the third century B.C., to put up an inscription containing what is known to us as
his rock edict. The edict was inscribed on a large boulder on a hilly piece of ground, in an
area in modern south Delhi known as Kalkaji. Nearby is the Kalkaji temple, the site of a
temple to the goddess Kalka Devi and probably even in Ashokas time a temple stood here.
In the subsequent centuries too, Delhi probably formed a part of states which had their centres
of power elsewhere, such as the Sungas, Shakas and Kushanas. During the Gupta period,
sometime in the fourth century A.D. a remarkable commemorative pillar made out of a very
high quality iron was set up, maybe somewhere in the neighbourhood of Delhi. The
inscriptional evidence is not entirely clear but it is believed that this pillar was moved at least
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DELHI: A Heritage City

Nomination to UNESCOs List of World Heritage Cities

once during its history. Today it is located in the middle of the oldest mosque in the city, in
the Qutub Minar complex.
By the eight century Delhi had come under the sway of the Tomars, one of the several Rajput
dynasties that had their origins in Rajasthan. The Tomars first established fortifications in the
village of Anangpur, and around the large reservoir known as Surajkund, just south of Delhi.
In the mid-eleventh century, Anangpal II of this dynasty built the fortified city of Lal Kot,
located in present day Mehrauli.
The Chauhans, headquartered in Ajmer, wrested control of Delhi from the Tomars in the
twelfth century. Under Prithviraj Chauhan the fortifications of Lal Kot were extended to
enclose a larger space, forming the fort known as Qila Rai Pithora. A rich material culture,
including more than a score beautifully carved stone temples formed a part of this city. The
temple pillars can still be seen on the site as they were re-used in the construction of the
Quwwat ul Islam mosque next to the Qutub Minar.
Then towards the end of the twelfth century, the Chauhans were overthrown by a new entrant
on the scene. The forces of Mohammad Ghori, a Central Asian Turk with a base in Ghazni,
defeated the armies of Prithviraj Chauhan at the battle of Tarain in 1192. In early 1193, his
general Qutubuddin Aibak captured Delhi and established the capital of Ghoris Indian
territories in the fort of Qila Rai Pithora. The Turk conquest laid the groundwork for the
establishment of the Delhi Sultanate, which was to last in some form or the other until the
arrival of the Mughals in the sixteenth century. Under the Turks, from the early thirteenth
century Delhi acquired a new importance as the capital of a dynamic and expanding empire.
The Turk conquerors were Muslims, and avowedly committed to the setting up of an Islamic
state, with the name of the Caliph being included in the Friday sermon and on coinage. One of
the early Sultans, Iltutmish (1211-36) even sought to give his position legitimacy in the eyes
of the orthodox by obtaining a letter of investiture from the Caliph at Baghdad, confirming
Iltutmishs title as sultan of India. Simultaneously however great changes were occurring in
the Islamic world. The Mongols under Chengiz Khan were wreaking havoc over Central and
West Asia, and important centres of Islam like Bukhara and Baghdad were destroyed. Thus
Delhi was looked upon as a last refuge for Islam in the East, and poets, scholars and men of
letters fleeing the destruction of their homes found shelter in India, and particularly in Delhi.
In its everyday practice however, the polity of the Delhi Sultanate was not based on orthodox
Islam, which would have advocated a harsh line with non-believers. And here, the role and
influence of the Sufis was probably a factor. The Sufi saints were among those who came to
Delhi in the wake of the Turkish conquerors. Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki, the Chishti Sufi,
was one of the several who made Delhi their base, and contributed to Delhis acquiring a
leading position in the sacred geography of Islam in the Indian sub-continent. The city in fact
came to be called Hazrat-e-Dehli, or the venerable Delhi. The saints, with their liberal
religious practice attracted not only converts and devotees in large numbers, they also
provided the political power with a model of governance that was based on a tolerance of
non-Muslim populations. Delhi, even as it was the capital of an empire that purportedly
derived its legitimacy from Islam, continued to have a large Hindu population.
The saints hospices and shrines and their spheres of influence, were also the setting for a
cultural interaction that was reflected in syncreticism outside the religious sphere. This
included new developments in architecture, music, literature and language, which brought
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DELHI: A Heritage City

Nomination to UNESCOs List of World Heritage Cities

together diverse traditions to create a composite style that soon gained influence over the
entire sub-continent.
In the first century of the Delhi Sultanate, though the concentration of population continued to
be highest in Mehrauli, in and around Qila Rai Pithora, some settlements were coming up
closer to the river. One important reason for this was the need to provide access to a reliable
source of water. In the mid-thirteenth century the Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya established
his seat or khanqah at the suburb of Ghiyaspur, today known as NIzamuddin. Around 1288
Sultan Kaiqubad built a walled palace at Kilokhari, about a kilometer from Ghiyaspur.
Kaiqubads successor Jalaluddin, who founded the Khalji dynasty in 1290, was unsure of the
loyalty of the people of the old city at Mehrauli, and therefore made Kilokhari his
headquarters. Soon the wealthy and powerful nobles and merchants of Delhi built houses in
Kilokhari, markets were established and it came to be known as the shahar-e-nau, or new
city.
The old town at Mehrauli continued to be important and was again the capital under
Jalaluddins successor Alauddin. One factor that checked the move towards the river was
strategic necessity, and the fortifications of Qila Rai Pithora on the ridge were important from
the point of view of defense, particularly when the Mongols threatened Delhi in the late
thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. The emperor Alauddin Khalji found himself
repeatedly engaging them in battle on the plain of Siri, located north of Mehrauli. Alauddin
decided to build a fortification at this place, and this led to the founding of the new capital of
Siri in the early fourteenth century.
The founder of the Tughlaq dynasty, Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq, was also very conscious of the
threat of the Mongols. His fortified capital of Tughlaqabad was built around 1321-25, on the
rocky scarps of the ridge in the south-eastern corner of the Delhi triangle. The rocks on the
site provided ample building material, the heights reinforced the defenses of the fort, and the
natural drainage line of the ridge could be dammed to provide a source of water.
Ghiyasuddins successor Mohammad Tughlaq moved back towards the old city at Mehrauli,
but in the meantime the population of the city had been growing and spilling outside the
walls. Conscious of the need for security, Mohammad Tughlaq decided to build a line of
fortifications linking the forts of the Qila Rai Pithora and Siri. The space thus enclosed was
named Jhanapanah, and Mohammad built an impressive palace complex (Bijai Mandal) and
congregational mosque (Begampur Masjid) in it.
By the mid-fourteenth century the Mongol threat had receded and from this point onwards
there was a decided move closer to the river. Firoz Shah Tughlaqs city of Firozabad, built in
the 1350s, was towards the north, on the river. The end of the Tughlaq dynasty saw a sharp
decline in the power and territories of the Delhi Sultante, underlined by the invasion of the
Timur (also known as Tamerlane) in 1398. The succeeding dynasties of the Syeds and the
Lodis ruled over considerably shrunken territories and have not left behind any discernable
cities. Mubarak Shah of the short-lived Syed dynasty is said to have established a city called
Mubarakabad near the Yamuna, but no trace of it remains.
The Delhi Sultanate came to an end in 1526, when Babur, a descendant of Timur, defeated the
forces of the last Lodi Sultan, Ibrahim, and established the Mughal dynasty. His successor
Humayun built the city of Dinpanah in the 1530s, just north of the shrine of Nizamuddin.
Coincidentally the citadel was placed on the site of the village of Indarpat, popularly
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DELHI: A Heritage City

Nomination to UNESCOs List of World Heritage Cities

identified with the ancient city of Indraprastha. Humayuns reign was interrupted by that of
the Suri dynasty, and Sher Shah Suri made his own additions to Dinpanah, and established the
city of Shergarh around it.
Humayuns successor Akbar moved the capital of the Mughal empire to Agra, but Delhi did
not lose its importance as an important centre of trade and culture. In particular the Sufi
shrines of the city gave it a premier position in the sacred geography of Islam in India. The
choice of Delhi for the mausoleum of Humayun, located in the vicinity of Nizamuddins
shrine, underlined this importance.
In 1639 Akbars grandson Shahjahan decided to shift the capital out of Agra, and Delhi was
chosen as the site for his grand imperial city. The new city, called Shahjahanabad, was by the
river, north of all of Delhis previous cities. This continued to be the seat of the Mughal
emperor even as the empire declined in the eighteenth century, and the British East India
Company came to control most of its erstwhile territories. Shahjahanabad, as the seat of the
Mughal court saw a flowering of architecture, crafts, visual and performing arts, language and
literature, that persisted well beyond the heyday of the Mughal empire.
Through the nineteenth century the British ruled their Indian territories from their capital at
Calcutta. Delhi saw the upheaval of the Revolt of 1857 and was for a while relegated to an
administrative backwater. But the aura of the city survived. Its long history as the capital of
powerful kingdoms and empires had invested it with a mystique and prestige that not even the
British could ignore. In the popular mind Delhi had long been associated with sovereignty
over India, and the British government tapped into this legacy by holding imperial Durbars
assemblages in Delhi - in 1877 to proclaim Victoria Empress of India, in 1903 to celebrate the
coronation of Edward VII as Emperor of India, and in 1911 to similarly proclaim the
coronation of George V.
It was during the last Durbar of 1911 that the decision to shift the British Indian capital to
Delhi was announced, and a year later Delhi became the capital. Simultaneously work began
on the construction of a new imperial capital city, which was finally inaugurated in 1931 as
New Delhi. New Delhi was planned and built as a garden city laid out around a grand
ceremonial centre. While it owed inspiration to Baron Haussmanns Paris and LEnfants
Washington D.C., it drew on Indian traditions with respect to design elements, decorative
details, materials, and colonial forms such as the bungalow. Above all it carried forward the
aura of Delhi and the citys tradition of learning from and adopting a wide range of cultural
influences.

10/3/2011

INTACH, Delhi Chapter