CDS (II) 2021 General Knowledge · Question 57 of 120

Correct — C, Sirat-i-Firuz Shahi. Firuz Shah Tughlaq, who ruled from Delhi between 1351 and 1388, had two Ashokan pillars brought to his capital — one from Topra in present-day Haryana and one from Meerut. The Topra shaft was moved in the 1350s and re-erected beside the Friday mosque of his new city of Firuzabad. The operation was a feat of medieval engineering: the pillar was wrapped in silk cotton and then in reeds and raw hide, lowered onto a cart of forty-two wheels with two hundred men to a wheel, and floated down the Yamuna on boats. The Sirat-i-Firuz Shahi, an anonymous contemporary chronicle of the Sultan's reign written in the fourteenth century, records the move and carries the painted illustration of it that the question is asking about — one of the earliest depictions of an engineering operation in Indian manuscript painting.

• (a)Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi — Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi is the trap, and a fair one, because two different historians used that title — Ziauddin Barani and Shams-i-Siraj Afif, both of whom wrote on this reign. Neither work is the source of the painted illustration.
• (b)Tarikh-i-Shahi — Tarikh-i-Shahi is a stripped-down version of the same title, offered to catch a candidate who half-remembers a chronicle beginning with Tarikh. It is not the manuscript with the illustration.
• (d)Akbar Nama — The Akbar Nama is Abul Fazl's official history of Akbar's reign, written in the 1590s, two centuries after the pillar was moved. Its illustrations are Mughal and its subject is a different dynasty.

Firuz Shah Tughlaq is the Delhi Sultan remembered for building and preserving rather than conquering — canals, towns, hospitals, and a distinct interest in the monuments of earlier rulers. Moving Ashokan pillars was part of that: the columns were understood as trophies of ancient kingship, and nobody at his court could read the Brahmi on them, which stayed undeciphered until James Prinsep's work in 1837.

Chronicle-to-event items are decided by keeping each title tied to its author and its subject. For this reign the pair to separate is Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi, the narrative history written twice over by Barani and by Afif, and Sirat-i-Firuz Shahi, the anonymous work of about 1370 that is the source for the technical and illustrated material. A useful cross-check is the object itself, which still stands: the Topra pillar is on the terrace at Firoz Shah Kotla in Delhi, and the Meerut pillar on the Delhi ridge, both bearing Ashokan edicts that their medieval mover could not read.

• Firuz Shah Tughlaq ruled Delhi from 1351 to 1388 and moved Ashokan pillars from Topra and from Meerut to his capital.
• The Topra pillar was moved in the 1350s and re-erected beside the Friday mosque of Firuzabad, at what is now Firoz Shah Kotla.
• The move used a forty-two-wheeled cart with about two hundred men to a wheel, packing of silk cotton, reeds and raw hide, and boats on the Yamuna.
• The Sirat-i-Firuz Shahi is an anonymous fourteenth-century chronicle of the reign and carries the painted illustration of the transport.
• Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi is the title used by both Ziauddin Barani and Shams-i-Siraj Afif for their narrative histories.

• Reading Sirat and Tarikh as interchangeable; one is closer to a life or account of conduct, the other a chronicle.
• Assigning Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi to a single author when two historians used the title.
• Assuming the medieval movers knew what the inscriptions said — the script was unreadable until the nineteenth century.

As a source-to-event attribution, or as a matching list of Sultanate chronicles and their authors.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Firuz Shah Tughlaq brought Ashokan pillars to Delhi from which two places?

  • (a)Sarnath and Sanchi
  • (b)Topra and Meerut
  • (c)Lauriya Nandangarh and Rampurwa
  • (d)Kalsi and Bairat

  Answer(b) Topra and Meerut — the Topra shaft now stands at Firoz Shah Kotla and the Meerut one on the Delhi ridge.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi was written by

  • (a)Abul Fazl
  • (b)Amir Khusrau
  • (c)Ziauddin Barani and, separately, Shams-i-Siraj Afif
  • (d)Minhaj-us-Siraj

  Answer(c) Ziauddin Barani and, separately, Shams-i-Siraj Afif — two historians of the same reign used the same title; Minhaj-us-Siraj wrote the Tabaqat-i-Nasiri.