Three epochs, three sovereignties, and three civilizations, combine to form the mingled yarn' of Delhi's history. The Pandoo, the Moslem, and the Briton, encounter each other on the same ground. The place was first a temple, then a mosque, and has now become a church. In each point of view it is an object of regard-a place thrice sacred with reminiscences' for the traveller. To go through his sight-seeing, in a chronological seriatim, he should first of all drive down to the Pooranah-Killah, or Indrapat, in which tradition still preserves the name of ancient Indraprastha. The way to this spot lies through a waste of ruins that realize the graphic description of Heber-' A very awful scene of desolation, ruins after ruins, tombs after tombs, fragments of brick-work, free-stone, granite, and marble, scattered everywhere over a soil naturally rocky and barren, without cultivation, except in one or two small spots, and without a single tree.' The old bed of the Jumna is traced in passing through this chaos of ruins. That river appears to have formerly flowed upwards of a mile to the westward of its present channel, and along its right bank had Judishthira built his capital of Indraprastha. The site of that famous city is now some two miles from modern Delhi. Indraprastha was one of the five pats or prasthas* which had been demanded

*The five pats which still exist, were Panipat, Sonpat, Indrapat, Tilpat, and Baghpat, of which all but the last were situated on the right or western bank of the Jumna. The term prastha, according to H. H. Wilson, means anything "spread out or extended," and is commonly applied to any level piece of ground, including also table-land on the top of a hill. But its more literal or restricted meaning would appear to be that particular extent of land which would require a

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by Judishthira as the price of peace between the rival Kurus and Pandavas, and which old Dhritorashtra gave away as a slice from his kingdom to sop his would-be turbulent nephews. The principality assigned to them was a bit of forest-land, then known under the name of Khandava-vana. Content, as all fatherless and disinherited orphans are, to make a start with this small assignment, the Pandavas set to building a town on it for their capital. This was about fifteen hundred years before the Christian era, when, far away by the shores of the Egean, Cecrops was building Athens, destined, perhaps, as twin cities, to shed their glory over the East and West.*

prastha of seed, that is, 48 double hands-full, or about 48 imperial pints, or two-thirds of a bushel. This was, no doubt, its original meaning, but in the lapse of time it must gradually have acquired the meaning, which it still has, of any good-sized piece of open plain. Indraprastha would, therefore, mean the plain of Indra, which was, I presume, the name of the person who first settled there. Popular tradition assigns the five pats to the five Pandu brothers.'- Cunningham.

*The date of the occupation of Indraprastha as a capital by Judishthira may, as I believe, be attributed, with some confidence, to the latter half of the 15th century before Christ. The grounds on which I base this belief are as follows:-1st, That certain positions of the planets, as recorded in the Mahabarat, are shown by Bentley to have taken place in 1424-25 B.C., who adds that there is no other year, either before that period or since, in which they were so situated. 2nd, In the Vishnu Purana it is stated that at the birth of Parikshita, the grandson of Arjuna Pandava, the seven Rishis were in Mugha, and that when they are in Purva Asharha, Nanda will begin to reign. Now, as the seven Rishis, or stars of the Great Bear, are supposed to pass from one lunar asterism to another in 100 years, the interval between Parikshita and Nanda will be 100 years. But in the Bhagavata Purana this interval is said to be 1015 years, which, added to 100 years, the duration of the reigns of the nine Nandas, will place the birth of Parikshita 1115 years before the accession of Chandra Gupta in 315 B.C., that is, in 1430 B.C. By this account the birth of Parikshit, the grandson of Arjuna, took place just six years before the Great War in B.C. 1424. These dates, which are derived from two inde

The Mahabarat has but a few words to give us an idea of ancient Indraprastha. The town is described to have been fortified by being intrenched on all sides, and surrounded by towering walls. A beautiful palace contributed to adorn the infant city, which gradually attained to eminence, and became the seat of learning, genius, and art. Merchants frequented from different quarters for the purposes of trade, the city rose in affluence, and bore glorious testimony to Judishthira's universal supremacy." Nobody needs to be told that the towering walls now surrounding Delhi, as well as the fort and palace within their precincts, are other than those referred to by the poet. In its present form, the Poorana-Killah is altogether a Mahomedan structure, and there does not exist a single carved stone of the original city of Judishthira.' But the spot is classic ground in every inch, and stands before us covered with the glory of ancient deeds. Here stood the citadel defended by the Gandira of Arjoona,-but now occupied, perhaps, by the Keela Kona mosque of Hoomayun. There, probably, was the chamber in which the Pandava brothers held council with Krishna and Vyas,—but on which now stands the Shere Mundil, or the palace of Shere Shah. Yonder may have been the spot on which was erected the great hall of Rajshuy Yugnya—a political ceremony resembling the lerées and durbars of our modern Viceroys. Never was there such an august pendent sources, mutually support each other, and, therefore, seem to me to be more worthy of credit than any other Hindoo dates of so remote a period.' — Cunningham,

Rev. Bannerjee's Encyclopædia Bengalensis.

assemblage of the élite of old India. The occasion had been graced by the presence of a hundred thousand Rishis, together with all the crowned heads of the realm. There were princes from Cashmere and Camboja beyond the Indus, from Anga and Assam, and from Bungo and Berar, to do fealty to the sovereign head. Rich diamonds and pearls,—gold that had been watched, perhaps, by the fabled Yacsha,-valuable brocades and other choice specimens of silk,-curious iron and ivory manufactures,-weapons of different variety, invented by the military genius of the ancient Hindoos,-furs and feathers of great rarity,—and horses and elephants, are mentioned to have been brought by the Rajahs for presents in token of their allegiance. In the midst of all, the gaze and admiration of the assembly was that inestimable diamond on the royal crown, which in our ages is known under the name of Koh-i-noor. Judishthira was no myth. The coins of his time have been discovered. His era was in all records and documents prior to the Samvat of Vicramaditya. But there is not a stone, or broken column, for the New Zealander of Macaulay-a being long before anticipated in the foretold Yavana of our Puranists-to sit upon, and moralize over the evanescence of great cities, and cast horoscopes of empires. He wanders sorrowfully, and bethinks him of Indraprastha, that once triumphed in existence, and promised itself immortality. His imagination paints that city to have covered the banks of the Jumna for several miles, to have been fortified by many a tower and battlement, and to have sheltered within its walls

large numbers of a busy population—a city in which the nobles dwelt in splendid palaces, and were clothed in the richest products of the loom-in which envoys and ambassadors paraded the streets in chariots, and upon elephants-in which heroes were nursed in amphitheatres to perform the most daring exploits-in which poets celebrated the deeds of warriors, and sages discussed the most erudite points in philosophy-and in which flourished the arts and sciences that gave the leadership of the human race to the Aryan Hindoos, and left in their hands the development of the civilization of mankind. But over these the hand of irrevocable time has spread a pall never to be lifted, and the race, who acted all this glorious drama, has passed away, leaving very little upon record to tell the tale of their times, for 'the Hindoos either never had, or have unfortunately lost, their Herodotus and Xenophon.'

Indraprastha was a city of which posterity can now hardly trace the site. The only spot that has any claim to have belonged to that ancient city, is a place of pilgrimage on the Jumna called the Negumbode Ghaut. Popular tradition regards this ghaut as the place where Judishthira, after his performance of the Aswamedha, or the horse sacrifice, celebrated the 'Hom."* The position of Negumbode is immediately outside the northern wall of the present city. There is held a fair

* Local tradition contradicts the Mahabarat, which states the Aswamedha to have been performed at Hastinapoor on the Ganges. The Negumbode may be the spot where Pirthi-raj celebrated his Aswamedha. But it had acquired a sacredness from before the time of that prince, and was a place of resort where his grandfather Visal Deva had put up an inscription to transmit the fame of his conquests.