PEN PICTURE OF DELHI.

Northern Advocate, 14 February 1912, Page 3

PEN PICTURE OF DELHI.

—— T INDIA'S NEW CAPITAL.

•'Only those who have been in India can actually realise the splendour of such pageants under cloudless sides of deepest azure," says the ' Times" of those unprecedented scenes which have been witnessed at Delhi within the last few days, of which the centre and pivot have been the King and Quee:. of the British Empire. In the Fort of Delhi the Mogul Emperors of old held their Court. Today the Imperial headquarters are on the historic plain of Delhi, and the Royal Standard floats over a vast encampment under canvas covering some twenty-fiv square miles. And at the gieat Durbar, on Tuesday, the King* announced that the seat )f the Indian Government is to be transferred from Calcutta to Delhi. THE DURBAR CITY. "Nd other citj in India has made history as Delhi has," says the 'Times." "Though in ihe European mind Delhi is perhaps chiefly associated with the days of the Mogul Empire, there is no other pa.-t of India in which are gathered together so many memories cf Indian history at least an precious to the Hindu as to the Mahomedan. On the plain of Delhi were fought out in prehistoric times the fierce conflicts of ancient Aryan races round which &.e poetic genius of Hinduism has woven the wonderful epos of the Mahabbarata.

"The whole plain of Delhi is sacred soil to the devout Hindu. On a mound just beyond the city stands the granite shaft of one of Asoka's pillars, which, even though mutilated and only transported to Delhi by Piroz Shah, recalls the apostolate of the great Buddhist Emperor of India who recorded on it one of the finest of his edicts, prohibiting the taking of life.

"Again, at the very foot of the Kutab Miliar, the loftiest and noblest minaret from vLich the Muslman call U prayer has ever gone forth, the celebrated Iron Pillar commemorates the victories of the 'Sun of Power/ Cbandragupta Vikramadytia, the great Hindu Emperor of the Gupta Dynasty, with whose name, under the more popular form ol Rajah Bikram, Indian legend associates brilliant memories o fa Golden Age under Hindu rulers. This Iron Pillar was erected on its present site by one of the Rajput Princes who built the Red Fort in the middle of the eleventh century and founded the first city actually known to history as Delhi.

"The Mahommedan period represents indeed but one phase in the history of Delhi—a phase of chequered fortunes and manifold vicissitudes, which .the advent of British power alone rescued from overwhelming disaster. For in the very Palace, even in the very Hall of Private Audience v.here the Emperor Aurungzeb had sat in the pride of power beneath the famous inscription: 'If a Paradise there be on earth, It is here, it is here, it is here, his wretched successor, Shah Alam 11., had his eyes gouged out by the Rohilla chieftain Ghulam Kadir; and it was there again that, in 1803, already an old man, decrepit and sightless, he welcomed his deliverer in Lord Lake, who had routed" the Mahratta forces under the walls of Delhi. THE LAST OF THE MOGULS. "Only once more, some fifty years later, was Delhi to witness a renewal of the life-and-death struggle which had so often been waged in its historic plain for the possession of India. Then the last of the Moguls went forth into exile, the East India Company disappeared out of history, and India passed ui;der the direct and supreme authority of the British Crown. Yet Delhi remains to the present day the Imperial City of India par excellence. "Historically as well as geographically it represents the very heart of India; and whenever occasion requires some great and solemn gather-

ing at which expansion is to be given of the majesty and power of the Indian Empire, Delhi, at once without question, resumes its inherited position of primacy as 'the King's House.' "