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A significant mark on the Delhi Iron Pillar is a large crater due
to a cannon shot. The history of this cannon shot has been first traced to show that the
shot was probably fired by Nadir Shah in the year 1739. The probable reason why
a second cannon shot was not fired on the Pillar has been arrived at based
on the analysis of existing structures of the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque and the
location of the cannon relative to the Pillar when it was fired. Damage of the
structures on the southwestern portion of the historically significant
Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque due to wayward cannon fire appears to have prevented a second
shot being fired on the Pillar. It has further been shown that the cannon,
which fired the shot, was moved into the courtyard of the Quwwat-ul-Islam
mosque through the gap in the northwestern portion of the wall and was located
north of the Pillar at a distance of approximately 30 feet from the Pillar. A
brief discussion on the surprising ability of the
Pillar for withstanding the cannon shot concludes
the paper.
The Delhi Iron Pillar (Anantharaman, 1996; and Balasubramaniam, 2002 and
2005a) located in the courtyard of the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque near the Qutub Minar in New
Delhi is a marvelous engineering construction (see Figure 1a), considering that it was forged
out of individual iron lumps, almost 1600 years ago during the reign of Chandragupta
II Vikramaditya (375-413 AD). Its exceptional atmospheric corrosion resistance due to
the presence of significant amount of phosphorus in solid solution
(Balasubramaniam, 2000a) has further attracted the notice of corrosion technologists and scientists, eager to
unravel its mysteries. New insights have been obtained on several aspects of the Pillar, including
its history (Balasubramaniam, 2000b), manufacturing methodology
(Balasubramaniam, 1999), corrosion resistance (Balasubramaniam, 2002), astronomical
significance (Balasubramaniam and Dass, 2004), technical aspects of characters of the
Brahmi-Sanskrit inscription (Balasubramaniam, 2007a) and mathematical significance of its
dimensions (Balasubramaniam, 2008a).
One of the significant marks on the Iron Pillar is the indentation of a cannon ball
that struck the Pillar for a brief moment
(<10_6 s) in its history (see middle location of the
Pillar shown in Figure 1a). Close up views, of the cannon ball indentation
area and the location immediately to the rear of the indentation area,
are shown in Figures 1b and 1c. The direction of firing of the cannon
shot can be determined from careful analysis of this area and this has
been done elsewhere (Balasubramaniam, 2008b). The indentation is located at
a level of 156 inches from the current courtyard ground level. The
salient dimensions of the Pillar are shown in Figure 2, from which the
overall symmetric design must be appreciated. The relative direction of the
cannon shot indentation needs to be noted in this figure. The dimensions in Figure
2 are indicated in units of inch. Recently, it has been shown that the
dimensions of the Delhi Iron Pillar match well with the traditional unit
of measurement used in the Harappan Civilization
(Balasubramaniam, 2008a), namely, the angulam measuring 1.763 cm (Balasubramaniam and Joshi,
2008; and Danino, 2008). This is a very convincing evidence for the continuity of the
engineering tradition from the Harappan Civilization to the Gangetic Civilization
(Balasubramaniam, 2008c) and adds to the growing body of evidence that Harappan techniques,
crafts, ornaments, art forms, customs, rituals and religious beliefs were transmitted
virtually unchanged from the Harappan civilization to the Gangetic civilization (Kenoyer 1998;
and Lal, 2002). |
