In the center of the court of the ancient mosque of Kutbul Islam, which was originally built for a Hindu temple in the tenth century, stands a wrought-iron column, one of the most curious things in India.  It rises 23 feet 8 inches above the ground, and its base, which is bulbous, is riveted to two stone slabs two feet below the surface.  Its diameter at the base is 16 feet 4 inches and at the capital is 12 inches.  It is a malleable forging of pure iron, without alloy, and 7.66 specific gravity.  According to the estimates of engineers, it weighs about six tons, and it is remarkable that the Hindus at that age could forge a bar of iron larger and heavier than was ever forged in Europe until a very recent date.  Its history is deeply cut upon its surface in Sanskrit letters.  The inscription tells us that it is “The Arm of Fame of Raja Dhava,” who subdued a nation named the Vahlikas, “and obtained, with his own arm, undivided sovereignty upon the earth for a long period.”  No date is given, but the historians fix its erection about the year 319 or 320 A. D. This is the oldest and the most unique of all the many memorials in India, and has been allowed to stand about 1,700 years undisturbed.  An old prophecy declared that Hindu sovereigns would rule as long as the column stood, and when the empire was invaded in 1200 and Delhi became the capital of a Mohammedan empire, its conqueror, Kutb-ud-Din (the Pole Star of the Faith), originally a Turkish slave, defied it by allowing the pillar to remain, but he converted the beautiful Hindu temple which surrounded it into a Moslem mosque and ordered his muezzins to proclaim the name of God and His prophet from its roof, and to call the faithful to pray within its walls.

This Hindu temple, which was converted into a mosque, is still unrivaled for its gigantic arches and for the graceful beauty of the tracery which decorated its walls.  Even in ruins it is a magnificent structure, and Lord Curzon is to be thanked for directing its partial restoration at government expense.  The architectural treasures of India are many, but there are none to spare, and it is gratifying to find officials in authority who appreciate the value of preserving those that remain for the benefit of architectural and historical students.  It it a pity that the original Hindu carvings upon the columns cannot be restored.  There were originally not less than 1,200 columns, and each was richly ornamented with peculiar Hindu decorative designs.  Some of them, in shadowy corners, are still almost perfect, but unfortunately those which are most conspicuous were shamefully defaced by the Mohammedan conquerors, and we must rely upon our imaginations to picture them as they were in their original beauty.  The walls of the building are of purplish red standstone, of very fine grain, almost as fine as marble, and age and exposure seem to have hardened it.