21.  The notion of the Hindoo origin of the Kutb Minar, which the author justly stigmatizes as ‘foolish’, was taken up by Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, the author of an Urdu work on the antiquities of Delhi, and by Sir A. Cunningham’s assistant, Mr. Beglar, who wasted a great part of volume iv of the Archaeological Survey Reports in trying to prove the paradox.  His speculations on the subject were conclusively refuted by his chief in the Preface (pp. v-x) of the same volume.  The minar was built by Hindoo masons, and, in consequence, some of the details, notably its overlapping or corbelled arches, are Hindoo.

22.  This is correct.  The Hindoo ‘towers of victory’ are in a totally different style.

23.  On the misnomer ‘Pathans’, see ante, previous note 6.

24.  The Kutb mosque was constructed from the materials of twenty-seven Hindoo temples.  The colonnades retain much of their Hindoo character. (Fanshawe, p. 259 and plate.)

25.  The author’s description of the unfinished tower is far from accurate.  The tower was begun, not by Shams-ud-din Iltutmish, but by Ala-ud-din Muhammad Shah, in the year A.H. 711 (A.D. 1311).  It is about 82 feet in diameter, and when cased with marble, as was intended, would have been at least 85 feet in diameter, or nearly double that of the Kutb Minar, which is 48 feet 4 inches.  The total height of the column as it now stands is about 75 feet above the plinth, or 87 feet above the ground level. (A.S.R., vol. i, p. 205; vol. iv, p. 62, pl. vii; Thomas, Chronicles, p. 173, citing original authorities.) Carr Stephen (p. 67) gives the circumference as 254 feet, and the height as about 80 feet.

26.  Ala-ud-din’s additions were never completed.  The sack of Delhi by Timur Lang (Tamerlane) took place in December 1398.  The Delhi sacked by him was the city known as Firozabad.

27.  The glory of the mosque is . . . the great range of arches on the western side, extending north and south for about 385 feet, and consisting of three greater and eight smaller arches; the central one 22 feet wide, and 53 feet high; the larger side-arches, 24 feet 4 inches, and about the same height as the central arch; the smaller arches, which are unfortunately much ruined, are about half these dimensions.’  The great arch ’has since been carefully restored by Government under efficient superintendence, and is now as sound and complete as when first erected.  The two great side arches either were never completed, or have fallen down in consequence of the false mode of construction.’ (Fergusson, Hist. of I. and E. Archit., ed. 1910, vol. ii, pp. 203, 204).  The centre arch bears an inscription dated in A.H. 594, or A.D. 1198 (Thomas, Chronicles, p. 24).