Page:The Seven Cities of Delhi.djvu/170

 Masjid ; a circular building with a number of underground rooms ; and some ruins which are supposed to have comprised the emperor's palace. There is a tradition that underground passages extend from this citadel to the Ridge, and also to Old Delhi, but this is improbable. That one ran along the riverside through the palace is not so unlikely, but exploration would be extremely unpleasant, not to say dangerous, for the passage must be infested with snakes.

Pillar of Asoka. — There is a drawing extant, which shows the building on which this is set up faced with red sandstone, but this may be imaginary. Formerly there was a black-and-white pavilion surrounding the pillar, which was surmounted by a golden ball and by a spire of the same metal ; these were in place in 1613.

The inscriptions of Asoka on the pillar are in four compartments, at the four cardinal points, and also around the lower part. They are edicts, couched in rather egotistic language, and were given in the twenty-seventh year of his reign, after his conversion to Buddhism ; they cancel other edicts issued in the twelfth year of his reign. He calls himself Devanampiya Piyadasi, each of which names means *' beloved of the gods," and