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From the introduction: "Delhi is situated on a roughly triangular area in the plains of Yamuna and has picturesque outcrops of the Aravalli Ridge spread out as an arc in its western sector. The area of the Ridge has oldest geological formations which conditioned the natural environment of early man, as reflected in his earliest stone tools. The Yamuna having several palaeo-channels, fostered many ancient cultures. Thus the past of Delhi is no longer confined to the seven cities (eighth being present Delhi) but is pushed back to several millennia as evidenced by the artifacts of early stone age on the Ridge. After a gap of many thousand years, in the second millennium B.C., the area witnessed settled pattern of life and agriculture as revealed by the late Harappan remains at Mandoli and Bhorgarh. Few cities in India could claim the long continuity and status that Delhi has enjoyed through the ages. At the site of Purana Qila lay perhaps Indraprastha, the capital of the Pandavas, heroes of the Mahabharata. The painted Grey Ware, associated by some scholars with the age of the Mahabharata War, is available in and around Delhi. Continuous occupations from the pre-Mauryan to early Mughal period (circa fifth century B.C. to the sixteenth century A.D.) have been revealed in the excavations at Purana Qila. A glorious chapter to Delhi's history was added with the discovery of an inscription of the Maurya Emperor Asoka (273-36 B.C.) engraved on a rock of Aravalli outcrop, near Srinivaspuri. About the eighth century A.D., there existed at the site of the Sultan Ghari's tomb (8 km west of the Qutb Minar) a large temple erected probably by some feudatory of the Pratiharas. In any case, the Tomar Rajputs established themselves in the hills south of Delhi by the tenth century A.D. The first medieval city of Delhi, believed to have been founded by the Tomars, was called Dhilli or Dhillika, although among the known records the name Dhillika occurs for the first time in the inscription of A.D. 1170 from Bijolia, District Bhilwara which mentions the capture of Delhi by the Chahamanas. The Palam Baoli inscription of A.D. 1276, written in the reign of Ghiyasud-Din Balban, also calls the town Dhilli and the country in which it lies as Hariyanaka. Another inscription dated in A.D. 1328 in the reign of Muhammad Tughluq (A.D. 1324-51), now in the Red Fort Museum, also refers to the city of Dhillika in the Hariyana-country. A less-known inscription dated in A.D. 1326, found in Ladnu in District Didwana, also mentions the city of Dhilli in Haritana-country. Another name, Yoginipura, occurs as an alternative of Dhilli in the Palam Baoli inscription, which also mentions the village of Palamba, obviously the modern Palam. Both Dhilli and Yoginipura occur frequently in the Jaina Pattavalis. A king by the name of Madanapala is mentioned as ruling over Dhilli or Yoginipura in Samvat 1223 (A.D. 1166). Since the words Madana and Ananga are synonymous in Sanskrit, there is likelihood that the king under reference may be Anangpal, the date given being a mistake. The Jaina literary tradition gains some support from the fact that Delhi was obviously also an important Jaina centre in medieval days, as evidenced by several Jaina sculptures which are found re-used in the Quwwatu'l-Islam mosque. The name Yoginipura is believed to owe its origin to a temple of yoginis (female semi-divine beings), which exists no longer but the memory of which is preserved in the present Jogamaya temple near Mehrauli, which itself is derivable from 'Mihirapuri', and suggests that a Sun temple may have also existed here. Tomars were supplanted by the Chauhan (Chahamana) Rajputs. Several temples, Hindu and Jaina, were erected during the Rajput rule. The Chauhan ruler, Prithviraja was defeated by the Muslims towards the close of the twelfth century A.D., and Delhi thus became the capital, initially of the Pathan Sultans and from A.D. 1526 onwards of the Mughals. During the British pe.
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