A large number of tourists from all parts of India and the world visit the Qutub Complex in New Delhi everyday. I have often wondered how much and how well they know about the monuments in the complex, especially the Iron Pillar. My frequent visits to the monument and my interaction with visitors have confirmed that most of them knew little about it. The lone marble plaque on the inner northern wall of the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque provides a translation of the oldest Sanskrit inscription that is seen on the western face of the Iron Pillar. Sadly, this hardly has answers to questions that a lay visitor may have in his mind about the pillar. The inquisitive visitors, therefore, turn to the local guides who are equally ill informed about the pillar and its mystery. One other reason that has prompted me to write this book was the constant requests from my own students for an easily accessible book on the pillar in simple, jargon-free language. The easiest option for me was to write a simpler version of my first book on the Iron Pillar which was aimed at scholars in the field.

Although I had seen pictures of the Iron Pillar as part of the lectures delivered by Professor Bhanu Prakash on ancient Indian blacksmithy during my undergraduate days at the Banaras Hindu University, the first time I really became aware of its magnificence was when it was mentioned in a talk by Professor Kaesche of Erlangen University, Germany, during my doctoral studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA.