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A Note on the Allahabad Pillar of Aśoka
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
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It is a fact that hardly requires repetition that one of the edicts on the pillar of Aśoka standing inside Akbar's fort at Allahabad is addressed to the Mahāmātras of Kauśāmbī (modern Kosam on the bank of the Jamna, about thirty miles from Allahabad) whence it was removed to Allahabad by some king. Cunningham suggested that Firūz Shāh, who is known to have removed two other Aśokan columns to Delhi from Meerut (Mīrath) and Topra, was the author also of this removal from Kosam to Allahabad. On this Hultzsch makes the following remarks: “But while Delhi was the capital of Firōz Shāh, Allahabad was founded, or rather re-founded two centuries after him by Akbar. This ruler may have removed from Kōsam the Allahabad pillar, on which the inscriptions of his favourite Bīrbal and of his son Jahāngīr are engraved. In this case the pillar would have been still standing at Kōsam when the inscription of Samudragupta was incised on it.” The divergence between the views of these two scholars makes the subject worthy of a fresh study.
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References
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page 705 note 3 See the enclosed photograph, for which we are indebted to Mr. B. M. Vyas, Executive Officer, Allahabad Municipal Board, and the organizer of the Allahabad Municipal Museum.
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