Delhi has a rich and glorious history full of construction a city and its devastation to construct a new one. Including the present capital, Delhi has been made the capital no less than eight times. As a result, the city is full of some intact and beautiful monuments and other ruins and remnants of the past seven cities along with modern boundaries and structures of the modern city.
The history of Delhi can be traced back to the Indus Valley Civilization when Delhi was also the part of the settlement at some point of time during the long period of the Indus Valley Civilization. Delhi, for the first time became the capital city during the period of the great epic, Mahabharata when the Pandavas established their capital Indraprastha at Delhi in c. 1450 BC. Archaeological evidences have corroborated this fact after the excavation carried out at the Old Fort area.
According to history, the first city of Delhi was the area around the ruins of Qila-I-Rai Pithora. The Tomars established their capital in Delhi under the sovereignty of Anangpal I in 731 AD and called it Lal Kot. Lal Kot was reconstructed during the reign of Anangpal II in the 11th century AD. When Prithviraj Chauhan fortified the existing city by adding ramparts and a moat, he named it as Qila-I-Rai Pithora.
The second city of Delhi came up during the Khalji Dynasty under the rule of Ala-ud-Din Khalji in 1311 AD. The city does not exist today and only the ruins of the magnificent fort and palace have remained as a part of the history and can be seen in the Hauz Khas and Siri Fort area. Tughlaqabad was the third city of Delhi built during the Tughlaq Dynasty under the patronage of Ghiyas-ud-Din Tughlaq. The impregnable fort, beautiful palaces, mosques and the Tomb of Ghiyas-ud-Din Tughlaq exist even today in the present Tughlaqabad area. Feroz Shah Tughlaq, nephew of Mohamed-bin-Tughlaq, built the fourth city of Delhi in 1351 AD and named it Firuzabad. The remains of this fortress is now known as Feroz Shah Kotla and can be noticed while passing from the Ring Road towards Raj Ghat or from ITO to Delhi Gate.
The history of growth and expansion of Delhi continues even the Mughal Period. Humayun, son of Babur and father of Akbar, established the fifth city of Delhi in 1533 AD. Humayun had named his city as Dinpannah or the 'Refuge of the Faithful' while Sher Shah Suri, the Afghan king, changed it to Shergarh after ousting Humayun from his throne. The present Old Fort was the citadel of the Mughal city to which Sher Shah added Qila-I-Kuhna Masjid and Sher Mandal. Shah Jahan, the most prolific builder of all the Mughal kings constructed the sixth capital on the banks of River Yamuna when he shifted his capital from Agra to Delhi in 1648 AD. Named as Shahjahanabad, this was the most beautiful of all cities of Delhi. The Red Fort, Chandni Chowk and Darya Ganj are the part of that city and exits even today only partially retaining its Mughal charm.
The British also continued the tradition of constructing new structures and buildings to add to the elaborate architectural history of Delhi. When British decided to shift their capital from Kolkata to Delhi in 1931 AD, they selected the region around Raisina Hill to built their new capital. The seventh capital, New Delhi, was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and the prominent buildings of that period are the Rasthrapati Bhawan, Parliament House, North Block, South Block, India Gate and Connaught Place.
As you trace the history of Delhi, you will realize that with the development of each new city, the boundary of the city has been extended. Today, Delhi had grown several times in size since its first city. The history of Delhi makes for an interesting study tour where all the important historical structures can be visited.
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Delhi
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