DEHLI, a city of Hindustan, built on the right bank of the Jumna, in lat. 28° 39' N., and long. 77° 18' E., and 800 feet a,bove the sea. It gives its name to a revenue district under the Lieutenant-Governor of the Panjab. The whole country, for some 10 or 12 miles around the modern Dehli, is covered with the debris of ruined cities, which extend over au estimated area of 46 sq. miles. About fifteen centuries before the Chris tian era, the town of Indraprestha was in existence on the Jumna, in the vicinity of the site occupied by the modern Debli. It was one of the five pat or prastha,' viz. Panipat, Sonpat, Indra pat, Tilpat, and Baghpat, which Dhritorashtra gave to the Pandu. NOW, however, Purana Killa and the Negumbod ghat on the Jumna are the only places which can be pointed to as probably connected with the ancient Indra prestha, and the ghat seems to have been a sacred place of pilgrimage even before the Pandu family settled there. The people still call Purana Killa, Indrapat, though Humayun new-named it Din Panah, and Sher Shah styled it Sherghar. Thirty princes of the line of Yudishtra succeeded him on the throne, but only their names are known ; and the last of them was Kashemaka, who was mur dered by his minister Viserwa, whose line of four teen prine,es held swo.y for five hundred years. The last of the Manrya was slain by the raja Ketna youn, styled Sakaditya, or chief of the Saka, who subsequently fell before Vikratnaditya, and Avanti or Ujjain became the capital. Delati was then in existence, because Vikramaditya was described as possessing it,—Dilli-pat-kahayo became king of Dehli. Ancient Dehli was 6 miles distant from Indraprestha, on a rocky hill to the S.W., and 11 miles from the modern Dehli. his surmised that on the removal of the alpha] to Ujjain, the cities in that locality lay waste and desolate for eight centuries. Fa Hian, A.D. 400, and after him Hiwen Thsang, who travelled in the 8th century (A.D. 750), make no mention of Dehli, nor is it mentioned in the time of Mahmud, who sacked and plundered both Muttra and Thanesar. In A.D. 1052, however, Anangpal rebuilt it.
In A.D. 1191, Prithi-raj utterly routed Maho med Gori at Tiruri, 14 miles from Thanesar, and compelled him to recross the Indus. But in 1193 Muhammad re-entered Hindustan with a mixed Turk, Tartar, and Afghan army, defeated the Hindu princes, murdered the king of Dehli, took Ajmir, and returned to Ghazni. From that time until the early years of the 19th century, ending in the mutiny of the Bengal army and the rebellion of the northern people in 1857, Dehli continued in the possession of successive rulers of different races,—Turk, Moghul, Persian, Afghan, —but all following Mahomedanism.
For nearly a hundred years, however, the nominal ruler had been merely titular. The emperor Shah Alam entered Dehli a prisoner with the Mahrattas on 22d Decethber 1771. He con tinued a mere state prisoner in-their hands till 1803, when he was released by Lord Lake. All the territoriea and resources assigned for his support by the Mahrattas were continued to him, and a pecuniary provision was grant,ed in addi tion, fixed at Rs. 60,000, but afterwards increased to Rs. 1,00,000 a month: Shah Alam died on
the 19th November 1806, and was succeeded by Akhar Shah, who WM succeeded in 1837 by his eldest son, Bahadur Shah. Ile was restricted to the neighbourhood of Delili, he was not allowed to confer titles or to issue it currency, but lte had the control of civil and criminal justice within the palace. When the mutiny of 1857 broke ont, the mutineers in Debli took possession of the town, fort, and stores, and applied to the king. Bahadur Shah's conduct was vacillating, but he subsequently identified himself with the rebel cause. After the fall of Delili on the 20th Sep tember 1857, he wits captured, and tried on the charges of—lst. Aiding and abetting the mutiny of British troops ; 2d. Encouraging and assisting divers persons in waging war against the British Government ; 3d. Assuming the sovereignty of India ; 4th. Causing and being accessory to the murder of Christians. He was convicted on each charge on the 9th December 1858, and sent to Rangoon, where he died in 1862 ; and thus, after nearly five centuries of sovereign power, the Timurides ceased to reign. The pro spect of sovereignty was short-lived. The Dehli massacre of Europeans occurred on the llth May 1857. Dehli WAS assaulted on the 14th September 1857. From the 14th to the 17th of September, the Church, the Cutcherry, the College, the Kot walli, the Magazine, and the Dehli Bank House were one after the other carried and recovered. On the 18th, the line of communication between the 3fagazine and the Kabul gate was completed. On the 19th, the Burn bastion, near the, Lahore gate, was taken possession of by a aurprise. This bastion is so called from Colonel Burn, who with a handful of men mnde a most memorable defence of Dehli in 1804, against an overwhelm ing army of Holkar, and the cannonade of 130 guns. Sir D. Ouchterlony, then Resident, wrote of this defence, that it cannot but reflect the greatest honour on the discipline, courage, and fortitude of l3ritish troops in the eyes of all Ilindustan, to observe that with a small force they sustained a siege of nine days, repelled an assault, and defended a city 10 miles in circum ference, which had ever before been given up at the first appearance of an enemy at its gates. The 20th of September was the day of the final recapture of Dehli. On that day the imperial palace was entered and found deserted. The main picket of the British forces 'WM itt the house of Hindu Rao, on the top of the ridge that is to the north-west of the city. The chief efforts of the rebels were directed against this post of the besiegers. From the 8th of June 1857, until the fall of Dehli, it had to sustain twenty-six attacks. On the 14th of September, the attacking force for the storming of the city was divided into four columns, with a reserve. Tho party fixed upon to blow open the Kashmir gate consisted of Lieutenants Salkeld and Home, Sergeants Car michael, Burgess, and Smith, bugler Hawthorne, who accompanied the party to sound the advance when the gate was blown in, and eight native sapperg under Havildar 3fadhu, to carry the bags of powder.