If, as General Cunningham assumes, the date of the pillar is 319 A.D, which corresponds to the downfall of the Buddhist Gupta dynasty, it may perhaps be reasonably surmised that the origin was really Buddhist, and in imitation of Asoka's Lats. The column probably occupied a central position in old Dilli, of which it is one of the solitary existing remains. There is a stone pillar on the South Colonnade, bearing the figure of Buddha the ascetic, or one of the Jain Hierarchs, and this may probably also belong to old Dilli. There are good grounds for supposing that Anangpal II. was the builder of one of the temples that was destroyed to make the great Mosque, as one of the pillars in the south-east corner has the date S. 1124 (A.D. 10117). which is a period included in Ajiangpal's reign.
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