The Proclamation of the Gates
A disputed 1842 order to bring gates from Ghazni to India.
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The Proclamation of the Gates was an order issued in 1842 by Lord Ellenborough, the Governor-General of Britain's territories in India, during the Battle of Kabul. It demanded that troops bring back gates from Ghazni that were alleged to have been taken by Mahmud from the Somnath temple some 800 years earlier and installed as doors of his mausoleum. The allegation was later found to be false, and the basis for the order remains unclear.
Quick Facts
- Issued by
- Edward Law, 1st Earl of Ellenborough
- Year
- 1842
- Context
- Battle of Kabul
- Alleged origin of gates
- Somnath temple
- Actual wood of gates
- Deodar wood
- Current location of gates
- Agra Fort arsenal store-room
- Regiment that carried gates
- 6th Jat Light Infantry
Facts from the source article.
Description
In 1842, the 1st Earl of Ellenborough, Edward Law, commanded the British forces in Afghanistan to stop at Ghazni on their way back to India and retrieve certain sandalwood gates. These doors were taken from Mahmud of Ghazni’s tomb, as it was thought he had originally looted them from the Somnath temple. General William Nott carried out the order that September, and a full regiment of sepoys, the 6th Jat Light Infantry, was assigned to haul the gates to India.
Once they arrived, however, the gates turned out to be made of Deodar wood, a tree native to Ghazni, not sandalwood, and their design showed no connection to Gujarat or India. They were therefore not the genuine Somnath gates. The gates were stored in the Agra Fort’s arsenal room, where they remain today. The following year, the British House of Commons debated the affair, focusing on the gates’ authenticity and Ellenborough’s actions, and after that exchange all the established facts came to light.
More in Military History of British India
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: The Proclamation of the Gates (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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