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PHILLAUR
FORT HISTORICAL AND ARCHITECTURAL PERSPECTIVE
by
Subhash Parihar
Photographs
by the author
hillaur
Fort which now houses the [East] Punjab Police Academy was erected by
Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who ruled from 1799 to 1839. As is well-known, the
Maharaja had signed a treaty with the British in 1809 according to which
the river Satluj was agreed upon to be the boundary between the
territories of the two. Ludhiana being the last British post to the south
of the Satluj, it was natural for Ranjit Singh to erect a strong fort at
Phillaur, on the opposite bank of the river. The
site Ranjit Singh selected for the fort was not a vacant piece of land but
here stood a Mughal caravan sarai. The sarai had recently been taken
possession of by his diwan Mohkam Chand, from Megh Singh (successor
of Tara Singh Ghaiba of Dallevalia confederacy). The Maharaja hired an
Italian architect to convert the sarai into a fort by adding a fausse-braye
(an advanced parapet before the main rampart, leaving a space, or chemin
des rondes, between it and the rampart) ditch and bastions.
After
defeat in the first Anglo-Sikh War, in 1846, the Sikh garrison was
withdrawn from the fort, which now came under the control of the British.
After the mutiny of 1857, it was made an important artillery arsenal and
magazine which was, later in 1863, withdrawn. In 1891, the fort was handed
over to the Police Department which converted it into the Police Training
School (opened 1st January 1892), the purpose it is still
serving. Only
this much detail of the fort complex is on record. But the history and
architectural analysis of the original caravan sarai before its conversion
into the fort is even more interesting. What was a Mughal caravan sarai? Prior to the
introduction of the modern automobiles, people used oxen, bullock-carts,
camels, horses, or other such means for transportation. By any of these
means not much distance could be covered in a day. Cities and towns were
very widely spaced. Added to it was the constant menace of marauders. Both
these factors compelled people to travel in large groups called caravans.
After the daylong tiring journey some secure sites were indispensable for
night stay and where they could be sure of food and water for themselves
and their animals. Caravan sarais built at intervals of a day's journey
(about 8 kos or 32 kilometres)
fulfilled the need. The Portuguese Missionary Fray Sebastian Manrique who
passed through Punjab in 1641, poetically describes the Mughal sarais as
“the refuge and shelter for travellers, weary and exhausted, travelling
heated by ague or by the heat which the titanic and glowing Planet [the
Sun] causes.”
Model
of the qila The Mughal
Agra-Lahore Highway entered the present Punjab near Shambhu. Then passing
through Rajpura, Sarai Banjara, Sirhind, Khanna, Sarai Lashkar Khan,
Doraha, Ludhiana, it reached Phillaur. From here the highway proceeded to
Lahore via Nurmahal, Nakodar, Mahlian Kalan, Sultanpur Lodhi, Fatehabad,
Naurangabad, Sarai Amanat Khan and Sarai Khan-i Khanan. Phillaur was
situated at a point where its distance from Lahore was half of its
distance from Delhi. Almost
complete specimens of Mughal caravan sarais still survive at Shambhu,
Rajpura, Sarai Lashkar Khan and Mahlian Kalan. Sarais have partially
survived at Doraha, Nurmahal, Sultanpur Lodhi, Fatehabad and Sarai Amanat
Khan. Only gateways and some original rooms are extant of the sarai at
Phillaur. Architecturally,
most of the extant sarais along the route follow more or less the same
plan. These are invariably square or rectangular structures enclosed with
high battlemented curtain wall. Each corner of the enclosure is
strengthened with a bastion, usually octagonal in shape, making them
resemble forts so closely that local inhabitants still think them to be
forts and call them so. Even some European travellers too mistook these
sarais for forts. The access to
each sarai, but for the one at Sultanpur Lodhi which has only one gateway,
is provided through two splendid gateways, wide enough to permit large or
heavily laden beasts such as camel to enter, set in opposite sides. These
portals are so large as to accommodate a large number of rooms of various
shapes, arranged in one, two or three storeys. A resident staff of
caretakers and guards might have been permanently housed in these rooms of
the gateways. Fortunately both of the gateways of the original sarai at
Phillaur are still extant.
Dilli
darwaza – inner side Each gateway,
named as Delhi Gate or Lahori Gate after its orientation towards one of
the two great Mughal cities, is a majestic structure 13.35m broad and
almost equally deep. Each structure is projected 4.7m beyond the enclosing
wall. A 3.7m broad high archway provides entrance, flanked on either side
by triple openings. At the front parapet of each gateway is planted a baradari-like
domed-structure, shaded with wide eaves. The monotony of the facade
and side walls of each gateway is relieved with shallow sunken panels
arranged in parallel rows. A frieze of design formed with interlocking
floral motif marks the parapet of each structure. Now both of
the gateways are painted in red and white. But during my visit to the
sarai in April 1980 I had seen beautiful painted designs on the soffits of
the larger archways of the gateways. This painted decoration may not have
been Mughal but it certainly dated at least from the period of Maharaja
Ranjit Singh.
Dilli
darwaza showing painted decoration The brickwork
of the gateways is exceptionally fine. Some red sandstone has also been
used in the structures. The central
courtyard of a Mughal sarai is always open to the sky and along the inside
walls of the enclosure are ranged single-storeyed small rooms to
accommodate travellers. But the exact number of the rooms in the Phillaur
sarai can not be known as much has been built over. The middle
portion of the two sides of a sarai, not having gateways, is emphasized
with a large block of rooms, to complete the four-ivan
plan, a Persian form developed during the Seljuq period (11th-12th
centuries). It appears that these central rooms in the Phillaur sarai were
two-storeyed. In each corner of a sarai was also a larger set of rooms.
These larger suites were meant, probably, for the travellers of rank. Every sarai
was provided with a mosque for public prayers. But no mosque is extant in
the Phillaur sarai. The construction of the mosque in this sarai might
have created some structural problems. The reason being that the back wall
of a mosque in India always faced to the west, the direction of the Mecca
and if a mosque was to be built in the sarai at Phillaur it had to be set
at a diagonal angle in the courtyard which would have appeared quite odd.
The accommodation of a tomb in the eastern corner of the sarai is seen
only in this complex. It must date from quite a later period and the story
associated with it is totally a flight of fancy. Similar stories are
associated with a number of medieval monuments. Often a
splendid hammam, still surviving in the sarais at Doraha and Nurmahal,
also formed a part of a Mughal sarai. But the hammam in Phillaur sarai was
built in the eastern corner as judged from a hole in the domical ceiling
of a room in this corner. Originally,
one or more wells must have been there in the courtyard of the sarai to
supply drinking water to the lodgers.
Lahori
darwaza A brief
description of the working of the Mughal sarais will also not be out of
place here a clear picture which is provided by various European
travellers in medieval India. A British
Officer George Forster records about the turn of the eighteenth century
that the permanent attendants of a sarai “approach the traveller on his
entrance, and in alluring language describe to him the various
excellencies of their several lodgings.” A traveller who wanted to stay
in a sarai was allotted a room. When he had taken up his lodging, no other
could dispossess him. The other travellers, who could not get rooms, most
probably, pitched their tents in the courtyard of a sarai. During his
journey along the Agra-Lahore route, Manrique could not find room to stop
owing to the great stream of passengers of all sorts and conditions who
were at that time following those roads, owing to the presence of the
Mughal court at Lahore. On the other hand, Thomas Roe, the Ambassador of
the British King James I to the court of Jahangir (1605-1627) was given
four rooms for himself and his companions in a sarai at Burhanpur. These
sarais during heavy rush must have resembled "large barns", as
recorded by the French Physician Francois Bernier (lived in India during
1656-68), where hundreds of human beings were seen "mingled with
their horses, mules and camels."
Chambers
inside Dilli darwaza Each traveller
was provided with a cot but he had to carry his own bedding. Provisions
like flour, rice, butter, and vegetables could be bought inside the sarai
or in its neighbourhood. Forster records that “the necessary sum is
delivered into the hands generally of a girl, who procures the
materials… .” But there were servants in each sarai who could prepare
food for small payment. They were called Bhatiyaras. Sweepers cleaned the
rooms. Manrique considers the attendants in a sarai very obliging and
better than European stablemen and innkeepers. Forster was pleased to see
that the woman keeper of the sarai at Shahzadpur provided him a supper
even at the risk of not being paid. "At six
o'clock in the morning, before opening the gates, the watchman gives three
warnings to the travellers, crying in a loud voice that everyone must look
after his own things. After these warnings, if anyone suspects that any of
his property is missing, the doors are not opened until the lost thing is
found." Still thieves sometimes broke into a sarai. The anecdotes of
impostors and cheats who defrauded the lodgers in sarais form the theme of
many a folk tales. In the sarais,
Finch mentions neat lodgings “with doores, lockes,
and keys to each”. Manucci
writes that the individual rooms of a sarai were not provided with doors
whereas Manrique’s account confirms the existence of doors of rooms.
Perhaps, in some cases the rooms were provided with doors whereas
in some others it was not so. Bernier
although critical of the Indian sarais was so impressed by the Begum Sarai
at Delhi that he wrote: "If in Paris we had a score of similar
structures, distributed in different parts of the city, strangers on their
first arrival would be less embarrassed than at present to find a safe and
reasonable lodging. They might remain in them for a few days until they
had seen their acquaintance, and looked out at leisure for more convenient
apartments."
Dilli
darwaza Date
of erection of the Sarai at Phillaur British
traveller David Ross writes that the sarai at Phillaur “was built by
Shah Jehan, who selected a site then covered with ruins and mounds of
brick, which supplied material for the sarai.”
William Finch of the East India Company who passed through the town in
January 1611, mentions a sarai at Phillaur. But the architectural style of
the gateways indicates its erection during the reign of Shah Jahan
(1628-58). "Ruins and mounds of brick" mentioned by David Ross
may been the remains of the sarai seen by William Finch.
Ramparts
with a post-1947 addition of the
Indian National Emblem Phillaur
is the last station on the National Highway-1 marking the old Mughal
Highway. From here, the old Highway proceeded towards Lahore through
Nurmahal and Nakodar. But the present
NH-1 leads to Amritsar via Jalandhar. •
The author Subhash Parihar PhD <sparihar48@gmail.com> |
