The man who would not be qazi

If Lahore is to move with pride into the future as a ‘great historic tourist city’, then it must, firstly, have to understand its past, in considerable detail, from the beginning of time, and, secondly, it must plan with sensitivity what it will look like in the future.

Great cities are planned using considerable research, which in itself is a serious ongoing activity. A very clear understanding of its history is required. Lahore is certainly not the ancient city that the Georgian slave Ayaz rebuilt after his ‘Loving Master’ Mahmud flattened in 1021 AD. It surely has come to us from the much earlier Harappa Civilisation. Let me present a few interesting facts.

Let us consider trying to trace our history using geographical facts, inching forward with popular myths, a few historical references will help considerably, and then finally we must use scientifically-determined archaeological data. Sadly, a lot of us still bask in the glory of past foreign invaders, whereas our roots lie far back in time.

A few thousand years ago Lahore could have been part of a civilisation that was to pass away, thanks to climate change, and be forgotten by the very people we consider our ancestors. That is why a time has now come for us to forget ‘fake’ past glory and return to the real world of scientific facts.

First the present. The World Bank, as also Pakistan’s 2017 Census, claims Lahore in 2017 has 14 million inhabitants. It is the 15th most populated city in the world. A recent research report - using an annual population growth rate projection of 3.6 per cent - claims that by 2050 it will be the largest city in the world with 44 million people. Pretty scary stuff.

Modern Lahore has sprung from the ancient old walled city, more so its nearby fort. These two sites are, and will always remain, its identity markers. So to geography we go. Firstly, we have to understand the topographical high points of the Punjab Plains at this place where the River Ravi snakes through. Over time the river is moving westwards in a process known as ‘Meandering’. Merely 300 years ago the river flowed around the walled city. Earlier it had flowed to the east just beyond the Shalimar Gardens. Today it has moved almost two miles to the west of the city. In British days the ‘Budha Ravi’ served as a wastewater outlet to the river. With time the river moved on. The waste is still there.

So when we study the early history and origins of Lahore we must keep in mind the fact that populations dwelled at the ‘safe’ high grounds on the mounds of the Punjab Plain. In local parlance these mounds are called ‘tibbas’, and on them thousands of years ago the first settlers of Lahore, safe from the annual floods, lived. The highest ‘tibba’, and a massive one, is where the Lahore Fort today exists. The question is how far back in time did this ‘tibba’ get inhabited?

If we trace the River Ravi to its mention in the Vedas, we see it named as the ‘Iravati’ … as also ‘Parushani’. The Ancient Greeks called it the ‘Hydraotes’. In the first Veda we see the famous ‘Battle of the Ten Kings’ called in the Ramayana as ‘Dasanrajna’ in which the rulers of Lahore, the Bharatas … from which India’s official name ‘Bharat’ is derived … win an epic battle against a collection of Ten Kings to consolidate their capital of Lahore.

A timeline will help. The Rigveda was written just before 1100 BC, or 3,200 years ago. The Mahabharata, the Bhagavad Gita and the Ramayana were compiled a mere 2,400 years ago. The battle described in the Mahabharata was over the use of the waters of the Ravi … an issue that still exists between India and Pakistan. The Battle of the Ten Kings as given in the Mahabharata (Book 7, hymns 18,33 and 83.4-8) took place in approximately 1,700 BC on the banks of the River Ravi near Lahore at the present Mahmood Booti Embankment just north of Lahore’s walled city. The battle was between the ruler of Lahore, the Bharatas who were Vedic Aryan, and the confederation of Trtsu-Bharata led by their ‘puru’ Sudas.

Just to clarify the word ‘puru’, for it means the ‘king’ in every language of the sub-continent. The Greeks under Alexander after battling with the Puru of Bhera in 326 BC converted, in their books, the word ‘puru’ into ‘Porus’. His real name was Puru Yaduvanshi Shurasena of the Paurava Rajput tribe. So if we are to believe the story of the Rigveda, then Lahore was very much a major capital city of the Punjab 3,700 years ago.

This brings us to another popular and immensely colourful myth that is peddled the most of Lahore being named after Loh, the son of the Hindu deity Ram and his famous and beautiful wife Sita. Known as Ramachandra he is claimed to be the seventh ‘avatar’ of the deity Vishnu, who Hindus believe reincarnated in the form of Krishna. In a much later lifetime he came as Gautama Buddha. Most Hindus believe he is the ‘Supreme Being’. Gautama Buddha was born in the year 563 BC (2,580 years ago) and died in 480 BC (2,497 years ago). Buddhist accounts tell us that he visited Lahore for over three months, most probably staying in Mohallah Maullian inside Lohari Gate.

So we know that Lahore was an important Buddhist city well over 2,500 years ago. But then Lahore over the ages has been a Jain city, a Buddhist city, a Hindu city and then a Hindu-Muslim-Sikh city, an amalgam of faiths that made this an exceptionally tolerant place. The Partition of 1947 ended that.

Now to historical references. The oldest written mention of Lahore available is over 1,200 years ago in the year 894AD, by the Baghdad court chronicler Ahmed bin Yahya Al-Baladhuri in his classic ‘Futulhul Buldan’, who mentions Lahore as ‘Al-Ahvar’. He describes its important grain markets, its fruit trees and the strength of its fort. Almost 100 years later we find in ‘Hududul-Alam’ (writer unknown) 982 AD, the word Lahore mentioned as ‘Lahor’ as a town “full of temples and amply-stocked markets and clean streets paved with stones with no Muslims.”

Al-Biruni also mentions Lahore in not too much detail in his famous ‘Tarikahul Hind’. But the most detailed account is in Sheikh Ahmed Zanjani’s famous treatise ‘Tuhfatul Wasilin’, written in 1043 AD. “Lahore was founded by Raja Parachit, a descendant of the Pandavas”. He goes on to write that Lahore was depopulated a number of times by famines and by brutal invasions. “Every time it is depopulated it is reborn. This has been going on for centuries. Raja Bikramjit populated it and then Jogi Samand Pal Nagari expanded it and the town flourished. When Lohar Chand came to power the town was called ‘Loharpur’ and the high fort next to Loharpur was called ‘Loharkot’. The collective name then corrupted to Lahore”. It seems Zanjani provides the most stunning details.

The historical accounts are colourful, but no one is clear about the origins of the city. What is clear is that it goes back a few thousand years. That is why we must use the scientifically verifiable method of carbon-dating. Two major archaeological undertakings are on record. The first was a dig conducted in 1959 by a British archaeological team, which went to a depth of 52 feet. At 12 feet Ghaznavi Period coins of 1034 AD were discovered.

By the time the dig reached 38 feet, human habitation was found and carbon dating in a London laboratory on pottery fragments dates them from 3,950 to 4,050 years old. The second carbon-dated evidence is from pottery fragments found in Mohallah Maullian in 2011 as an old house was being demolished. They were dated as belonging to 3,200-2,950 years ago.

This brings forth the exciting possibility that Lahore, no matter what its name, existed at the end of the Harappa Period, which as we now know disappeared because of climate change and floods. So Lahore needs to be rediscovered and the findings scientifically verified. But till then the myth of Rama’s son Loh will prevail.