Harking back: The ancient decays in Lahore’s old walled city

In these columns I have written considerably about the old walled city of Lahore, but not enough about the ‘original’ ancient part inside the walled city. This lack of focus on the ‘original’ has meant that today that portion is virtually in tatters. Let me explain.

Let us first attempt to demarcate the outline of the original ancient city, and how with the coming of the Mughal emperor Akbar it was expanded with burnt brick walls, the bricks of which the newcomers after 1947 stole to build. The traders welcomed this as it opened up an enclosed space and allowed their goods to flow unchecked. In terms of heritage it is a tragedy. The bigger tragedy is that the ‘concerned authorities’ simply refuse to rebuild those very walls, a colossal ‘cultural reconstruction’ event that might see the walled city return to its lost ways.

Heritage is an on-going part of life which with time is acquiring greater attention, what to speak of massive tourism gains. One study suggests that if the old city was entirely given to tourism, it would add three times what the traders earn. Whether they pay taxes is another story. If any city in the world urgently needs attention it is the old and the ancient Lahore and its walls. Let me explain just where the ancient portion is within the present old once-walled city.

If you enter Bhati Gate at the south-west corner of the old city and walk along Bazaar Hakeeman up to Taxali Chowk, all along to the east (to the right) you will notice that there is a long ‘ghatti’, or a mound. Beneath this mound is where the original old city western wall was, and to my way of thinking surely the foundational traces of it still exist. Surely the Punjab University’s archaeological students can do a good project on this.

The entire area to the left, right up to where the Akbar-era (1585–1599) brick wall once stood, is the area that joined the city after 1594 for the rebellious Bhat Rajput in return for their support to the Mughal ruler. This area was never part of the original ‘ancient’ Lahore and neither did Bhati Gate then exist.

To the south-east if you enter Shahalami Gate and walk towards Rang Mahal, you will notice to the west (the left) a ‘ghatti’ (mound). Beneath this mound was the eastern portion of the original city wall. The southern portion of the wall remained the same between Bhati Gate and Shahalami Gate western corner. The Shahalami gateway itself did not exist, for the wall turned northwards before the present gateway.

This means that the southern portion of the ancient old Lahore had only one major gateway, and that was Lohari Gate. This is the oldest gateway to the city. To the east of Bhati Gate and the west of Lohari Gate was a very small Mori Gate, which the old Hindu majority population used when a dead body was taken out for cremation on the banks of the River Ravi, which flowed outside. Maharaja Jaipala passed through this ‘more’ in 1001 AD to commit ‘Johar’ (suicide by self-immolation). Formerly, it was a mere ‘mori’ – a narrow hole, which was widened to become a small gateway in Akbar’s expansion plan. The river was the reason the southern walls could not be shifted outward like the rest of the Akbar-era walled city.

So now let us tackle the northern portion of the wall. At Chowk Taxali the mound falls suddenly. At this point along the road heading eastward the wall curved and met the eastern wall all along the ‘ghatti’ (mound), which in terms of present geography was just south of the grave of Ayaz, the Georgian slave of the Afghan invader Mahmud of Ghazni. The grave itself was outside the ‘ancient’ city walls as inside no Muslim grave existed in what was essentially a Hindu-Buddhist city.

It is for this reason alone that the graves of Shah Ismail, Syed Zanjani and Hasan Ali of Hajveri are outside the city. A word about the ancient wall to the north. After passing by Choona Mandi it curved southward and met the eastern wall a few yards south of the grave of Ayaz.

You might ask just what is so special about the ‘ancient’ pre-Akbar walled city and why is it so important. The finest pre-Mughal sites are in this part of the city. For example it is in Mohallah Maullian that the great Buddha stayed almost 2,500 years ago. Take for instance the Choona Mandi where today stands the Water Tank. At this place almost 1,500 years ago stood the Temple of the Sun when a follower of Zarathustra ruled our land. This temple Mahmud flattened and built a mosque.

A bit about the original walls. We know that over almost 2,000 years ago these were thick mud walls. After Mahmud, a small portion of the walls, especially around the five major gateways, were of burnt bricks, with the remaining were all mud walls. Akbar was able to build this wall by using thousands of free labourers who faced famine condition for three years running on the promise of two meals a day. Those who died of hunger in the streets were carted away and thrown near the Ravi where today is Mahmood Booti. Then it was referred to, in popular parlance only, as ‘Moyanan de Mandi’.

Now we have a clear picture of the ‘ancient’ and the ‘old’ walled city of Lahore. The ‘ancient’ exists within the ‘old’. The question that comes to mind is that why does the ‘ancient’ not have as many heritage sites as the ‘old’. We must never forget that starting from before Mahmud of Ghazni right up to Babar the Mughal (a Persian corruption for ‘Mongol’), every foreign invader destroyed Lahore as it stood at the time of their invasion. Perhaps the greatest damage was done by Timurlane the Mongol in 1398.

So in a way the Mongols destroyed Lahore a number of times only for Akbar the Mughal to rebuild it to its present glory. But this glory began to fade after the last of the great Mughals was provided a pension by the East India Company and Lahore fell into the hands of numerous Afghan invaders.

The walls were rebuilt by the Sikh rulers starting 1768 till 1849, who also built a moat around the Lahore Fort while raising and reinforcing the walls. The same was done for the old walled city where the height was raised and watch towers built. Around the walls they left open spaces with a ditch. The ditch the British filled to build a garden.

But then the British, fearing a siege like the one in Delhi in 1857, knocked down portions of the southern walls of the fort and also the city. Come Pakistan and the new Partition, migrants-cum-traders pulled down the walls completely and destroyed major buildings of heritage value. This process is still going on as now markets take up over 65 per cent of the residential quarters.

But the ‘ancient’ portions now face the triple threat of traders pulling down old buildings, of neglect seeing old heritage buildings collapse and the authorities, legally-bound to conserve them, not interested in this part of the ‘ancient’ city. Mind you even the urban planning and building structures of the ‘old’ and ‘ancient’ are different, for they represent different eras.

For all these and many more reasons there is a need to help out by conserving the falling structures of ‘ancient’ Lahore. This assistance must come, primarily, from the citizens of Lahore, and can be through any channel deemed fit. The effort to adopt a house, or a building, must start now. Tomorrow might be too late.