Harking Back: Deciphering the mystery of the ‘Nau-Gaza’ grave

One of the most intriguing puzzles in old Lahore is the grave of ‘Nau Gaza’, the alleged nine-yard tall man. In folklore as in ancient history, religious texts, as also in relatively recent history, the story of ‘nine yard’ tall men exists. Is it true, or is it a misinterpretation of reality?

So who was this person? In Punjab the most ‘nau-gaza’ graves are in Sialkot and Multan, followed by Lahore and if you proceed eastward in Haryana and then also in Indian UP. These strange ‘nine-yard’ graves continue till Bengal. But if you travel westward you will find them in Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey and on to Lebanon. A few exist in Europe, especially in Greece and even in Austria.

Mention of ‘nau-gaza peers’ as they are known in the East, or Gog and Magog as they are known in the west, are somehow, rather loosely, tied up with religious entities. The earliest known mention of a huge human being, in a purely religious context, is connected with the alleged arrival of the prophet Adam, who allegedly landed in Sri Lanka at a place called ‘Adam’s Peak’. A huge footprint exists which sparked the human quest to find giants. The Greek word ‘gigas’ has the same origin, leading to the word ‘Gog’.

In the three major holy books, the Torah, the Bible and the Quran, there is ample mention of Gog and Magog, or as the Quran describes in Surah Al-Kahf the existence of Yajuj and Majuj. There is also mention of tall men in various traditions, and it seems that tall men have been pinpointed as coming from the mountains of the Black Sea. The port name Samsum in Turkey is a reasonable pointer. That is also the tradition that pertains to the holy men who came to the sub-continent with the first Turkish invaders.

But all ‘nau-gaza’ shrines are attributed to one holy man or another, their graves are venerated by almost every religion. Our interest, naturally, is with Lahore’s ‘nau-gaza’ pir’s grave at the end of Taxali Bazaar as it curves towards Chuna Mandi and Paniwala Talaab. You can see it at the crossing. Many believe that this is the oldest grave inside of walled city of Lahore after that of Ayaz, the Georgian slave of the Afghan invader Mahmud from Ghazni. Both these graves have one thing in common, and that they were before Akbar expanded the walled city just outside the ancient city’s walls.

One source ‘Baladul Aulia’, compiled by Tahir Lahori, claims that the outer walls of Hazuri Bagh once touched the grave, with some traces of those foundations still visible. But even this sources says that he has no idea how this ‘nau-gaza’ got its name, though the chapter on this is titled ‘Pir Nau-gaza’. During Sikh days on both sides of this mysterious grave were two perfume shops, owned by two brothers, who both believed their good fortune was because of the ‘pir’. So every Thursday they distributed free food to one and all.

In this piece let us explore two explanations, firstly with the romantic followed by an analysis of likely facts. The first explanation claims that Nau-gaza Pir was allegedly a saint whose height was nine yards (gaz) which in metric units equals 8.3 metres, or 27 feet. His name allegedly was Hazrat Syed Peer Badshah Shaheed. At least that is the name on the headstone. Mind you we will make use of the word ‘Shaheed’ in our second explanation.

Amazingly, similarly named ‘peers’, all in graves nine yards long, exist all over Punjab. All are titled Hazrat Syed Peer Badshah Shaheed. It is part of Punjab’s folklore and all of them have some saint’s name attached to them. It is by all reckoning a means of collecting money for the ‘caretaker’. But then such graves exist in India too. At one in Shahabad on the Punjab-Haryana border there is also an attached Shiva temple, and that is because someone saw a snake make his home there. So the combination of a ‘holy’ Muslim saint and a ‘holy’ Hindu Sheesh Naag is a lethal combination. People from far and wide go there for atonement.

What was even more bizarre was that in 1933 a British colonial officer serving there got the surrounding walls rebuilt and got a statue of the virgin installed there. The power of the unknown is so alluring. The one that takes the cake is the ‘nau-gaza’ mazaar in Saharanpur near the Punjab-UP border. This place claims that thousands of years ago a tribe of very tall people came here and they were buried here. One source claims they were in reality ‘ginns’. The myth is that every time the graves are measured the size is different. This place has a mix of Hindu theology and myth mixed with alleged history.

Now after this rather heavy dose of bizarre history let us return to the real world of the possible. But before I delve into any logical explanation, my first move was to understand the very word ‘nau’ and ‘gaza’. I visited a distinguished Turkish linguist of Cambridge University’s Faculty of Oriental Studies, Dr N. Irem. I put before him the word ‘Nau-gaza’. His explanation was very interesting. He said that the word ‘nau’ means ‘new’ and it is the same in Persian and Turkish as well as in Urdu. The Turkish word for nine is ‘dokuz’, so that does not hold for your word, he said.

So my next question, naturally, was then what does ‘gaza’ mean. He said that ‘gaza’ is the verb in Turkish for the word ‘ghazi’, just as we use the word ‘gaza-wa-Hind’, or in Urdu it is ‘gaz-wa-e-Hind’. So if we use the word ‘nau-gaza’ it would mean ‘The New Ghazis’. Now this was an unexpected turn and so using ‘Game Theory’ which matches names to events, I set about trying to locate battles that took place in the pre-Mughal era to the locations of these ‘nau-gaza’ graves.

The famous battles near Lahore, Sialkot, and Multan and on the road to Delhi where these graves exist propped up by the dozen. So it made sense to study Turkish military burial practices in the 14th and 15th century to understand how these ‘new ghazis’ – the name given to military recruits - were buried. One major burial point was after the Siege of Malta in 1565. There the Turks suffered major loses after an army of over 10,000 were repelled by the Knights Hospitallers. The Turks buried 21 persons in a single grave and their graves were almost “30 hands long”. This matches the description given by Abbe de Vertot in his classic ‘History of the Knights of Malta’.

As Lahore as well as Sialkot and Multan were attacked many times and decimated by Mongol warriors, we have a vivid description by their burial habits. An article by John Andrew Boyle titled ‘13th century Mongol concept of after-life seen through funeral practices’ describes how leaders were buried along with their horse, saddles and weapons, while soldiers were buried together with 21 per pit one on top of the other. The number 21 was superstition just as in Europe houses are never numbered 13.

Now this and a lot of other scholarly research articles clearly point to the Mongols, the Turks, the Persians and even the Afghans leaving behind their dead in long pits. It was accepted military practice to avoid time and space. Even modern-day genocides follow this method.

So who lies buried in these ‘nau-gaza’ graves? The evidence is before the reader. To imagine that men 30 feet tall existed in days gone by is a complete fallacy. The tallest man ever recorded in history was eight feet and he died in 1982 in the USA. For that matter bones discovered over thousands of years by archaeologists tell us that ancient man was much shorter than what we are today.

So how do we conclude the mystery of the Grave of Nau-gaza of Lahore without taking the magic and mystery out of the pious myths that go with these graves? For the time being let the myth remain, for this is what tourism to ancient cities thrives on.