Of mounds, river, temples and invaders

The one question that our readers ask the most is “just when, exactly when, were the foundations of Lahore laid?” No scribe, nor scholar, nor researcher can answer that one with any degree of accuracy.

A lot of readers do not like such an answer. So let me respond to this, as briefly as is possible, with the help of a few milestones. They are the process of meandering, the mounds of the landscape, the role of floods, a few historic incidences, the building and destruction of temples, a few famous invaders, and mention of the Lahore Fort and the Walled City along the way. These milestones are enough for starters.

The most important factor in the foundation of Lahore is its location and its legendary river, the Ravi, known in the Vedas as Iravati, or in Vedic times as Purushni. The Greeks called it Hydraotes. The original inhabitants of the land connected it to the deity Surya, or the sun god. So in a way all light, or enlightenment, allegedly flows from this deity, just as the river is our identity. The freedom resolutions of both India and Pakistan were finalised near the banks of this river.

Firstly, the process of meandering. All rivers meander – that is unless they have an absolutely arrow straight course - for they cut ‘sinuous curves’ on the bank resisting the flow, creating bends and loops, therefore, turning and windings along a new watercourse. As the surface is uneven we see rivers shifting. So it has been with the Ravi. Only just 500 years ago it flowed to the east of the present walled city of Lahore, curving around it. Now it flows a mile to the west of the city.

On the plains of the Punjab at this site, a number of mounds were created over thousands of years. This is so because of the process of water packing clay. When the annual monsoon floods came the few original inhabitants, the ancestors of the present gypsies, moved to the safety of the mounds. This is how, and when, the original inhabitants of Lahore founded our city. To imagine that it was a snap process is to ignore the ravages of nature.

Among the tribes who settled on the seven major mounds of Lahore near the Ravi were the Changars, the Bhatu, who evolved into the Bhat tribe, and much later the Bhattis, the Kenghars and the Gugray tribe, who we know today as Gujjars. These are the original inhabitants of Lahore and the surrounding countryside. Just to further dwell on this issue, the DNA structure of these pre-Aryan tribes have a Dravidian origin, having moved tens of thousands of years earlier from Africa along the coast and up the rivers.

Almost 12,500 years ago - some scientists claim earlier – the Neolithic settlement of Mehrgarh on the Kaachi plains of Balochistan, came about as the world’s first planned city. Then further up-river we have the Sindh settlement of Mohen-jo-Daro, almost 7,500 years old and the first in the Indus Valley Civilisation. As we move up the River Ravi we have the ancient settlement of Harappa near Lahore, which is dated at 4,500 years old. Skeletons discovered nearby date over 5,000 years.

To the east of Lahore is the Indian ancient settlement of Rakhigarhi in Haryana. This was on the Taxila-Lahore-Rakhigarhi route over 6,000 years ago. The question is was Lahore settled by then? It is a remote possibility, and I venture to say this because during the 1959 Lahore Fort excavations opposite the Dewan-e-Aam, at 50 feet were found pottery carbon-dated at 4,200 years. In all probability Lahore came before Rakhigarhi. I say this because Cambridge archaeologists have rejected the Indian claim. In another carbon-dating exercise on a pot found in Mohallah Maullian, inside Lahori Gate, after a commercial dig about 20 years ago, the date was 3,500 years.

Now this all points to the fact that Lahore was inhabited 4,500 years ago. Surely, its first inhabitants had experienced living on the mounds of Lahore much earlier, especially when the Monsoon floods ravaged the plains. All these facts point to a process, a slow habitation of people moving from the countryside, and the river banks, to higher points and back again once the river receded.

So that is my answer to those who wish an exact date. Now on to other mentions of Lahore, which to my mind are more fixed in mythology. We have Sheikh Ahmed Zanjani in his ‘Tuhfatul Vasilin’ mention that: “Lahore was founded by Raja Parichhit of the Pandavas … then it was hit by floods and famine laying it waste for centuries … to be repopulated by Raja Bikramajit … only to face floods and famine … to be again repopulated by Lohar Chand”. This seems to point to the name Lahore as being from Lohar Chand.

This almost blind acceptance of mythology merely adds to the confusion. Our point of view is that a very slow process saw the mounds of Lahore being the first planned face during the Harappa Period. This is what archaeological evidence points to. There is surely a need for much more effort to excavate and try to date anything discovered, if uncovered at all. That surely is the way forward, not myths and epics, though they have their own irreplaceable cultural value.

Now let us talk about the role of our mounds and how they evolved. In this piece we have just enough space for one example. We know from a manuscript in the Asiatic Society of Bengal that … “Bhadra or Bhandara was the ruler and founder of a destroyed Lahore and a great ruler, who built a Temple to the Sun god Surya”. We also have this description from Firishta in ‘Tabaqat-e-Basiri’ who mentions the Temple of the Sun God, most probably a Zoroastrian temple to their sun god.

We also know from Firishta that Mahmud Ghazni ransacked Lahore in 1021 and completely destroyed the Sun Temple, building a mosque in its place. This was on the highest mound – at today’s Chunna Mandi - outside the Lahore Fort. This is where the British built in 1883 a set of four tanks capable of holding one million gallons of water pumped by a steam engine located opposite the north-eastern side of the fort.

But what about the mosque built by Mahmud of Ghazni? Well on the 15thof January 1524, the Mughal invader Babar totally ransacked the city and demolished the mosque on the highest mound. So from Sun Temple to Mahmud’s mosque to the Mughal Babar onto the British water tank, Old Lahore and its city’s highest mound has seen a lot of destruction.

The question of dating Lahore remains a romantic question, but it does provide the citizens of this great city a sense of time, a sort of cultural foundation for what it stands. Its language Punjabi as we speak it today, has seen off-shoots sprouting and even disappearing. Even Sanskrit has its roots in old Punjabi and/or Prakrit, and once it lost it priestly patronage, it died.

But the streets of Lahore have seen so many new languages and people come and go. It has absorbed everything that came its way. It has evolved and on the mounds of the city, now free from floods, an ancient old city is returning to recognising its true heritage. When every street and lane is conserved and returned to its best, it will surely be a wonder of the world.