Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/226

LAHORE Indian provinces, which ceased from this time to be dependent on Ghazni. He had to fight for the possession of Lahore, which had been seized by a rival, and the seat of government was then trans ferred from Lahore to Delhi. The buildings at Lahore of the Hindu times, and of this first Mohammedan period, are few in number. To the former probably belongs the Shivala or temple of Shiva in the middle of the city, now surrounded by more modern additions. It is ascribed to the time of Loh, the founder of the city. The temple of Bhairava (a form of Shiva), about a mile south of Lahore, is generally ascribed to a later period, but Lahore is said by the author of the Raja Tarangini to have been addicted in early times to the worship of Bhairava. To the Ghaznavi times belongs the tomb of Malik Ayaz, governor of Lahore. It is in the heart of the city, and was built about 1046. Hazrat Ganj Bakhsh, who also came with Mahmud to Lahore, is buried outside the Bhati gate, and at his tomb (built 1073) a weekly fair is now held, resorted to by Hindus as well as Mohammedans. About the same time were built the tomb of Pir Ali Makhdiim of Baghdad, and the tomb of Saiad Ishak, near Wazir Khan s mosque in the city. The Mughal army sent into India by Jenghiz Khan in 1224 and subsequent years swept over the middle of the Punjab and in 1241 captured the old capital, Bhera, and laid waste Lahore and Multan. In 1269 the king of Delhi, Ghaias-ud-dm Balban, visited Lahore, and rebuilt the fort which the Mughal invaders had destroyed. His eldest son Muhammad Sultan, the khan of Multan, came to Lahore in 1285, to oppose another invasion under Samar, one of the Mughal generals. The fight in which the young prince fell at Lahore is further memorable from the capture of his friend Amir Khusrii, the Persian poet. After more than a hundred years, during which the history of Lahore is comparatively unimportant, though it was not untroubled, it suffered like other wealthy places in North India from Timur s invasion in the end of the 14th century. On his return from the sack of Delhi, Timur sent a force to Lahore, with instructions to raise a large contribution there, to which was afterwards added an order for the plunder of the city and the country around. And then Lahore had a time of repose. In 1450, when Bahlol, the first of the Lodi dynasty, had been raised to the sovereignty at Delhi, and the charge of the several divisions of his territory was assigned to different officers, Lahore was reserved for himself. The 14th and 15th centuries have left no known buildings at Lahore, though some of the following century are marked by the Pathan style belonging to the earlier period. The next change in the fortunes of Lahore was a great and im portant one. In 1522 it passed into the hands of Timur s descend ant Baber (Babar), the first of a line of new masters who were to give it new life, though it gained little under Baber himself. Invited by the governor of Lahore, who had become disaffected to the Lodi king, Baber came on with an army, and, having defeated the Lodi forces, he gave up the city to plunder. On his departure for Cabul in 1524 he loft Lahore in charge of his relative Abd ul Aziz. Baber lived occasionally at Lahore, but his reign of frequent contests gave him little rest at any permanent seat of government. Humayun, who succeeded his father Baber in 1530, did not long retain Lahore undisturbed. His brother Kamran, governor of Kandahar and Cabul, who laid claim to the Indian sovereignty, came to Lahore, and by artifice succeeded in gaining the city with out bloodshed. Five years later Kamran had to march to the relief of Kandahar, and during his absence an attempt was made upon Lahore, which was defeated by his rapid return. In 1540 the Afghans made another endeavour to recover power in India under Shir Shah Siir, who took possession of Lahore and of Bhera, the other old capital, which still retained some importance. Kamran lived long enough at Lahore to make his mark there in three pieces of work of which there are still remains, but altered and added to by others since, so that of his part there is not much to be seen. One of these was the bdradari or summer house of the Dil-Kusha garden on the bank of the Ravi opposite Lahore, on which now stands the house built over it by Ranjit Singh. Kamran s garden of Shalamar was the beginning of the grander work com pleted by Shah Jahan. Of his palace at Naulakka, east of the city, only the gateway now remains. Other buildings at Lahore of this earliest Mughal period are the tomb of Khojah Salar Khan and the Khojah Masjid, the mosque now called Niwin, and the Shtran- wali Masjid. In the time of Humayun s son and successor, Akbar (1556-1605), Lahore rose to a condition of prosperity unknown at any previous time. To his reign belongs the commencement of its architectural greatness, which increased in the two following reigns. He made the city the royal residence, rebuilt the fort, and began the palace buildings. He rebuilt also the walls which, altered and added to by his successors and now reduced, still surround the city. To this time belong many of the well-known buildings now to be seen at Lahore. The mosque near the Masti gate (opposite the Poor House of the present day) is said to have been built by the emperor s mother. Of the same date are the tombs of Abd ul Ishak at Muzang, of Kasim Khan, of Mauj Darya (a saint whose prayers procured Akbar s success in his attack on Chitor), and of Shah Miisa. This last, called Sabz Gumbaz, is the earliest of the Lahore buildings coloured with the glazed tile-work commonly called kdshi. The tomb of Nadirah Begam, called also Sharif -un-nissa, a slave of Akbar s, whom he named Anarkali, was built about the end of his reign ; it is the building now used as the station church. To this period belongs also the mosque of Mullah Rahmat as well as the earliest work of the Sikhs in the city. The bdoli or masonry tank in the middle of the city was built in 1584 by Ream Das, the gurti or spiritual leader of the Sikhs, fourth in order from Nanak the founder of the sect. A curious and special interest attaches to Lahore in the time of Akbar, in connexion with the first teaching of Christianity in northern India by the Jesuit missionaries whom the emperor had invited to Lahore from Goa, after receiving the visit of Antony Capral at Agra in 1578. They were first Rodolph Aqnaviva, An tony Manserrat, and Francis Heneric. Afterwards came Edward Leighton and Christopher Vega in 1589. When they, like the others, had gone away disappointed, and the emperor s invitation was repeated, two others were sent, Jerome Xavier (nephew of Francis) and Emanuel Pinnero. Akbar built a church for them in Lahore. He then for a time shut up the Lahore mosques. The church of the Jesuits was thronged with Mohammedans. On the day of Pentecost 1599 a number of converts walked in procession through the streets of Lahore to the church, and were publicly baptized by Pinnero. Benedict Goes passed through Lahore in 1603, on his journey to solve the question of the identity of China and Cathay, and was kindly received and helped by Akbar. Lastly, a new missionary, Father D Acosta, came to Lahore soon after the beginning of Jahangir s reign. The marks of Christian work and success at Lahore at this period remained on some of the buildings there when the men who had been brought under its influence passed away and no traces remained with their children. De Laet says that in 1630 (three years after Jahangir s death) he saw over one of the palace gates at Lahore figures of our Saviour and of the Virgin. They arc described also by Thevenot, who visited Lahore in 1666 ; he says they had been put up by Jahangir to please the Portu guese. Remains of the Jesuit church also were to be seen when Thevenot was at Lahore. Some traces of Christian art are still to be seen, which may be referred to the same period, the winged heads on the principal gate of the fort and of the Gola sarai (1622). When Jahangir succeeded to the throne of Akbar, Lahore was immediately the scene of one of those family contests which so often marked the Mughal reigns. His son Khusrii aimed at power, and attempted, unsuccessfully, to obtain possession of the city. Among those on whom the emperor s displeasure fell was the Sikh leader, Arjun Mai, fifth guru, compiler of the Adi Granth, who had succeeded his father Ram Das in 1581. Having offered up prayers for Khusrii he was imprisoned by Jahangir, and died the same year, 1606. His little tomb stands just outside the fort. The buildings at Lahore of Jahangir s time are numerous. The most important and the best preserved are the Saman Burj, and some other parts of the palace in the fort, built during several suc cessive years (1606, &c. ) ; the sarai at Shahdara (1612); the tomb of Saiad Nur-ud-din, Nur ul Alam, Bukhari (1616), now Government House ; the tomb of Shah Abu l Maali, and the mosque beside it (1616); the masjid of Dai Sadhu-wali(1621); the tomb, near Shala mar, of Madhu Lai Hussein, a converted Hindu (1621) ; the little tomb, covered with many coloured kdshi, of Farid Pakkiwala, a pupil of Mauj Darya (1621) ; and the Gola sarai (1622), which re tains some fine specimens of the same kind of ornamentation. Shah Jahan s reign was, at Lahore as elsewhere, the greatest and most vigorous period of Mughal architecture. Lahore as well as Delhi testifies, though in a minor degree, to the power and taste which seem to have inspired others besides the emperor to raise the many monuments that still remain of the grandeur of his time. The first place is due to the splendid tomb of Jahangir, erected by his widow Nur Jahan, at Shahdara, on the bank of the Ravi oppo site Lahore (1630), near which was afterwards built (1632) the tomb of her brother Asaf Khan, Jahangir s Commander-in-chief, and then (1650) that of the widowed queen herself. Before these, in order of time, were the gate and ascent called hdthi puon to the fort (1629), and then, in 1630 and following years, the series of fine palace build ings within the fort, which have since been altered and added to by the emperor s Mughal successors and by Ranjit Singh. Two of Shah Jahan s principal officers of state were his chief supporters and followers in the construction of the great works of his time at Lahore. One of these was Ali Mardan Khan, a Persian, formerly governor of Kandahar, then successively gover nor of Kashmir and of the Punjab, who was also an eminent engineer and architect. The other was the court physician and afterwards prime minister, Hakim Alam-ud-din, better known as the Nawab Wazir Khan. Ali Mardan Khan built, under Shah Jahan s orders, the finest of the great sarais for travellers on the imperial road from Delhi to Lahore and Lahore to Kashmir. He proposed and carried out (1639) the canal from the Ravi at the foot