The land of five waters gave the world its first cities, its saints and its songs. Broken by every empire that crossed it, it is still ours to remember, and to make whole again.

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PUNJAB WIKIਪੰਜਾਬپنجابMuseum
Punjab WikiMuseumArchitecture
Takht Sri Patna Sahib
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Architecture

Takht Sri Patna Sahib

The birthplace of Guru Gobind Singh in 1666. The old building fell in the earthquake of 1934 and was rebuilt in the 1950s.

More architecture

Harmandir Sahib
Harmandir Sahib1588 – 1604; gilded from 1802

The Sikhs' holiest shrine, set in the middle of the pool of nectar and reached by a causeway, with four doors open to every direction and every caste. Destroyed by Abdali and rebuilt, then gilded and inlaid with marble under Ranjit Singh.

Akal Takht
Akal Takht1606; rebuilt 1986 – 1999

The throne of the Timeless, raised by Guru Hargobind facing the Harmandir Sahib, seat of the Panth's temporal authority. Ruined by Abdali, rebuilt, shelled by the army in 1984 and rebuilt again by the Sikhs themselves.

Samadhi of Ranjit Singh
Samadhi of Ranjit Singh1840s

The Maharaja's memorial, holding urns with his ashes and those of four queens and seven maids who died on his pyre, built in a mix of Sikh, Hindu and Islamic forms.

Gobindgarh Fort
Gobindgarh Fort1760; rebuilt 1805 – 1809

Built by the Bhangi misl and rebuilt by Ranjit Singh to guard Amritsar and its treasury; later a British and then an Indian Army fort, now open to visitors.

Ram Bagh
Ram Bagh1818 – 1830s

Ranjit Singh's summer palace and garden in Amritsar, laid out like a Mughal garden and named after Guru Ram Das.

Haveli of Nau Nihal Singh
Haveli of Nau Nihal Singh1830s

The only Sikh-period haveli in Lahore that survives almost whole, with painted ceilings, carved jharokas and frescoes of Krishna and Sikh courtiers.

Qila Mubarak, Patiala
Qila Mubarak, Patiala1763 onwards

The fortified palace of the Phulkian Maharajas, begun by Baba Ala Singh, with painted halls and a Darbar Hall of chandeliers and arms.

The Badshahi Mosque
The Badshahi Mosque1671 – 1673

Aurangzeb's great mosque beside the Lahore Fort, for three centuries one of the largest mosques in the world.

The Wazir Khan Mosque
The Wazir Khan Mosque1634 – 1641

The most richly decorated Mughal mosque in the Punjab, covered inside and out in kashi kari tile work and painted plaster.

The Shalimar Gardens
The Shalimar Gardens1641 – 1642

Shah Jahan's terraced garden of pools and fountains, fed by a canal from the Ravi, a World Heritage site with the Lahore Fort.

The tomb of Shah Rukn-e-Alam
The tomb of Shah Rukn-e-Alam1320 – 1324

The great octagonal tomb that rises over Multan, banded in blue and white tiles.

The Katas Raj temples
The Katas Raj templesfrom the 7th century

A cluster of Hindu temples around a sacred pool in the Salt Range, among the oldest standing temples of the Punjab.

The Picture Wall of the Lahore Fort
The Picture Wall of the Lahore Fort1624 – 1631

A wall some 1,450 feet long covered in tile pictures of elephant fights, polo, hunting, angels and dragons, made under Jahangir and Shah Jahan.

Rohtas Fort
Rohtas Fort1541 onwards

Sher Shah Suri's enormous fortress on the road through the Salt Range, built to hold down the Gakhars and keep Humayun from coming back.

Hiran Minar
Hiran Minar1606

The tower and water tank that Jahangir built at his hunting ground for his favourite antelope, Mansraj.

The Dharmarajika stupa, Taxila
The Dharmarajika stupa, Taxila3rd century BCE onwards

The great stupa of Taxila, said to have been founded by Ashoka over relics of the Buddha, surrounded by the cells and chapels of a monastery.

The Masrur rock-cut temples
The Masrur rock-cut temples8th century

A whole complex of Hindu temples carved out of a single sandstone ridge in the Kangra hills.

The Baijnath temple
The Baijnath temple1204

A temple of Shiva as the lord of physicians, built by two merchants in 1204 and still in worship.

The tomb of Jahangir, Shahdara
The tomb of Jahangir, Shahdara1627 – 1637

The emperor's tomb in a great walled garden across the Ravi, faced in red sandstone with marble inlay and four tall minarets.

The Sheesh Mahal, Lahore Fort
The Sheesh Mahal, Lahore Fort1631 – 1632

Shah Jahan's palace of mirrors in the Lahore Fort, its vaults covered in thousands of pieces of convex mirror.

The tomb of Bibi Jawindi, Uch
The tomb of Bibi Jawindi, Uch1494

An octagonal tomb sheathed in blue and white tiles, half of it swept away by flood, standing over the old Sufi town of Uch.

Gurdwara Janam Asthan, Nankana Sahib
Gurdwara Janam Asthan, Nankana SahibPresent building 19th century

The gurdwara on the site of the house where Guru Nanak was born in 1469, in the village of Rai Bhoi di Talwandi, now Nankana Sahib.

Gurdwara Panja Sahib, Hasan Abdal
Gurdwara Panja Sahib, Hasan AbdalFrom the 1820s

The gurdwara around a rock that tradition says bears the print of Guru Nanak's hand, beside a spring below the hill of the Sufi Wali Qandhari.

Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, Kartarpur
Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, KartarpurRebuilt 1920s; enlarged 2019

The gurdwara on the Ravi where Guru Nanak spent his last eighteen years farming and singing, and where he died in 1539. Since 2019 pilgrims from India have crossed to it by a corridor without a visa.

Sri Darbar Sahib, Tarn Taran
Sri Darbar Sahib, Tarn Taran1590; rebuilt in the 1830s

The gurdwara founded by Guru Arjan beside one of the largest sarovars of any Sikh shrine.

Takht Sri Keshgarh Sahib, Anandpur
Takht Sri Keshgarh Sahib, Anandpur1699; present building 20th century

The takht on the hill at Anandpur where Guru Gobind Singh created the Khalsa at Vaisakhi in 1699.

Gurdwara Baba Atal Rai, Amritsar
Gurdwara Baba Atal Rai, Amritsar1778 – 1784

A nine-storey octagonal tower, long the tallest building in Amritsar, raised in memory of Guru Hargobind's son Atal Rai, who died at the age of nine.

The Baoli Sahib, Goindwal
The Baoli Sahib, Goindwal1559

A step-well built by Guru Amar Das with eighty-four steps down to the water, open to people of every caste.

Gurdwara Dera Sahib, Lahore
Gurdwara Dera Sahib, Lahore19th century

The gurdwara beside the Lahore Fort at the place where Guru Arjan was martyred in 1606; Ranjit Singh's samadhi stands next to it.

Durgiana Temple, Amritsar
Durgiana Temple, AmritsarRebuilt 1921 – 1925

A Hindu temple of Durga and Lakshmi-Narayan standing in a tank in Amritsar, built in the manner of the Harmandir Sahib with a gilded dome.

Takht-i-Bahi monastery
Takht-i-Bahi monastery1st – 7th century CE

A Buddhist monastery on a ridge north of Mardan, the most complete in Gandhara, with its stupa court, monks' cells and assembly hall still standing.

The Amb temples
The Amb templesc. 7th – 10th century

Tall, tiered temples of the Hindu Shahi period on a hilltop in the Salt Range, among the last temples of their kind in the Punjab.

Tilla Jogian
Tilla JogianAncient; buildings mostly 16th – 19th century

A hilltop monastery of the Kanphata yogis of Gorakhnath near Jhelum, where Guru Nanak is said to have meditated and where Ranjha comes to have his ears pierced in Waris Shah's Heer.

The tomb of Bahauddin Zakariya, Multan
The tomb of Bahauddin Zakariya, Multanc. 1262

The square brick tomb, with an octagonal drum and a dome, of the Suhrawardi saint who made Multan one of the great centres of Sufism.

The Maryam Zamani Mosque, Lahore
The Maryam Zamani Mosque, Lahore1611 – 1614

The oldest dated Mughal mosque in Lahore, built for Jahangir's mother, its walls and domes covered with painted flowers, vases and lattices.

The Sunehri Masjid, Lahore
The Sunehri Masjid, Lahore1753

The 'golden mosque', raised above the Kashmiri Bazaar of the walled city on a platform of shops, with three gilded domes.

The Shahi Hammam, Lahore
The Shahi Hammam, Lahore1635

A Persian-style public bathhouse built by Wazir Khan inside the Delhi Gate of Lahore, with painted vaults over rooms for cold, warm and hot baths.

Chauburji, Lahore
Chauburji, Lahore1646

The 'four towers', the tiled gateway of a vanished Mughal garden on the old road to Multan.

The tomb of Nur Jahan, Shahdara
The tomb of Nur Jahan, Shahdara1640s

The tomb of the empress Nur Jahan, near her husband Jahangir's across the Ravi, once faced with marble and stone inlay that was stripped in later centuries.

The Lahore Museum
The Lahore MuseumBuilding 1890 – 1894

The great museum of the Punjab, in a red-brick building on the Mall designed by Bhai Ram Singh, holding the Fasting Buddha, Gandharan sculpture, Sikh-period arms, coins and miniatures.

Khalsa College, Amritsar
Khalsa College, AmritsarFounded 1892; building completed in the 1910s

The college founded by the Singh Sabha reformers, with a vast domed building designed by Bhai Ram Singh, which became a centre of Sikh learning and Punjabi letters.

The Clock Tower, Faisalabad
The Clock Tower, Faisalabad1903 – 1905

The clock tower at the centre of Lyallpur, with eight bazaars running out from it in the pattern of the Union Jack: the market town of the Chenab canal colony.

Jagatjit Palace, Kapurthala
Jagatjit Palace, Kapurthala1900 – 1908

A palace modelled on Versailles, built for Maharaja Jagatjit Singh of Kapurthala to designs by a French architect.

Noor Mahal, Bahawalpur
Noor Mahal, Bahawalpur1872 – 1875

An Italianate palace with a neoclassical front and Islamic domes, built for Nawab Sadiq Muhammad Khan IV of Bahawalpur.

Derawar Fort
Derawar FortRebuilt 1733

A square fort with forty great bastions rising out of the sand of the Cholistan desert, visible for miles.

The Mankiala stupa
The Mankiala stupa2nd century CE

A great Buddhist stupa of the Kushan age on the plain south of Rawalpindi. Ranjit Singh's general Ventura dug into it in 1830 and found relic boxes and Kushan and Roman coins.

Lahore Fort
Lahore FortRebuilt from 1566; added to until the 19th century

The citadel of Lahore, rebuilt in brick by Akbar and enlarged by every ruler after him, Mughal and Sikh. With the Shalimar Gardens it became a World Heritage Site in 1981.

Data Darbar
Data Darbar11th century; rebuilt many times

The shrine of Ali Hujwiri, Data Ganj Bakhsh, author of the Kashf al-Mahjub, the oldest Persian book on Sufism; today one of the largest shrines in South Asia.

The shrine of Baba Farid, Pakpattan
The shrine of Baba Farid, Pakpattan13th century; rebuilt

At the urs each year pilgrims crowd through its Bihishti Darwaza, the 'gate of paradise', opened only for those days.

The tomb of Asif Khan, Shahdara
The tomb of Asif Khan, Shahdara1641 – 1645

The tomb of Nur Jahan's brother and Shah Jahan's father-in-law, next to Jahangir's. Its marble and tile were stripped in the Sikh period for buildings in Lahore and Amritsar.

Nandana Fort
Nandana Fort10th – 11th century

A hilltop fort of the Hindu Shahis guarding a pass in the Salt Range, taken by Mahmud of Ghazni. Here the scholar al-Biruni measured the dip of the horizon from the hill to work out the size of the Earth.

Attock Fort1581 – 1583

Built by Akbar to guard the Grand Trunk Road's crossing of the Indus. Ranjit Singh's army took it from the Afghans in 1813.

Qila Mubarak, Bathinda
Qila Mubarak, BathindaMedieval, on older foundations

One of the oldest forts in India still standing, where Razia Sultan, the first woman to rule from Delhi, was held prisoner in 1240.

The Moorish Mosque, Kapurthala1927 – 1930

Built for the Maharaja of Kapurthala on the model of the great mosque of Marrakesh, for the Muslim subjects of a Sikh state.

Gurdwara Fatehgarh Sahib
Gurdwara Fatehgarh Sahib18th – 20th century

Built where the younger Sahibzade and Mata Gujri were put to death in December 1704. The Shaheedi Jor Mela draws vast crowds here every December.

Takht Sri Damdama Sahib
Takht Sri Damdama Sahib18th – 20th century

Where Guru Gobind Singh stayed in 1705–06 and prepared the final edition of the Guru Granth Sahib; recognised as the fifth Takht in 1966.

Takht Sri Hazur Sahib
Takht Sri Hazur Sahib1832 – 1837

Where Guru Gobind Singh died in 1708. Maharaja Ranjit Singh paid for the building of the present gurdwara in the 1830s.

Bhong Mosque
Bhong Mosque1932 – 1982

A village mosque built over fifty years by a local landowner with craftsmen from across Pakistan, given the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1986.

The Mughal sarai at Nurmahal
The Mughal sarai at Nurmahal1618 – 1620

A walled inn on the imperial road, built in Nur Jahan's name, with carved sandstone gateways of elephants, horsemen and birds.

Kos minars16th – 17th century

Brick pillars marking each kos, about three kilometres, on the Mughal imperial road from Lahore to Delhi and beyond. Dozens still stand in the fields beside the highway.

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