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
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Land & Ages

The LandRivers, doabs, Harappa and the first cities, seasons, numbersAgesEight ages of the Punjab, from the Soan to todayTimelineEvery dated event on one lineAtlasEvery place on one map, age by agePlacesCities, ancient sites, temples, mosques and gurdwaras, battlefieldsLanguage & scriptsPunjabi, its dialects, Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi

People & Faiths

PeopleSaints and teachers, poets and singers, rulers, rebels, the people of both PunjabsPeople of the landJats, Rajputs, Arains, Khatris, Dalit communities and more, across every faithFaithsHindu traditions, Islam and the Sufis, Sikhi, and the Punjab's other faiths

Kingdoms & Struggles

Kingdoms & WarsWho ruled the Punjab, the Kingdom of Lahore, and the battles fought over itWho ruled the PunjabEvery ruling power, 518 BCE to todayWars & BattlesFrom the Hydaspes to BasantarStruggles & Partitions1849, 1919, 1947, 1966, 1984, 2020

Culture & Museum

CulturePoets, qisse, songs, music, dance, festivals, foodMuseumSculpture, coins, manuscripts, painting, arms, buildings, and where to see themChronicles & ProphecyThe poetry of the old chroniclesAboutWhat this atlas is, its sources, and every word explainedHelp maintain this siteCorrections, pictures, sources and new entries
Punjab WikiMuseumSculpture
Ashoka's pillar from Topra
Unknown · Wikimedia
Sculpture

Ashoka's pillar from Topra

One of Ashoka's inscribed pillars, carved with his edicts in Brahmi. Firuz Shah Tughlaq had it carried from Topra to Delhi in 1356 on a cart said to have had forty-two wheels; its script was finally read by James Prinsep in 1837.

More sculpture

The Fasting Buddha
The Fasting Buddha2nd – 3rd century CE

The Buddha in the years of starvation before his enlightenment, every rib and vein showing: the most famous sculpture of Gandhara, found at Sikri near Mardan.

Gandharan Bodhisattvas
Gandharan Bodhisattvas2nd – 3rd century CE

Princely figures of the Buddha-to-be, with moustaches, turbans, jewels and sandals, modelled on the Kushan nobles of Gandhara.

The Sanghol sculptures
The Sanghol sculptures1st – 2nd century CE

In 1985 excavators at Sanghol, between Ludhiana and Chandigarh, found 117 carved pillars and railing pieces of a Kushan-era Buddhist stupa, buried as if hidden: women beneath flowering trees, lovers, drinkers and dancers.

The stucco Buddhas of Jaulian
The stucco Buddhas of Jaulian2nd – 5th century CE

A hilltop monastery near Taxila whose stupas are ringed with rows of seated Buddhas modelled in stucco, many still in place.

The Sikri stupa
The Sikri stupa2nd – 3rd century CE

A small stupa from Sikri, near Mardan, set up again in the Lahore Museum, its drum carved with thirteen panels of the life of the Buddha.

The Kanishka casket
The Kanishka casketc. 2nd century CE

A gilded reliquary found in 1908–09 in the ruins of Kanishka's great stupa at Shah-ji-ki-Dheri outside Peshawar. On its lid the Buddha sits between the gods Brahma and Indra; on its side stands a Kushan king, probably Kanishka himself.

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