Shahdara, the principal entry point to Lahore from the direction of Kabul and Kashmir, lies on the right bank of the Ravi River opposite the city of Lahore (Brand, 1996). Mughal princes, princesses, and important nobles built splendid gardens there. Shahdara became a site of Mughal architectural and political activity soon after the conquest of India by Babur in 1526. In about 1527, or one year after the conquest of Hindustan, Babur's son Mirza Kamran (brother of the second Mughal emperor, Humayun) built a garden in the area. The baradari (pavilion) and some architectural features still survive to some extent. However, the name Shahdara first appeared in the Akbarnama in the mid-1590s in connection with Akbar's visit to Kashmir in 1589. It is difficult today to know the exact boundaries of the place because of the lack of early Mughal-period textual sources. However, sources from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries suggest that Shahdara featured many gardens and serais (inns) built by imperial and noble patrons. The existence of a large number of garden sites at Shahdara is further confirmed from a British-period map of 1867.

Jahangir's Tomb

Jahangir's Tomb

Aerial View of Shahdara
Aerial View of Shahdara
 
The Marble Sarcophagus
of Jahangir
The Marble Sarcophagus of Jahangir

Jahangir's Tomb
Jahangir's Tomb
Shahdara served two functions in the early Mughal period. One was as a halting place for the Mughal camp after crossing the Ravi along the road from Lahore towards Kashmir, Kabul, or the hunting grounds of Sheikhupura. The other was as a recreation zone across the river from the Lahore citadel. Apart from Mirza Kamran's garden, Nur Jahan also built a splendid Dilkusha ( contentment) garden in the area. Between 1527 and 1645, Shahdara experienced an extraordinary transformation of land use, whereby its character changed from a site for pleasure gardens to a royal funerary landscape. The royal tombs of the fourth Mughal emperor, Jahangir (d.1627 at Rajauri and buried in the Dilkusha garden), his brother-in-law Asaf Khan (d. 1641), and his wife, Nur Jahan (d. 1645), were constructed within close proximity to each other. The relationship among the three tombs and serai is unique in that it is unmatched by that of other Mughal funerary complexes, where one garden usually dominates the area, and the spatial relationships among gardens are less evident.

Kamran's Baradari:

Kamran's baradari stands in the midst of a formal garden built by the Mughal Prince Mirza Kamran (son of Babur, the founder of the Mughal empire) on the west bank of the River Ravi; it was built c.1527 and was the earliest Mughal garden in Lahore. With the shift of the Ravi's course, the garden site today has become an island in the river adjacent to the bridge leading from Lahore to Shahdara. The garden used to be a meeting place of Mughal princes. British travelers such as William Barr and Colonel Wade also described this garden in connection with their stay there. The garden had a number of water features, including an eight-point-star-shaped pool. Tragically, heavy-handed restoration work in later years entirely destroyed the garden's status as a historical site.

Kamran's Baradari
Kamran's Baradari

Kamran's Baradari
Kamran's Baradari
 

Jahangir's Tomb:

Jahangir's tomb was built on the site of Bagh-i Dilkusha, a garden previously laid out by his wife, the empress Nur Jahan. The tomb was constructed on orders from Shah Jahan after his father's death in Kashmir in late 1627. It took ten years to complete the project. The name of the architect is not known, but Chandar Bhan, a historian and writer of the Char Chaman, also served as a supervisor of the site for some time. The walled tomb-garden is entered from the Akbari serai on the west side. The monumental entrance has extensive muqarnas (an architectural element with niches) executed in red sandstone. The Akbari serai has gateways on the north and south and a pre-Mughal period mosque on the west. At the center of an approximately 600-gaz-square garden lies the tomb building clad with red sandstone and inlaid with marble. The tomb rests on a high podium and is surmounted with tall minarets on all four corners. Inside, Jahangir's sarcophagus is decorated with a vegetal pietra dura design and the ninety-nine names of God. The dado on the walls inside the corridor is done with tile mosaic in floral designs.
 
Jahangir's Tomb
Jahangir's Tomb
Jahangir's Tomb
Jahangir's Tomb
Detail from Jahangir's Tomb
Detail from Jahangir's Tomb

Detail from Jahangir's Tomb
Detail from Jahangir's Tomb

The square garden was divided into four parts (the chahar bagh pattern) with water channels. There were fountains set in pools, and water flowing over the chutes provided a dazzling effect. Water for the tomb-garden was lifted from eight wells located immediately outside the enclosure wall. The water was lifted by means of Persian wheels to aqueducts running on top of the wall, and then into terra cotta pipes feeding various fountains and tanks. The original plantation is now gone but there are fine fruit trees from colonial times. Today, it is a favorite picnic spot for the city of Lahore.

Conservation Update: The master plan for the garden is under way. Repair of the stone fretwork on the southern and eastern facades is now complete and work on the north facade has begun. The brick on-edge paving on the chahar bagh’s south walkway leading to the southern false gate is complete. In the Akbari serai, a new water supply pipe has been laid out, and the interior and exterior facades of the main entry gate have been re-plastered. The Department of Archaeology has created a master plan in which they have requested funds for the removal of encroachments which fall within 150 feet of the perimeter wall.

 
 


Asaf Khan's Tomb:

Asaf Khan was Jahangir's brother-in-law and governor of the Punjab at the time of the emperor's death in 1627. When Asaf Khan died in 1641, he held the post of Commander-in-Chief under Shah Jahan, who ordered the construction of the tomb immediately to the west of the forecourt of Jahangir's tomb. The extent of Asaf Khan's square garden was set by the forecourt's 300-gaz-long western wall. It is exactly one-quarter of the size of Jahangir's tomb. The octagonal tomb rests in a chahar bagh with water channels and walkways. The walls were once covered with glazed tiles and there was marble facing on the dome. The dome has an unusual profile of the sort which was used in the tomb of Hamza Ghaus in Sialkot.

Conservation Update: A master plan prepared by Dr. Abdul Rehman of the University of Engineering and Technology was approved by the Global Heritage Fund as well as by the Department of Archaeology. The Global Heritage Fund has had several meetings and raised some funds for conservation.

Asaf Khan's Tomb
Asaf Khan's Tomb
Asaf Khan's Tomb
Nur Jahan's Tomb
 
 

Tomb of Nur Jahan:

Jahangir's widow, Nur Jahan, died in 1645. She was buried to the west of her brother Asaf Khan in a tomb she is said to have commissioned during her lifetime. The tomb structure has since been stripped of its stone cladding, and whatever has survived of the garden was irreparably damaged when the British cut a railway line late in the nineteenth century between the tombs of the two siblings.

Although no major Mughal garden was constructed at Shahdara after the completion of Nur Jahan's tomb, these lovely gardens still continue to play an important role in the life of Lahore.

Crossing the River from Shahdara to Lahore Fort:

There were two main river crossings from Shahdara to Lahore. The one near Kamran's baradari followed the modern route to the Taksali and Roshnai gates of the Fort. The road from Shahdara town continued due south toward the Khizri and Masti gates of the city. It has long been supposed that a crossing existed at the Khizri gate, Khwaja Khizr being the guide for river crossings. But the symbolic connection between Khizr, the guide to the waters of immortality, and the decision to locate tomb-gardens just opposite that gate has not previously been recognized (Wensinck, 1987; Latif, 1892, p. 86).

Detail of Nur Jahan's Tomb
Detail of Nur Jahan's Tomb

Nur Jahan's Tomb
Nur Jahan's Tomb