Page:Provincial geographies of India (Volume 1).djvu/193

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xviii]
PERIOD, 1000-1764 A.D.
173

Panjál route to the Happy Valley in order to escape the summer heats. Bernier has given us a graphic account of Aurangzeb's move to the hills in 1665. On that occasion his total following was estimated to amount to 300,000 or 400,000 persons, and the journey from Delhi to Lahore occupied two months. The burden royal progresses on this scale must have imposed on the country is inconceivable. Jahángír died in his beloved Kashmír. He planted the road from Delhi to Lahore with trees, set up as milestones the kos minárs, some of which are still standing, and built fine sarais at various places.

Prosperity of Lahore under Akbar, Jahángír, and Sáhjahán.—The reigns of Akbar and of his son and grandson were the heyday of Lahore. It was the halfway house between Delhi and Kashmír, and between Agra and Kábul. The Moghal Court was often there. Akbar made the city his headquarters from 1584 to 1598. Jahángír was buried and Sháhjahán was born at Lahore. The mausoleum of the former is at Sháhdara, a mile or two from the city. Sháhjahán made the Shálimár garden, and Ali Mardán Khán's Canal, the predecessor of our own Upper Bárí Doáb Canal, was partly designed to water it. Lahore retained its importance under Aurangzeb, till he became enmeshed in the endless Deccan wars, and his successor, Bahádur Shah, died there in 1712.

Bába Nának, the first Guru.—According to Sikh legend Bábar in one of his invasions had among his prisoners their first Guru, Bába Nának, and tried to make him a Musalmán. Nának was born in 1469 at Talwandí, now known as Nankána Sáhib, 30 miles to the south-west of Lahore, and died twelve years after Bábar's victory at Pánipat. He journeyed all over India, and, if legend speaks true, even visited Mecca. His propaganda was a peaceful one. A man of the people himself, he had a