Of the 12 gates and a ‘mori’ of the old Walled City of Lahore, the one gate and the ‘hole in the wall’ on the south are most written about. But then the four on the north are probably more ancient, and have more history attached to them.

There is a reason for this, and that being that the importance of the ancient city was derived, primarily, from its connection to the outside world through, the river and the ancient highway that touched it, and still does. In this piece we will dwell on them briefly, though a narration on each separately is much needed. The four gateways are Roshnai Gate, Kashmiri Gate, Khizri Gate (now known as Sheranwala), and Yakki Gate.

The Roshnai Gate led to the old mud-walled fort, and was at the landing port of the river to the Lahore fort. The road to the ancient city led onward from there, where a small garden existed. This gateway had, so a source claims, 101 oil-lamps which were lit by guards at sunset and extinguished at sunrise. This made sure the entire surroundings of the fort were visible to guards on the fort’s walls. Pre-Islamic period versions describe these lamps and their number as being dictated by Hindu priest superstition. One cannot vouch for such reasons.

Once Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb decided to build Badshahi Mosque, he first got the front garden prepared and named it ‘Abdar Khana’. The central structure then did not exist. That ‘Abdar Khana’ was renamed as Hazuri Bagh once Maharajah Ranjit Singh had erected the Baradari with marble ‘removed’ from Jahangir’s Tomb in Shahdara, and walled off the mosque and lawn to the city. This was an exclusive enclave as the mosque had been converted into a horse stable.

The entrance to the Samadhi of Ranjit Singh and the structure surrounding the Well where Guru Arjan dived into the River Ravi and disappeared, was given a gateway by the maharajah’s grandson Kanwar Naunehal Singh using bricks removed from the shrine of Hazrat Sakhi Syed Shah Ghaus Qadri outside Akbari Gate. When those bricks fell on him killing him, the popular rumour was that it was punishment for the blasphemy committed. We know that he was injured, taken inside the fort and silently murdered by the then chief minister Raja Dhian Singh at least that is the version written by Dr Johann Honigberger.

Now to the next gateway next to the south-eastern edge of the fort, that being Kashmiri Gate. The name is derived from its direction to Kashmir and was used by Royal staff to quickly reach the bazaars of Lahore. It was also the route taken by ‘secret’ visitors to the rulers. On the lawn outside the amazing wife of Mughal Emperor Akbar, Begum Mariam Zamani built an exquisite mosque.

In the opinion of artisans and architects this is Lahore’s most beautiful mosque. Its location makes sense in that in her lifetime she started off a shipbuilding enterprise, and built huge ships for pilgrims to go to Mecca, and later for gunships as British pirates kept attacking her ships.

This brings us to the third, and Lahore’s most-important gateway, that being Khizri Darwaza. This was the original port of Lahore on the River Ravi, and served for trade over thousands of years. One account described in C. Rajagopalachari’s English translation of the epic ‘Mahabharata’ clearly states that the real battle between the nine rajas of western India and the Lahore ruler Bharata - known as Battle of the Ten Kings (Desanrajan) - was over possession of Khizri Gate river port. The battle site is currently known as Mehmood Booti.

But why the name Khizri? This brings forth the ancient Lahore where the name was given after Hazrat Khawaja Khizr, known in ancient texts as ‘al-Khadir’, or in local tradition as ‘Zinda Pir’. In the Quran’s surah ‘Al-Kahf’ or ‘The Cave’, we see a description of Khawaja Khizr informing the Prophet Musa (Moses) of mystical truths. It seems from various sources that most eastern river ports had used the name Khizr, who in the Bible is described as Elijeh, the prophet of miracle workers, and harbinger of the ‘End’. In the Jewish faith the ‘Book of Malachi’ states that all religions that will follow will see Khizr as the guardian of water and river folk.

So it was that Lahore’s river port gateway was named Khizri Gate, and a road ran from the port to the ancient mud walled city. On the way people built houses specialising in the river trades, names that still exist for example ‘Mohallah Kishteranan’, or ‘Mohallah Chappugaran’. Of recent pious names of Islamic persons have replaced those ancient names - a sort of insult in my books to the magnificence of Hazrat Khawaja Khizr. But then such are times. I would like to add here that in archaeological digs inside the fort 4,500-year old fragments of pottery made in faraway lands must surely have reached Lahore via Khizri Gate. A religious scholar describes these as “with the blessings of Khawaja Khizr.”

Then comes the Ranjit Singh era and after the maharajah had conquered Multan, with the Zamzama Cannon being shipped up the river from this very gateway, he described it was a tribute to the saint and renamed it Sheranwala by tying two live lions there. Typical young Lahore lads frequently stoned the poor animals, slowly killing them in the process. The maharajah installed two stone ones, which were removed by Lahori traders recently. One just cannot comment on their dare.

The fourth gateway is called Yakki Darwaza (Gateway). This is a distortion of the name Zaki, or the ‘Pure’. In the year 1241 AD the forces of Genghis Khan under his General Munggeto surrounded the ancient city and pledged to eliminate every living person. Against him a saint named Pir Zaki fought and once his head had been removed by a strike, his body kept fighting on. One source claims he killed another seven persons. Hence inside Yakki Gate there are two tombs to the martyr Pir Zaki, both of them at different places.

If this location is correct, then the battle surely must have taken place outside the then mud-walled city. Another source claims that as outside the gateway was a horse stand, hence the name Yakki came about, though this was in a much later time period. The original name was Zaki Darwaza, and in a later time period after the bazaars outside Akbari Gate came up, this horse stand for carts came up. In the British period it served the nearby railway station.

Many a question arises out of this brief description of the four northern gateways. Should not ‘Sheranwala’ have its original name restored, much that one admires Ranjit Singh? Should not a 101-lamp gateway be constructed between the fort and the ‘samadhi’ to reflect our ancient river heritage? Should Yakki Gate be renamed Zaki Gate? These are far-fetched suggestions, but surely they will add to the romance of our ancient city.

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2022