If ever there was a starting point if you wish to research the origins of the city of Lahore, surely it has to be the Temple of Lava, the son of Rama and his beautiful wife Sita. The stories are unending, mostly myth described as ‘facts’.

The other day as I waited for the university bus, I got talking to a doctor from Sri Lanka. My question was: “I am from Lahore, the city where Rama was the ruler and the city was named after his son Lava. Just how could Rama walk all the way to Lanka to fight to regain his wife Sita?” My question got the young doctor thinking. “I have no idea, but this is what we have been taught”. My observation was: “Seems like a very long way to march”. She seemed confused. The bus came. End of conversation.

As one reads B.S. Nijjar’s book on the ‘Punjab under the Sultans’, this question of the name Lahore being from its source Lava is taken up. But then there is mention that the foundational ground of the Temple of Lava was the same as the ground level outside the fort. Over time as several rulers rebuilt the fort, the last being Akbar, with each effort seeing the ground level being raised more so by constant settling of dust over time. Even today it is one of the lowest level in the fort.

But then if we examine two other examples in Lahore we notice that the temple called ‘Tibbiwala Shiwala’ in Tibbi Bazaar, the temple foundation floors are two-and-a-half storeys below the outer ground level. Mind you then this temple was started before Islam came to the sub-continent, or, maybe, even started off as a religion. That is why monument timing has a lot to do with ground level given dust sedimentation.

Of exact dust sedimentation speed a much better example would be the Shahi Hammam inside Delhi Gate. When the Aga Khan Trust for Culture took over the ‘hamman’, they excavated the foundational level and discovered that it was 12 feet below the current outer ground level.

This was a discovery of sorts and for the first time architects and archaeologists discovered that in Punjab dust sedimentation speed was about an inch in three to four years approximately if left alone for rain to strengthen the mud. But then when this yardstick is applied to the temple of Lava, the son of Rama, this comes to about the same speed of dust sedimentation, bringing the current level to about 55 feet. This means the temple was built almost 2,000-plus years ago when the outer fort walls were of mud and well below the current high brick walls of Akbar.

We have another excellent measuring stick and that is the inner ground level of Neevin Masjid in Kucha Dogran near Chowk Matti in Lohari Gateway. This mosque was built in 1460 in the reign of the Lodi ruler Bahlol Lodi, and was built by the Lahore Governor Haybat Khan and supervised by Zulfiqar Khan, both Pashtuns. The special feature of this mosque is that every time the city was raided, invariably by Muslims, and flattened, this was many feet below the outer ground level, and hidden in a narrow lane, the raiders probably missed it. We love to assume, probably incorrectly, that they did not see it.

But today the Neevin Mosque is a good 25 feet below the outer ground level. So this makes its 562 years old, and by our sedimentation standard it should be about 16 feet below the outer surface. But the mosque persons tell us that three different earthquakes lowered the mosque, and there is also the theory that the mosque was rebuilt on a much older mosque that had been destroyed.

But then we have other yardsticks, much more recent ones. If you walk the streets of old Lahore, you will notice that the older pre-Sikh era houses are slightly below the ground level. The building of bricked streets with waterways (nullahs) on both sides took care of this problem, and it remains a growing problem.

For an expert view I rang up the famous architect Sajjad Kausar and he reeled off a number of houses whose inner level is below the outer ground level. He himself lives at the edge of Lahore’s Mayo Gardens, the first railway officers’ colony. He described how most older houses have sunk, or that the outer level has risen.

My dear friend schoolmate Asif Zahidi’s old house in Mayo Garden, where we spent many happy hours playing also faces the same fate. Many fell so deep that the railway authorities have had to rebuild them.

But then my family houses in Model Town also faced the same fate. My uncle’s old house in B-Block also had this problem, so the new buyer knocked the entire structure down and rebuilt a new modern house. Just for the record that the original house in A-Block of Rani Jindan, the grand-daughter of Maharajah Ranjit Singh, also suffered the same fate. Sad.

Just why does this happen? Sajjad Kausar thinks that as new outer roads are rebuilt over old roads, the outer ground level keeps rising. When I recalled a few examples, including the Shahi Hammam and the Lava Temple, he thought that sedimentation was a very big factor too. This got me further investigating ground strength and reached the Cambridge University’s engineering department. There an expert informed that if the foundations are narrow, then the ground certainly yields, but not an inch every three years non-stop.

So we have an interesting aspect of housing in old Lahore. As the old city is built on mounds, the chances of ground yielding is possible, as also the outer roads being rebuilt on old one. But experts are all agreed that dust sedimentation is the major factor. For that we need to plant more and more trees.

Of recent, so says Sajjad Kausar, the authorities have started digging up the original foundations of old roads and rebuilding them anew. In this way the ground level remains fixed and the inner level remains safe. My understanding is that in this way a clever bureaucrat saved the Sikh-era residence of Gen. Allard, which now serves as the Chief Minister’s office.

What is most interesting is that the almost 1,200 year old Valmiki Temple in Nila Gumbad has also had its base heightened to save this ancient religious monument. If you visit the place you will notice its base already at a low. But then an effort, let’s say an official promise, is on to conserve this important monument dedicated to the man who wrote the Ramayana, in which the story of Rama and Lava have been immortalised. But then did Rama really march 2,295 miles, or 3,700 kilometres, to recover his wife Sita? Well for the wife, we do know that men do bizarre things.

Published in Dawn, December 18th, 2022