Hiran Minar

• 1. Introduction

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  Hiran Minar rises 30 meters above Sheikhupura, in Pakistan's Punjab province, roughly 40 kilometers northwest of Lahore. It was built in 1606, not to mark a battlefield or celebrate a dynasty. Its subject was an antelope named Mansraj, whose name translates as 'Light of Mind.' Jahangir, the Mughal emperor who ordered the tower, had the animal's name and a eulogy carved into its stone sides. The complex he built now appears on the Provisional List of UNESCO World Heritage. Its origins, though, lie in a hunting accident Jahangir never forgot.

• 2. The Emperor and His Antelope

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  Emperor Jahangir was remembered for a fondness for nature unusual even among Mughal rulers. The royal family kept a hunting reserve near Lahore, built within a scrub forest. It offered a sense of semi-wilderness close to the imperial city. All Mughal emperors hunted antelope and other game, but Jahangir cultivated a separate relationship with one animal. He called this antelope Hansraj and singled it out from the rest.

  Tragedy struck during one of his hunting exhibitions with friends. Jahangir mistakenly killed the animal he had most valued. Heartbroken by the loss, he ordered the tower erected as a memorial.

  Building tomb markers over the skulls of game animals was an ancient Persian custom. Jahangir was not the first to mark the loss of a prized animal this way. The memorial he raised gave the antelope a further name in stone. The minar's inscriptions call the animal Mansiraj, meaning 'lord of all animal beings.'

• 3. Stone, Steps, and Light

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  Two hundred and ten square holes punctuate the outer surface of the Hiran Minar, arranged in 14 even rows from base to crown. The tower is circular in form, tapering upward to a flat top enclosed by a parapet wall. Its shaft is divided into six tiers of different heights, and projected molding marks the base of each tier. The lowest tier carries an arched entrance opening.

  Inside the tower, a spiral staircase of 108 steps winds to the summit. Eleven rectangular arched openings cut through the walls as the staircase rises, supplying air and light at regular intervals.

  Thick lime plaster coats both the interior and exterior surfaces of the tower. On the lowest tier, that plaster has been divided into decorative panels, arched niches, and horizontal bands rendered in high relief. Floral and lineal fresco paintings appear across both the outer face and the interior walls.

  At the base of the minar, a massive rectangular water tank extends outward, 229 meters long and 273 meters wide.

• 4. Water and the Wild

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  Four brick ramps, one at the center of each side of the pool, slope down to the water's edge. They gave wild game direct access to drink, drawing animals within range of hunters positioned around the tank.

  The Aik rivulet supplied the tank during the Mughal era. Craftsmen cut a channel from it and connected it to the pool at its north-west corner. A separate system also gathered rain water from the surrounding catchment area and directed it into the tank.

  At each corner of the tank stands a small square building, each enclosing a subsurface water collection system. Only one of these corner systems is extensively exposed today. The baradari at the center of the pool was ordered by Emperor Jahangir in 1620. By that point, the minaret had already stood for over a decade.

• 5. Shah Jahan's Pavilion

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  Shah Jahan added an octagonal pavilion at the end of the causeway, two stories tall and topped by a rooftop chhatri, a stone gazebo. Its design has drawn comparisons to the Sher Mandal at Delhi's Purana Qila, a structure built by Emperor Humayun.

  The causeway connecting the minaret to the pavilion stands on 21 pointed arched pillars. A square platform projects from the causeway's midpoint. The main gateway to the pavilion is a rectangular vestibule with a pointed arch. Four similar but smaller openings flank it, built one above the other.

  Inside the vestibule stand two platforms, and the dome-shaped ceilings above carry honeycomb decoration in the soffit. Flights of 13 steps at each corner lead up to the roof. The complex was proclaimed protected under the Ancient Monuments Reservation Act of 1904, receiving that status in 1916. Sheikhupura Fort, which also dates from the early 17th century, stands near the minar. Both sites are accessible from Lahore via the M2 Motorway, which connects the city to Islamabad.