Kos Minar

• 1. Introduction

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  Kos Minars are medieval Indian milestones, and early European travellers once called them a "marvel of India." These solid round pillars, about 30 feet tall, once lined the royal roads of the northern Indian subcontinent, marking every kos of the way from Agra to Lahore, from Agra to Ajmer, from Agra to Mandu in the south. Sir Thomas Roe was among the travellers who took note of them, and the Archaeological Survey of India would later describe them as an integral part of India's "national communication system." Today, of what was once a network of around 600 standing minars, only 110 remain. How did these towers come to be built? Who built them, who expanded them, and why did they fall into forgetting? The answers stretch across more than a thousand years of Indian history, from the roads of the Maurya empire to a conservation project that began in 2016.

• 2. Before the Pillars

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  In the third century BC, the emperor Ashoka improved existing routes linking his capital city Pataliputra to Dhaka in the east and Kabul via Peshawar in the west, and further on to Balkh. Travelers along those roads were guided by whatever landmarks happened to stand nearby: mud pillars, trees, or wells. There was no uniform system. These improvised markers were the predecessors of the Kos Minars, filling a practical need that every large empire faces: how do people moving across vast distances know where they are?

• 3. Sher Shah Suri's Innovation

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  Sher Shah Suri, the 16th-century Pashtun ruler of the Sur Empire, replaced the mud pillars and informal landmarks with something more durable. He introduced improved brick pillars plastered over with lime, set at every kos along the route. The name Kos Minar comes directly from that standard: kos, from the Sanskrit for one fourth of a yojana, an ancient Indian unit of distance representing roughly 3.22 km; and minar, an Arabic word for tower, related to the minaret. A case study from Punjab documented a kos length of approximately 4.2 km, showing that the precise measurement could vary by region. The pillars themselves are solid and round, built on a masonry platform, and they are not identical to one another. Their routes ran along the Grand Trunk Road, one of the great arteries of the subcontinent.

• 4. The Mughal Expansion

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  Akbar, in 1575, issued an order recorded by Abul Fazl in the Akbar Nama: at every kos on the way from Agra to Ajmer, a pillar or a minar should be erected for the comfort of travelers. Alongside the minars, many caravanserais, roadside inns, were built to shelter people making the journey. Later emperors continued the work. Shah Jahan added to the network, extending it northward as far as Peshawar and eastward to Bengal via Kannauj. By the Mughal period, the number of standing minars reached around 600. The pillars stood in towns, in villages, beside paddy fields, along roadsides and railway tracks, across Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, and Punjab.

• 5. Neglect and What Survived

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  When the British introduced Imperial units of measurement, the kos fell out of official use. Independent India's adoption of the International System of Units confirmed that the old measure would not return. Without a practical role, the minars were gradually ignored, and they fell into disrepair. Of the Mughal-era network of around 600, only 110 Kos Minars survive. The Archaeological Survey of India counted 49 in Haryana alone. Seven stand in Jalandhar district in Punjab, five are found around Ludhiana district, and a study documented eight surviving Kos Minars in Tarn Taran district of Punjab. Conservation work in Jalandhar district started in 2016, with grill fencing erected at each minar to protect the original structure. Restoration work for nine Kos Minars near Mathura began in 2018, and courts have ordered encroachments cleared away from those that remain.