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21-509: The gardens are in the old village of Wah, close to the present garrison town of Wah, located 50 km northwest of Islamabad on the main Grand Trunk Road . Raja Man Singh , brother-in-law of Emperor Jahangir , was a court chief of Emperor Akbar , and is credited with construction of the gardens along the old route from Lahore to Srinagar . He was posted at Wah from the year 1581 to 1586 to stop enemy incursions. During his stay he made

42-478: A distance of around 2,600 kilometres (1,600 mi). The route of Chandragupta was built over the ancient " Uttarapatha " or the Northern Road, which had been mentioned by Pāṇini . The emperor Ashoka had it recorded in his edict about having trees planted, wells built at every half kos and many "nimisdhayas", which is often translated as rest-houses along the route for the travelers. The emperor Kanishka

63-419: A pond surrounded by a structure of twelve doors. The Mughal Emperor Jahangir while on his way to Kabul stayed here on 29 April 1607 and went fishing in the pond. Indeed, the present old village of Wah was originally called 'Jalal Sar' after Jalal Khan Khattar but was renamed 'Wah' by Jahangir. He wrote in his autobiography (translation): "Stayed at Baba Hasanabdal on 12th Muharram, 1016 A.H. At about two miles on

84-675: A river of life as nowhere else exists in the world." The ensemble of historic sites along the road in India was submitted to the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2015, under the title "Sites along the Uttarapath, Badshahi Sadak, Sadak-e-Azam, Banho, Grand Trunk Road". The Indian sections of the Grand Trunk Road coincide with NH 19 , NH 112 and NH 44 of the National Highways in India . Psephologists sometimes refer to

105-531: Is also known to have controlled the Uttarapatha. Sher Shah Suri , the medieval ruler of the Sur Empire , took to repair The Chandragupta's Royal Road in the 16th century. The old route was further rerouted at Sonargaon and Rohtas and its breadth increased, a sarai was built, the number of kos minars and baolis increased. Gardens were also built alongside some sections of the highway. Those who stopped at

126-479: Is mentioned in a number of literary works including those of Foster and Rudyard Kipling. Kipling described the road as: "Look! Look again! and chumars , bankers and tinkers, barbers and bunnias , pilgrims – and potters – all the world going and coming. It is to me as a river from which I am withdrawn like a log after a flood. And truly the Grand Trunk Road is a wonderful spectacle. It runs straight, bearing without crowding India's traffic for fifteen hundred miles – such

147-620: Is one of Asia's oldest and longest major roads. For at least 2,500 years it has linked Central Asia to the Indian subcontinent . It runs roughly 3,655 km (2,271 mi) from Teknaf , Bangladesh on the border with Myanmar west to Kabul , Afghanistan , passing through Chittagong and Dhaka in Bangladesh, Kolkata , Kanpur , Agra , Aligarh , Delhi , Amritsar in India, and Lahore , Rawalpindi , and Peshawar in Pakistan . The highway

168-538: The Great Khurasan Road that ran from Media to Bactria). During the time of the Mauryan Empire in the 3rd century BCE, overland trade between India and several parts of Western Asia and Bactria world went through the cities of the north-west, primarily Takshashila and Purushapura (present-day Taxila and Peshawar respectively, in Pakistan ). Takshashila was well connected by roads with other parts of

189-1436: The British period between 1833 and 1860. Over the centuries, the road acted as one of the major trade routes in the region and facilitated both travel and postal communication. The Grand Trunk Road is still used for transportation in the present-day Indian subcontinent, where parts of the road have been widened and included in the national highway system. The road coincides with the current N1 , Feni ( Chittagong to Dhaka ), N4 & N405 (Dhaka to Sirajganj ), N507 (Sirajganj to Natore ) and N6 (Natore to Rajshahi towards Purnea in India ; NH 12 ( Purnea to Bakkhali ), NH 27 ( Purnea to Patna ), NH 19 ( Kolkata to Agra ), NH 44 ( Agra to Jalandhar via New Delhi , Panipat , Karnal , Ambala and Ludhiana ) and NH 3 ( Jalandhar to Attari , Amritsar in India towards Lahore in Pakistan ) via Wagah ; N-5 ( Lahore , Gujranwala , Gujrat , Lalamusa , Kharian , Jhelum , Rawalpindi , Peshawar and Khyber Pass towards Jalalabad in Afghanistan) in Pakistan and AH1 ( Torkham - Jalalabad to Kabul ) to Ghazni in Afghanistan . The Buddhist literature and Indian epics such as Mahabharata refer to

210-528: The Government of Pakistan handed over the garden to the department of Archeology to look after. It was decades later when on the request of Lt Gen Omar Mahmood Hayat, Chairman POF Wah, the Archeology department initiated repairs. Work has been started to restore and save the garden. The reconstruction of the four walls of the garden, the big pond, the canals, and the paths are near completion. The work of replanting

231-701: The Mauryan Empire. The Mauryas had maintained this very ancient highway from Takshashila to Patliputra (present-day Patna in India). Chandragupta Maurya had a whole army of officials overseeing the maintenance of this road as told by the Greek diplomat Megasthenes who spent fifteen years at the Mauryan court. Constructed in eight stages, this road is said to have connected the cities of Purushapura , Takshashila , Hastinapura , Kanyakubja , Prayag , Patliputra and Tamralipta ,

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252-517: The area around the GT Road as the "GT Road belt" it is also known as Gujarat road sometimes within the context of elections. For example, during the elections in Haryana the area on either side of the GT Road from Ambala to Sonipat , which has 28 legislative assembly constituencies where there is no dominance of one caste or community, is referred to as the "GT road belt of Haryana". Distance calculation

273-405: The eastern side of this place there is a waterfall. The water falls with great speed. The center of the pond has the main exiting of the waterfall. Raja Maan Singh has made a very little building. There is a lot of fish in the pond having a length of quarter yard. I stayed at this beautiful place for three days. I put the net in the pond and caught about 10 to 12 fish. These fish were again dropped in

294-589: The existence of Grand Trunk road even before the Maurya Empire and was called Uttarapatha or the "Northern road". The road connected the eastern region of India with Central Asia , the terminus of the Khorasan Road . The precursor of the modern Grand Trunk road was built on the orders of the emperor Chandragupta Maurya and was inspired by the Persian Royal Road (more precisely, its eastern stretch,

315-655: The garden as a trustee of heaven and substitute for heaven's garden on earth. The Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb stayed at the garden in July 1676. The garden was badly damaged in the era of the Durrani Empire (1747–1826). After the annexation of the Punjab, the British Government handed over the gardens to Nawab Muhammad Hayat Khan , CSI, in 1865. Considering the historical importance of the gardens and their artistic construction,

336-514: The path of the highways. The route was referred to as "Sadak-e-Azam" by Suri and "Badshahi Sadak" by the Mughals. In the 1830s the East India Company started a program of metalled road construction, for both commercial and administrative purposes. The road, now named the Grand Trunk Road, from Calcutta , through Delhi , to Kabul , Afghanistan was rebuilt at a cost of £1000/mile. The road

357-506: The sarai were provided food for free. His son Islam Shah Suri constructed an additional sarai in-between every sarai originally built by Sher Shah Suri on the road toward Bengal. More sarais were built under the Mughals . Jahangir under his reign issued a decree that all sarais be built of burnt brick and stone. Broad-leaved trees were planted in the stretch between Lahore and Agra and he built bridges over all water bodies that were situated on

378-539: The trees that were there in Mughal days, repairs of the twelve-door structures, the bathrooms and waterfalls will be completed soon. Once completed, the gardens are expected to return to their former state. 33°48′4.67″N 72°42′3.74″E  /  33.8012972°N 72.7010389°E  / 33.8012972; 72.7010389 Grand Trunk Road The Grand Trunk Road (formerly known as Uttarapath , Sarak-e-Azam , Shah Rah-e-Azam , Badshahi Sarak , and Long Walk )

399-401: The water after sewing pearls in their noses". The Emperor Shah Jahan stayed at Wah while on his way to Kabul in 1639. He called his central construction department and ordered the reconstruction of the buildings. Ahmed Maamar Lahoree, a famous architect of those days, planned out the gardens, palaces and inns. The construction was performed under his supervision and took two years. The garden

420-460: Was built along an ancient route called Uttarapatha in the 3rd century BCE, extending it from the mouth of the Ganges to the north-western frontier of India. Further improvements to this road were made under Ashoka . The old route was re-aligned by Sher Shah Suri to Sonargaon and Rohtas . The Afghan end of the road was rebuilt under Mahmud Shah Durrani . The road was considerably rebuilt in

441-564: Was made in the Mughal construction style. He made beautiful twelve door structures, canals and waterfalls. He made bathrooms having mixture of cold and hot water at the southern end of these twelve-door structures. The inner portion of the structures has been plastered. The walls of the smaller rooms have been decorated with flowers and petals. Shah Jahan stayed at the gardens on his trips to Kabul four times after their completion: in 1646, 1647, 1649, and 1654. Contemporaries of Shah Jahan, namely Abdul Hameed Lahoree and Muhammad Saleh Kamboh, declared

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