Kos Minars in Pakistan: Mughal Mile Pillars on the Old GT Road

A kos minar is a solid brick pillar, roughly 27 to 30 feet tall, that marked every kos (a distance of about three to four kilometres) along the royal roads of the Mughal empire, including the Grand Trunk Road to Lahore and on towards Peshawar. Sher Shah Suri began the system in the 1540s, and Akbar and Jahangir extended it. In Pakistan only a handful survive, mainly around Lahore and Rawalpindi, and most are in poor condition. You can still spot them if you know what to look for.

This guide explains what the pillars were for, which ones survive in Pakistan, how to recognise one from the road, and how to fit them into a GT Road drive.

What is a kos minar?

Kos was the old Indian unit for road distance. The Department of Archaeology traces the word to a cry, the distance at which a shout could be heard. Its length changed over time: Wikipedia gives about 3.2 km, the department's own records give 3.75 to 4 km, and a study from Punjab measured the spacing of surviving pillars at about 4.2 km. Minar means a tower, so a kos minar is simply a milestone tower.

The pillars showed travellers that they were on the royal road and how far they had come. They were one part of a wider road system: Sher Shah is said to have commissioned as many as 1,700 sarais (inns) along his main routes, and the Mughals added wells, stepwells and further inns.

Who built the kos minars?

Sher Shah Suri, who ruled from 1540 to 1545, knitted older routes into one great road from Bengal to the north-west and introduced brick pillars plastered with lime at every kos. He is the ruler most people credit for the GT Road, and he also built Rohtas Fort beside it.

Akbar ordered a pillar at every kos on the road from Agra to Ajmer in 1575, according to the court historian Abul Fazl.

Jahangir, in 1609, ordered small minaret-like towers to be built at every kos along the Grand Trunk Road. This order is the one the Department of Archaeology cites for the pillars at Lahore and Rawalpindi. Shah Jahan added to the network further.

By the end, the Mughal road network stretched about 3,000 km, as far as Peshawar in the north-west and Bengal in the east, with something like a thousand pillars. Wikipedia puts the number left today at about 110, most of them across the border in Indian Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

Where are the kos minars in Pakistan?

Few survive on the Pakistani side, and the records are thin. What can be confirmed:

Lahore

A 2014 Dunya News survey of neglected Lahore monuments counted the remains of four Mughal kos minars around the city. The best preserved stands at Shahu-ki-Garhi, by the railway line just outside Lahore Railway Station: burnt brick, about 27 feet high, an octagonal base and a conical top, with no inscription. The others, the same report said, were in miserable condition.

Wikipedia carries photographs of kos minars at Mughalpura, one in lakhori brick near the tomb of Ali Mardan Khan, and at Manhala on the eastern edge of Lahore. The Department of Archaeology lists "Kos Minars (Minola)" in Lahore district as a protected monument owned by the federal government. If you are in Mughalpura, our Ali Mardan Khan tomb guide explains the access problems in that railway area.

Rawalpindi and Golra

The Department of Archaeology records two kos minars in Rawalpindi district, protected under the Antiquities Act and owned by the Punjab government, and notes that neither is in good condition. The official list of protected sites in Punjab includes a kos minar near Golra railway station, on the old road towards the Margalla Pass. Our Golra Sharif guide covers that area.

Taxila

Wikipedia also shows a kos minar photographed at Taxila. We could not confirm its exact position, so ask at the Taxila Museum or locally if you want to find it. Our Taxila guide covers the area.

How do you recognise one from the road?

Look for these signs:

• A lone, solid brick tower with no door or windows, about the height of a three-storey building.
• A conical or rounded top on a round or octagonal shaft, sitting on a square or octagonal masonry platform.
• Thin Mughal bricks (lakhori), sometimes with traces of lime plaster.
• No inscription. Kos minars were not signed.
• A line. They stand on the old alignment of the road, which in Punjab often runs close to the railway or a little off today's highway, not necessarily on the modern carriageway.

Do not confuse them with mosque minarets, which stand next to a building, or with brick kiln chimneys, which are taller and slimmer.

Can you visit them?

They are not tourist sites. There are no tickets, signboards are rare, and several stand on railway land or in private fields. Look from the roadside or a field edge, and ask permission before crossing anyone's land. Railway land in particular is not public, so do not walk along the tracks to reach one.

The practical way to see them is as part of a heritage drive. Our GT Road heritage guide covers the Lahore to Islamabad stretch, our Grand Trunk Road trip runs on to Peshawar, and our guide to Mughal monuments in Pakistan puts the road into its wider setting. For another piece of the same road system, the Mughal Sarai Kharbuza near Islamabad is a surviving roadside inn. Our experiences page has more ideas.

Are they worth seeking out?

For anyone who enjoys road history, yes, as part of a drive you are already making. A kos minar is a small thing, but it is one of the few visible pieces of the road Sher Shah and the Mughals actually built. Do not plan a trip around one alone: they are scattered, often hard to reach, and in poor repair.

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