Afghanistan’s King Buried In Sirhind; Mughal Akbar’s Coronation at Kalanaur

Shah Zaman, a king of Afghanistan in the late 18^th century Durrani empire, is buried in Sirhind, near Chandigarh. On being crowned as the king in 1793, Zaman realized that his treasuries were empty and ordered an invasion of Panjab. Historian Sam Dalrymple says, ‘Punjab was increasingly falling under the sway of the East India Company and Governor General Wellesley persuaded the Qajar Shah of Iran to attack Durrani’s rear.’ Zaman was forced to retreat in 1799 leaving a power vacuum which would be filled by a young Ranjit Singh by seizing power in Lahore. Over the next two years, later Maharaja Ranjit Singh would gradually prise away the Durrani Empire's most lucrative provinces. As Zaman's empire crumbled, his subjects staged a coup by locking the king in prison and blinding him with a hot needle. The blinded Zaman made a daring escape to Panjab with the Afghan state diamond—the kohinoor—in tow. Zaman, along with Shah Shuja and his wife Wafah Begum, subsequently moved to British-administered Ludhiana. Dalrymple adds, ‘Zaman lived the rest of his life there on British pension and petitioned the Maharaja of Patiala to be allowed a burial in Sirhind. The Maharaja granted the request, and the Rohillas built a tomb there for the ex-king of Afghanistan’. Also, in 1556, shortly after the demise of his father the Mughal emperor Humayun, Akbar was crowned in Kalanaur, a small hamlet near the town of Gurdaspur. The coronation platform, known as Takht-i-Akbar (Akbar’s Throne) is a well-known historic site although not many people visit it. It is believed that Bairam Khan, Akbar’s adviser, had arranged the ceremony hastily to secure his claim to the throne as Akbar was just 13 years old when the coronation took place. The site has been declared a monument of national importance and the coronation platform is a protected monument managed by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). While the royal garden mentioned in history books is no longer there, the simple yet historically crucial structure remains a quiet reminder of where the reign of one of South Asia’s most famous rulers began his rule.