Summer Palace (Pari Mahal) - The Mysteries of Lahore Fort

Well being a Lahorite from childhood, I am listening to different stories regarding the hidden secret infrastructure buildings of Lahore fort. You might also have listen about the tunnel that connects Lahore Fort to Delhi. When I first time visited the Lahore fort in school days, my father told me that there are underground basements in the fort, used by Mughal Emperors in the summertime. I don’t know from where my father heard about these basements but these buildings actually exist in Lahore Fort.

The basement chambers of the Lahore fort have never been opened to the general public and are still hidden from the outside world. Fortunately, I along with my younger brother got a chance to visit one of these basements named ‘Summer Palace’ also known as ‘Pari Mahal’. The place is the basement of Sheesh Mehal (mirror palace), Uthdara, and some portion of Shah Burj. In order to enter the basement one has to use elephant stairs, a small door is located on the left side of the second lift of stairs.

Our host a senior officer at Lahore Fort told that the ‘summer palace’ historically had only one entry point which was Mughal’s secret stairway to enter the summer palace.”During British Raj a door from Elephant Stairs was made by demolishing a small part of the wall. Shah Jahan built the Shah Burj, the Sheesh Mahal, and the Naulakha Pavilion in 1642 AD, the ‘Summer Palace’ was supposed to be constructed before this in Shah Jahan's tenure.

                 The wall behind the Elephant Stairs is part of Summer Palace

It was a hot afternoon in September when we entered the basement, the first thing which amazed us was the sudden drop in temperature from outside, there was also fresh air circulating in the building. The outer configuration of the palace is rectangular in shape, I didn’t have any instrument to measure the dimension of the building the rough dimension after pacing was 140 ft x 170 ft.

A state of art mechanism has been developed for both ventilation and cooling systems for this Palace, once river Ravi runs parallel to, the northeast wall of the Palace. The amazing and interesting thing about the cooling system design was that the northeast wall of the palace has been partitioned with small windows; on the inner side of these windows, concrete tunnels have been constructed, and a cool river breeze entered and trap inside, the other side of the tunnel opens directly inside the corridors of Palace. These tunnels work similarly to HVAC ducts of the present time to carry cool air breeze. There are 42 fountains inside the Palace. It is also told by our guide that a slab somewhat 4 to 5 ft below the original floor of the Palace has been found and water from river Ravi used to run over it. This mechanism somehow cools the original floor of the palace. The North West wall of the Palace has five mullioned types windows. When we entered the palace there was dark inside the only source of light was sun rays entering from these five windows. These five windows are also directly partitioned parallel to the corridors of the Palace to bring natural light to all rooms.

                                        The five windows in this picture are 

                                     partitioned on NW wall of Summer Palace

The Civil Defence Department used this basement as a storehouse in World War II. Altering many arches either closing them with brick masonry to be used as rooms/offices, the frequent white washes vanished the original Fresco art of the building. After Pakistan came into being, the building still was used as a storehouse. Luckily there are a few portions in the building where you can see the remnant of fresco art and painting works. The Palace has also signs of Sikh era rule in Lahore fort. There were a few arches modified to use rooms for religious places.

The Palace was built with acoustics in mind as seen in many other Mughal architectural buildings if you are standing in one corner your low voice can be clearly heard by the person standing in the other corner of the same room.

In Summer Palace there are two secret approach ways to reach Sheesh Mahal. The whole Palace was constructed in a maze pattern recalling the conventional style of the Labyrinth of Greeks. In the Urdu language, there is a word “Bhool Bhulian’ this word easily describes the whole construction pattern of the Palace. You can easily lost in corridors and without the help of a guide, it is difficult to find the return way.  This Palace has also connected to secret escape routes and tunnels.

One of the remarkable things in the Palace was the secret room of Shah Jahan, a low-ceiling room hardly of 6 ft & 4 inches in height. The reason for the low ceiling height was that Shah Jaha was merely 5ft & 5 inches in height.  There are two small stairways to reach that room, interestingly two more stairways are also constructed at a distance that ends nowhere only to trick the enemy. The room slab is also a mezzanine floor. There is a large window on the northeast wall of the room, centuries ago river Ravi flows along this wall. King Shah Jahan used to sit there and watched the site of the flowing river. In times of war, he had a bird eye view of battlefields. It was a strange feeling standing in this room, in Shah Jahan, times not even the closest to King were allowed to enter this room. How time has changed dramatically in a few centuries. Mughal, Sikhs, and then British, the place has seen so many eras, but how sadly now not only the Palace but also the history of this palace lost in the dark.

                                me Standing in Secret Room of Shah Jahan

The Palace is now under the control of Walled City Authorities of Lahore. The Walled City officer Mr. Zubair really cooperated with us he has vast knowledge about the place and briefed us very well. My only regret after visiting this place was that we were not allowed to use a tripod stand for taking pictures. In these dark corridors’ it is almost impossible to take handheld shots with low shutters and high isos. Not able to shoot the best pictures as of my liking to document the place. 

Sun light entering in corridors of Palace from North West wall Windows

Mullioned type  window on North West Wall of Palace

The  dark Corridors of Summer Palace

Internee Guides of WCAL were also part of our group who visited the Palace

The  dark Corridors of Summer Palace

Secret escape way

A door in basement

that opens in Sheesh Mehal

Concrete tunnels has been constructed inside the windows, cool river breeze entered and trap inside

The tangled Corridors of Palace

Corridors of Summer Palace

The arches altered in Sikh Era

A junction of two Corridors

Fresco Work on ceiling

Silent Corridors 

Sirkhata lake and Valley Kohsitan

The photo  were taken on second day of our trek. We at last reached to upstream of Sirkhata Lake after a continuous trekking of ten hour. Earlier, we started our day at an altitude of 3400 meter crossed Sirkhata north east pass which is roughly around 4330 meter and then descend to sirkhata valley which was roughly a 90 minutes trekking from Sirkhata pass. The last portion of sirkhata pass was quite inclined and it is difficult to cross before august because of snow. It is advisable that you should bring crampons or at least a rope with you

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The North West Sirkhata Pass, Supat Valley Kohistan

After two days of tough hike on a steep ascent; at last we reached to Sirkhata Lake. In this hike, we also have crossed an unnamed mountain pass which was above 4300 meter in height. This pass located in north-east direction of Sirkhata Lake.

The next question for us was to decide which route we should opt for returning back. We got three options; first, was to be choosing the same trek from which, we had descended down the earlier day to this valley; i.e. the north east mountain pass but that doesn’t end up at Supat Pass and we wanted to see that as well. Also that trek was quite tough and the last portion of this pass was too steep, it was difficult to climb this portion in snow without having proper gear. 

Second option was to trek up to Shames village and then hike on jeep road up to Supat top. According to locals it is a lengthier route and would take a full day to reach Supat top. Even reaching Shames village would take three to four hours from Sirkhata Lake. Before going to this trek I have checked Shames village altitude on Google Earth, it was around 3400 meter and from there going to Supat top was something a hike of 9 km in which we again have to gain an altitude of 1000 meter. So we left the idea of going on this route as well. 

Locals insist us to choose a third option a shorter route for our return, that was a mountain pass run in North West direction of upstream of Sirkhata Lake. We were little afraid for choosing this ‘mountain route pass’ at first, because earlier day the mountain pass which we have crossed in north-west direction was full covered in snow and there were portions where snow was very hard and unfortunately because of not having proper snow gear, I slipped there four times. 

We came to know that a day before our arrival a villager have crossed this pass to enter in valley. He was the first one to do so in this season, he told us though the pass is totally covered in snow but the condition of snow was not hard. So his words gave us confidence to choose this route.

Next day we got up early in the morning, we started our trek around 6:30 a.m., The weather was clear in the morning. Kohastani’s have interesting and hospitable customs. Before leaving everybody again came to meet with us. Earlier night Salman distribute candies among children’s. Every Children eye was glittering with expression of thanks. Also some Villagers hold our luggage and came with us for some distance and then say goodbye to us this is there tradition. We don’t have words of thanks for love and care shown to us by Sirkhata villagers. 

We started hiking upstream of Sirkhata Lake along the small glacial streams. After hiking for one hour, a never ending glacier has started, initially for next 30 minutes the slope on glacier was gradual, than again the tough steep ascent started that was also all covered in snow. We reached at first ridge the height there was around 4300 meter. Still there was no sign of pass, we again started hiking and reached another mountain top but was also not pass. We were standing in different world it was vast mountain pasture all covered in snow. There was feeling in the mind at that time that we were standing in Antarctica, because the white was the only color we could see in all four directions.
Now we could see a mountain series running in west direction, but still our porters were not sure about the actual direction of pass. It was almost five hours that we have left Sirkhata Lake. We did not meet any other human in our way, a panic start creeping, both Salman and me watching each other faces and asked the porters in nervousness where is the pass? The answer was of more desperation, “Sir, I will not tell a lie with you, I am not from this area, I am not sure about the Pass.” 

We could see a mountain range running on our west side, but it is almost impossible to cross this in this season without proper maintaining gear. Among this series there was a ridge which was of lower height. Salman GPS knowledge helped at that time, he confirmed that only this could be the respective mountain pass. It looks almost a straight wall of more than 30 meter height covered in snow. We sent one of our porters first at top; he asked us to wait, He still was not confirmed at last he saw a human some 200 meters down on other side and he started shouting, “Come up”. It was moment of relief. It was a straight climb, thanks to our porters that we able to reach at top without having any proper maintaining gear. 

The scene from top were amazing, we could see a snow covered Supat & Maheen top from there.
Our journey still not end, we have to descend down from this pass and have to trek on snow againto reach Supat top