Ali Usman Baig : 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.