Every piece in the archive
The full index: history in chronological order, then language, music, and the culture and land of Punjab. New articles join this page as the archive grows.
History
History · 16 pieces
Harappan Punjab: The Cities Beneath the Mounds
Harappa and the Indus Valley Civilisation: how the cities rose, how they worked and why they emptied.
Taxila: The City of Teachers
Five thousand years in one valley of northern Punjab: its cities, its teachers and students, Alexander and Ashoka, the monasteries, and the truth about the "world's first university".
The Battle of the Hydaspes, 326 BCE
Alexander, Porus and a stormy night on the Jhelum, 326 BCE: the battle, the elephants, the famous "like a king", and what Punjab remembers.
The Buddhist Millennium
How Buddhism flourished in the Punjab for a thousand years, who paid for it, and why it faded: from Ashoka's pillar at Topra to the peaches of Chinapati.
Lahore: The City That Kept Becoming a Capital
Sultans, a Mughal emperor, Sikh chiefs, a maharaja and the British all ruled the Punjab from Lahore. The thousand-year story of how it became a capital, and why it never stopped being one.
The Creation of Sikhi
How Sikhi began: Guru Nanak from Talwandi to Kartarpur, the three pillars, the nine Gurus who followed him, and what the evidence can and cannot tell us.
The Wanderer Who Farmed: Guru Nanak at Kartarpur
Why did the most travelled teacher of his age stop travelling? Guru Nanak’s village on the Ravi, c. 1520–1539: how it began, how its first Sikhs lived, and what the river kept.
The Making of the Adi Granth
How Guru Arjan and the scribe Bhai Gurdas compiled Sikh scripture in 1604: what went into it, the languages it speaks, and the manuscripts still argued over.
The Creation of the Khalsa
Vaisakhi 1699 at Anandpur: why Guru Gobind Singh created the Khalsa, who the Panj Pyare were, where the Five Ks come from, and what the oldest witnesses wrote.
The Afghan Century and the Rise of the Misls
How Ahmad Shah Durrani won almost every battle in the Punjab and still lost it, and how hunted bands of Sikh horsemen became the rulers of Lahore.
Maharaja Ranjit Singh & the Sikh Empire
How Maharaja Ranjit Singh united the Punjab into a sovereign Sikh Empire (1799–1849), the court he built, and why it fell within a decade of his death.
Hari Singh Nalwa and the Gate of the Khyber
Ranjit Singh's frontier general: governor of Kashmir, Hazara and Peshawar, his death at Jamrud in 1837, and the name Pashtun mothers used to hush their children.
The British Annexation of Punjab, 1849
A decade of murder and war, a disputed treaty, a boy king, a queen in exile and the Koh-i-Noor: how the Sikh kingdom of Lahore became a British province.
The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, 1919
Vaisakhi 1919 in Amritsar: the Rowlatt Act, ten minutes of firing into a crowd with almost no way out, the disputed death toll, and the long road to Caxton Hall in 1940.
The Partition of Punjab, 1947
How a province of five rivers came to be cut in two: why it happened, how the line was drawn, what it cost in lives and homes, and how Punjabis on both banks rebuilt.
The Great Migrations
How Punjabis from both sides of the new border left for Britain, Canada, the US and the Gulf within a generation of Partition.
Language
Language · 2 pieces
Heer — Waris Shah, 1766 · The Parallel Reader
Read the opening of Waris Shah's Heer in an annotated parallel edition: Gurmukhi or Shahmukhi beside a faithful English translation, with every word tappable and savable.
Tere Ishq Nachaya — Bulleh Shah · The Parallel Reader
Read Bulleh Shah's kafi 'Tere Ishq Nachaya' in an annotated parallel edition: Gurmukhi or Shahmukhi beside a faithful English translation, with every word tappable and savable.
Music & Poetry
Music & Poetry · 7 pieces
Sunder Mundriye — the Lohri song
The most widely-known Punjabi children's song, taught line by line: both scripts, every word tappable, the true story of Dulla Bhatti, and a free beginner piano arrangement.
Kikli Kaleer Di — the spinning-game rhyme
Four lines, a perfect rhyme, and the best first grammar lesson in Punjabi: why the possessive says dī in one line and dā in the next.
Kokla Chhapaki — the chasing-game chant
The playground chant read word by word: the game's rules, the jihṛā…ohdī pattern, and the one word that carries four centuries of shared vocabulary.
Baba Farid: look into your own collar
A salok from the Guru Granth Sahib read word by word: don’t write black marks, bow your head and look within.
Bulleh Shah — “Bullā kī jāṇā maiṅ kaun”
The most famous question in Punjabi poetry, read stanza by stanza — both scripts, transliteration, and what every negation is doing.
The Instruments of Punjab
Eight instruments grouped by how the sound is made — tumbi to rabab — with honest histories, labelled attributions, and a playable dhol.
Kuldeep Manak, the King of Kalis
Born Latif Mohammad in a Bathinda village, he became Kaliyan da Badshah: his life, his songs with Dev Tharike Wala, and why he is still being remixed.
Culture & Geography
Culture & Geography · 8 pieces
The Five Rivers of Punjab
Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej: the five waters that named Punjab, the stories on their banks, and the place where they meet.
The Naqsha: an illustrated map of the land of five rivers
An illustrated map of undivided Punjab: five rivers falling to one confluence, shared sacred places, courtyards, fields and commons, every scene a door into the archive.
The Punjabi Calendar
The Punjabi calendar for any day from 1469 to 2100: Desi month and sangrand, tithi, samvat and Nanakshahi date, reckoned for Amritsar, Lahore, London or Vancouver.
Diwali and Bandi Chhor Divas: why the lamps are lit
Why Punjab lights its lamps on the night with no moon: four stories, the five days, and the date where you live.
Punjabi wedding traditions: every event, explained
The whole wedding week in order, from the turmeric to the doli: what happens at each event, what to wear and give, and why.
Anand Karaj: the Sikh wedding ceremony, explained
The Sikh wedding, explained for guests: what happens in the room, what to do, and what the four laavan mean.
Punjabi Literature in Two Scripts
Punjabi literature across both Punjabs: the Sufi lyric, the Sikh scriptural corpus and the qisse, read in Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi since the 1200s.
Zafarnama: Guru Gobind Singh's Letter in Verse to Aurangzeb
All 111 couplets of the Persian letter in verse Guru Gobind Singh sent to Aurangzeb, in the Gurmukhi of record with an ISO 15919 romanisation.