The Grand Trunk Road (formerly known as Uttarapath, Sadak-e-Azam, Shah Rah-e-Azam, Badshahi Sadak, and Long Walk)[UNESCO, Caravanserais along the Grand Trunk Road in Pakistan ] it has linked Central Asia to the Indian subcontinent. It runs roughly
The highway was built along an ancient route called Uttarapatha in the 3rd century BCE,[Vadime Elisseeff, p. 159-162, The Silk Roads: Highways of Culture and Commerce][Farooqui Salma Ahmed, p. 234, A Comprehensive History of Medieval India: From Twelfth to the Mid-Eighteenth Century] The Afghan end of the road was rebuilt under Mahmud Shah Durrani.[David Arnold (historian);
Science, technology, and medicine in colonial India (New Cambr hist India v.III.5)
Cambridge University Press, 2000, 234 pages p. 106]
Over the centuries, the road acted as one of the major trade routes in the region and facilitated both travel and postal communication. The Grand Trunk Road is still used for transportation in the present-day Indian subcontinent, where parts of the road have been widened and included in the national highway system.
The road coincides with the current N1, Feni District (Chittagong to Dhaka), N4 & N405 (Dhaka to Sirajganj), N507 (Sirajganj to Natore) and N6 (Natore to Rajshahi towards Purnia in India; NH 12 (Purnea to Bakkhali), NH 27 (Purnea to Patna), NH 19 (Kolkata to Agra), NH 44 (Agra to Jalandhar via New Delhi, Panipat, Karnal, Ambala and Ludhiana) and NH 3 (Jalandhar to Attari, Amritsar in India towards Lahore in Pakistan) via Wagah; N-5 (Lahore, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Lalamusa, Kharian, Jhelum, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Khyber Pass towards Jalalabad in Afghanistan) in Pakistan and AH1 (Torkham-Jalalabad to Kabul) to Ghazni in Afghanistan.
History
Ancient times
The
Buddhist texts and Indian epics such as
Mahabharata refer to the existence of Grand Trunk road even before the
Maurya Empire and was called
Uttarapatha or the "Northern road". The road connected the eastern region of India with Central Asia, the terminus of the
Khorasan Road.
Mauryan Empire
The precursor of the modern Grand Trunk road was built on the orders of the emperor Chandragupta Maurya and was inspired by the Persian
Royal Road[Benjamin Walker, p. 69, Hindu World: An Encyclopedic Survey of Hinduism. In Two Volumes. Volume II M-Z] (more precisely, its eastern stretch, the Great Khurasan Road that ran from Media to
Bactria). During the time of the
Mauryan Empire in the 3rd century BCE, overland trade between India and several parts of Western Asia and Bactria went through the cities of the north-west, primarily Takshashila and
Purushapura (present-day
Taxila and
Peshawar respectively, in
Pakistan). Takshashila was well connected by roads with other parts of the Mauryan Empire. The Mauryas had maintained this very ancient highway from Takshashila to
Patliputra (present-day
Patna in India). Chandragupta Maurya had a whole army of officials overseeing the maintenance of this road as told by the Greek diplomat
Megasthenes who spent fifteen years at the Mauryan court. Constructed in eight stages, this road is said to have connected the cities of
Peshawar,
Taxila,
,
Kannauj,
Allahabad,
Patliputra and
Tamralipta, a distance of around .
The route of Chandragupta was built over the ancient "Uttarapatha" or the Northern Road, which had been mentioned by Pāṇini. The emperor Ashoka had it recorded in his edict about having trees planted, wells built at every half kos and many "nimisdhayas", which is often translated as rest-houses along the Thoroughfare for the travelers. The emperor Kanishka is also known to have controlled the Uttarapatha.
Suri and Mughal Empires
Sher Shah Suri, the medieval ruler of the
Sur Empire, took to repair The Chandragupta's Royal Road in the 16th century. The old route was further rerouted at
Sonargaon and
Rohtas district and its breadth increased, a
Caravanserai was built, the number of
Kos Minar and
Stepwell increased. Gardens were also built alongside some sections of the highway. Those who stopped at the sarai were provided food for free. His son Islam Shah Suri constructed an additional sarai in-between every sarai originally built by Sher Shah Suri on the road toward Bengal. More sarais were built under the
Mughals.
Jahangir under his reign issued a decree that all sarais be built of burnt brick and stone. Broad-leaved trees were planted in the stretch between Lahore and Agra and he built bridges over all water bodies that were situated on the path of the highways.
The route was referred to as "Sadak-e-Azam" by Suri and "Badshahi Sadak" by the Mughals.
[Anu Kapur, p. 84, Mapping Place Names of India]
British Empire
In the 1830s the East India Company started a program of metalled road construction, for both commercial and administrative purposes. The road, now named the Grand Trunk Road, from
Kolkata, through
Delhi, to
Kabul,
Afghanistan was rebuilt at a cost of £1000/mile.
The road is mentioned in a number of literary works including those of Foster and Rudyard Kipling. Kipling described the road as: "Look! Look again! and Chamar, bankers and tinkers, barbers and bunnias, pilgrims – and potters – all the world going and coming. It is to me as a river from which I am withdrawn like a log after a flood. And truly the Grand Trunk Road is a wonderful spectacle. It runs straight, bearing without crowding India's traffic for fifteen hundred miles – such a river of life as nowhere else exists in the world."[A description of the road by Kipling, found both in his letters and in the novel Kim .]
Republic of India
The ensemble of historic sites along the road in India was submitted to the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2015, under the title "Sites along the Uttarapath, Badshahi Sadak, Sadak-e-Azam, Banho, Grand Trunk Road".
The Indian sections of the Grand Trunk Road coincide with NH 19, NH 112 and NH 44 of the National Highways in India.
Psephology sometimes refer to the area around the GT Road as the "GT Road belt" it is also known as Gujarat road sometimes within the context of elections. For example, during the elections in Haryana the area on either side of the GT Road from Ambala to Sonipat, which has 28 legislative assembly constituencies where there is no dominance of one caste or community, is referred to as the "GT road belt of Haryana".[NuNu BJP on a strong footing in northern districts, Hindustan Times, 30 March 2016.][ Haryana assembly elections: BJP counts on strategy , The Times of India, 6 October 2019.]
Distance guide between cities
Distance calculation is based as per Google Maps.
==Gallery==
, India]]
, Pakistan]]
, Pakistan]]
, Pakistan]]
to Kala Chitta Range, Pakistan]]
to Kala Chitta Range, Pakistan]]
See also
Modern roads in Asia
-
AH1, or Asian Highway 1 – the longest route of the Asian Highway Network, running from Japan to Turkey
-
Asian Highway Network (AH), aka the Great Asian Highway - project to improve the highway systems in Asia
- Afghanistan
-
Highway 1 (Afghanistan) – circular road network inside Afghanistan
- Pakistan
-
National Highways of Pakistan, all government highways
-
Motorways of Pakistan – network of major expressways
- India
-
National highways in India – network of government-managed highways
-
Expressways in India – the highest class of roads in the Indian road network
-
Golden Quadrilateral – highway network connecting major centres of northern, western, southern and eastern India
-
National Highways Development Project – a project to upgrade and widen major highways in India
-
National Highways Authority of India
Notes
External links
