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Grand Trunk Road

September 07, 2023

The Grand Trunk Road (formerly known as Uttarapath, Sarak-e-Azam, Shah Rah-e-Azam, Badshahi Sarak, and Long Walk)[1] is one of Asia's oldest and longest major roads. For at least 2,500 years[3] it has linked Central Asia to the Indian subcontinent. It runs roughly 2,400 km (1,491 mi)[2] from Teknaf, Bangladesh on the border with Myanmar[4][5] west to Kabul, Afghanistan, passing through Chittagong and Dhaka in Bangladesh, Kolkata, Lucknow, Delhi, and Amritsar in India, and Lahore, Gujrat, Rawalpindi, and Peshawar in Pakistan.[6][1]

Grand Trunk Road
Uttarapath, Sadak-e-Azam, Shah Rah-e-Azam, Badshahi Sadak, Long Walk[a]
Route information
Length2,400 km[2] (1,500 mi)
StatusCurrently functional
Existedbefore 322 BCE–present
HistoryMahajanapadas, Maurya, Sur, Mughal and British Empires
Time period322+ BCE–present
Cultural significanceHistory of the Indian subcontinent and South Asian history
Known forTrading
Major junctions
East endTeknaf, Bangladesh
West endKabul, Afghanistan
Location
Major citiesCox's Bazar, Chittagong, Feni, Comilla, Narayanganj, Dhaka, Rajshahi, Kolkata, Burdwan, Durgapur, Asansol, Dhanbad Varanasi, Prayagraj, Kanpur, Agra, Mathura, Aligarh, Delhi, Sonipat, Panipat, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Ambala, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Sasaram, Lahore, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Jalalabad, Kabul
Route of the Grand Trunk Road

The highway was built along an ancient route called Uttarapatha in the 3rd century BCE,[7] extending it from the mouth of the Ganges to the north-western frontier of India. Further improvements to this road were made under Ashoka.[8] The old route was re-aligned by Sher Shah Suri to Sonargaon and Rohtas.[7][9] The Afghan end of the road was rebuilt under Mahmud Shah Durrani.[10][7] The road was considerably rebuilt in the British period between 1833 and 1860.[11]

The road coincides with current N1, Feni, (Chittagong to Dhaka), N4 & N405 (Dhaka to Sirajganj), N507 (Sirajganj to Natore) and N6 (Natore to Rajshai towards Purneain India; NH 12 (Purnea to Bakkhali), NH 27 (Purnea to Patna), NH 19 (Kolkata to Agra), NH 44 (Agra to Jalandhar via New Delhi, Sonipat, Panipat, Ambala and Ludhiana) and NH 3 (Jalandhar to Attari, Amritsar in India towards Lahore in Pakistan) via Wagah; N-5 (Lahore, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Lalamusa, Jhelum, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Khyber Pass towards Jalalabad in Afghanistan) in Pakistan and AH1 (Torkham-Jalalabad to Kabul) to Ghazni in Afghanistan.

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 present-day Indian subcontinent, where parts of the road have been widened and included in the national highway system.[12]

History Edit

See also: Uttarapatha

Ancient times Edit

The Buddhist literature and Indian epics such as Mahabharata provide 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 and Ancient Greece.[13]

Mauryan Empire Edit

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[14] (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 world 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 Purushapura, Takshashila, Hastinapura, Kanyakubja, Prayag, Patliputra and Tamralipta, a distance of around 2,600 kilometres (1,600 mi).[10]

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 route for the travelers. The emperor Kanishka is also known to have controlled the Uttarapatha.[7][15][16]

Suri and Mughal Empires Edit

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 and its breadth increased, a sarai was built, the number of kos minars and baolis 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.[7][8] The route was referred to as "Sadak-e-Azam" by Suri and "Badshahi Sadak" by the Mughals.[17]

British Empire Edit

 
A scene from the Ambala cantonment in British India.

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 Calcutta, 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 chumars, 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."[18]

Republic of India Edit

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".[1] The Indian sections of the Grand Trunk Road coincide with NH 19 and NH 44 of the National Highways in India.

Psephologists 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".[19][20]

Gallery Edit

See also Edit

Modern roads in Asia Edit

  • 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
Pakistan
India

Notes Edit

  1. ^ The road was known as Uttarapatha during the Mauryan period (4th – 2nd Century BCE), Sadak-e-Azam or Shah Rah-e-Azam (The Great Road) during Suri period (1540-1556 CE), as Badshahi Sadak (King's Road) during Mughal period and as Grand Trunk Road or Long Walk during the British period.[1]

References Edit

  1. ^ a b c d Centre, UNESCO World Heritage. "Sites along the Uttarapath, Badshahi Sadak, Sadak-e-Azam, Grand Trunk Road". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Retrieved 26 December 2018.
  2. ^ a b The Atlantic: "India's Grand Trunk Road"
  3. ^ UNESCO, Caravanserais along the Grand Trunk Road in Pakistan
  4. ^ Steel, Tim (1 January 2015). "A road to empires". Dhaka Tribune. Retrieved 19 July 2016.
  5. ^ Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey (15 September 2015). "Cuisine along G T Road". The Times of India. Calcutta. Retrieved 19 July 2016.
  6. ^ Khanna, Parag. "How to Redraw the World Map". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 19 July 2016.
  7. ^ a b c d e Vadime Elisseeff, p. 159-162, The Silk Roads: Highways of Culture and Commerce
  8. ^ a b Romila Thapar, p. 236, Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300
  9. ^ Farooqui Salma Ahmed, p. 234, A Comprehensive History of Medieval India: From Twelfth to the Mid-Eighteenth Century
  10. ^ a b K. M. Sarkar (1927). The Grand Trunk Road in the Punjab: 1849-1886. Atlantic Publishers & Distri. pp. 2–. GGKEY:GQWKH1K79D6.
  11. ^ 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
  12. ^ Singh, Raghubir (1995). The Grand Trunk Road: A Passage Through India (First ed.). Aperture Books. ISBN 9780893816445.
  13. ^ Sanjeev, Sanyal (15 November 2012). Land of the Seven Rivers: A Brief History of India's Geography. Penguin Random House India Private Limited. pp. 72–73, 103. ISBN 9788184756715.
  14. ^ Benjamin Walker, p. 69, Hindu World: An Encyclopedic Survey of Hinduism. In Two Volumes. Volume II M-Z
  15. ^ "Grand Trunk Road since Pre Mahabharata Times; Here are Evidences". 20 April 2020.
  16. ^ "Grand Trunk Road: Uttarapatha, The Silk Route of India". 26 August 2021.
  17. ^ Anu Kapur, p. 84, Mapping Place Names of India
  18. ^ A description of the road by Kipling, found both in his letters and in the novel Kim.
  19. ^ NuNuBJP on a strong footing in northern districts, Hindustan Times, 30 March 2016.
  20. ^ Haryana assembly elections: BJP counts on strategy, Times of India, 6 October 2019.

External links Edit

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Grand Trunk Road.
 
Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Grand Trunk Road.
  • Farooque, Abdul Khair Muhammad (1977), Roads and Communications in Mughal India. Delhi: Idarah-i Adabiyat-i Delli.
  • Weller, Anthony (1997), Days and Nights on the Grand Trunk Road: Calcutta to Khyber. Marlowe & Company.
  • Kipling, Rudyard (1901), Kim. Considered one of Kipling's finest works, it is set mostly along the Grand Trunk Road. Free e-texts are available, for instance here.
  • Usha Masson Luther; Moonis Raza (1990). Historical routes of north west Indian Subcontinent, Lahore to Delhi, 1550s–1850s A.D. Sagar Publications.
  • Arden, Harvey (May 1990). "Along the Grand Trunk Road". National Geographic. 177 (5): 118–38.
  • Mozammel, Md Muktadir Arif (2012). "Grand Trunk Road". In Islam, Sirajul; Jamal, Ahmed A. (eds.). Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.
  • Tayler, Jeffrey (November 1999). "India's Grand Trunk Road". The Atlantic Monthly. 284 (5): 42–48.
  • National Highway Authority of Pakistan
  • NPR: Along the Grand Trunk Road

27°20′13″N 79°03′50″E / 27.337°N 79.064°E / 27.337; 79.064

September 07, 2023
grand, trunk, road, formerly, known, uttarapath, sarak, azam, shah, azam, badshahi, sarak, long, walk, asia, oldest, longest, major, roads, least, years, linked, central, asia, indian, subcontinent, runs, roughly, from, teknaf, bangladesh, border, with, myanma. The Grand Trunk Road formerly known as Uttarapath Sarak e Azam Shah Rah e Azam Badshahi Sarak and Long Walk 1 is one of Asia s oldest and longest major roads For at least 2 500 years 3 it has linked Central Asia to the Indian subcontinent It runs roughly 2 400 km 1 491 mi 2 from Teknaf Bangladesh on the border with Myanmar 4 5 west to Kabul Afghanistan passing through Chittagong and Dhaka in Bangladesh Kolkata Lucknow Delhi and Amritsar in India and Lahore Gujrat Rawalpindi and Peshawar in Pakistan 6 1 Grand Trunk RoadUttarapath Sadak e Azam Shah Rah e Azam Badshahi Sadak Long Walk a Route informationLength2 400 km 2 1 500 mi StatusCurrently functionalExistedbefore 322 BCE presentHistoryMahajanapadas Maurya Sur Mughal and British EmpiresTime period322 BCE presentCultural significanceHistory of the Indian subcontinent and South Asian historyKnown forTradingMajor junctionsEast endTeknaf BangladeshWest endKabul AfghanistanLocationMajor citiesCox s Bazar Chittagong Feni Comilla Narayanganj Dhaka Rajshahi Kolkata Burdwan Durgapur Asansol Dhanbad Varanasi Prayagraj Kanpur Agra Mathura Aligarh Delhi Sonipat Panipat Karnal Kurukshetra Ambala Ludhiana Jalandhar Amritsar Sasaram Lahore Gujranwala Gujrat Rawalpindi Peshawar Jalalabad KabulRoute of the Grand Trunk RoadThe highway was built along an ancient route called Uttarapatha in the 3rd century BCE 7 extending it from the mouth of the Ganges to the north western frontier of India Further improvements to this road were made under Ashoka 8 The old route was re aligned by Sher Shah Suri to Sonargaon and Rohtas 7 9 The Afghan end of the road was rebuilt under Mahmud Shah Durrani 10 7 The road was considerably rebuilt in the British period between 1833 and 1860 11 The road coincides with current N1 Feni Chittagong to Dhaka N4 amp N405 Dhaka to Sirajganj N507 Sirajganj to Natore and N6 Natore to Rajshai towards Purneain India NH 12 Purnea to Bakkhali NH 27 Purnea to Patna NH 19 Kolkata to Agra NH 44 Agra to Jalandhar via New Delhi Sonipat Panipat Ambala and Ludhiana and NH 3 Jalandhar to Attari Amritsar in India towards Lahore in Pakistan via Wagah N 5 Lahore Gujranwala Gujrat Lalamusa Jhelum Rawalpindi Peshawar and Khyber Pass towards Jalalabad in Afghanistan in Pakistan and AH1 Torkham Jalalabad to Kabul to Ghazni in Afghanistan 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 present day Indian subcontinent where parts of the road have been widened and included in the national highway system 12 Contents 1 History 1 1 Ancient times 1 2 Mauryan Empire 1 3 Suri and Mughal Empires 1 4 British Empire 1 5 Republic of India 2 Gallery 3 See also 3 1 Modern roads in Asia 4 Notes 5 References 6 External linksHistory EditSee also Uttarapatha Ancient times Edit The Buddhist literature and Indian epics such as Mahabharata provide 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 and Ancient Greece 13 Mauryan Empire Edit 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 14 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 world 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 Purushapura Takshashila Hastinapura Kanyakubja Prayag Patliputra and Tamralipta a distance of around 2 600 kilometres 1 600 mi 10 The route of Chandragupta was built over the ancient Uttarapatha or the Northern Road which had been mentioned by Paṇini 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 route for the travelers The emperor Kanishka is also known to have controlled the Uttarapatha 7 15 16 Suri and Mughal Empires Edit 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 and its breadth increased a sarai was built the number of kos minars and baolis 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 7 8 The route was referred to as Sadak e Azam by Suri and Badshahi Sadak by the Mughals 17 British Empire Edit A scene from the Ambala cantonment in British India 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 Calcutta 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 chumars 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 18 Republic of India Edit 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 1 The Indian sections of the Grand Trunk Road coincide with NH 19 and NH 44 of the National Highways in India Psephologists 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 19 20 Gallery Edit Mughal era Kos Minar along GT road at Sonipat India Grand Trunk Road in Uttarpradesh India GT Road near Barhi India Grand Trunk Road towards Burdwan from Hooghly GT Road in Lahore Pakistan GT road in Gujranwala Pakistan GT Road above the River Jhelum Pakistan Original GT Road passing through Margalla Hills to Kala Chitta Range Pakistan Newly realigned GT Road passing by the westernmost point of Margalla Hills to Kala Chitta Range Pakistan Kabul Jalalabad Road Afghanistan is westernmost stretch of the GT Road Mountain pass on the Kabul Jalalabad Road Afghanistan See also EditRoyal Road Roman roads Via Regia Silk Road ancient Sino Indo European route Via Maris International Trunk Road modern name of main ancient international route between Egypt and Mesopotamia Modern roads in Asia Edit 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 AsiaAfghanistanHighway 1 Afghanistan 2 200 km 1 400 mi circular road network inside AfghanistanPakistanNational Highways of Pakistan all government highways Motorways of Pakistan network of major expresswaysIndiaNational 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 IndiaNotes Edit The road was known as Uttarapatha during the Mauryan period 4th 2nd Century BCE Sadak e Azam or Shah Rah e Azam The Great Road during Suri period 1540 1556 CE as Badshahi Sadak King s Road during Mughal period and as Grand Trunk Road or Long Walk during the British period 1 References Edit a b c d Centre UNESCO World Heritage Sites along the Uttarapath Badshahi Sadak Sadak e Azam Grand Trunk Road UNESCO World Heritage Centre Retrieved 26 December 2018 a b The Atlantic India s Grand Trunk Road UNESCO Caravanserais along the Grand Trunk Road in Pakistan Steel Tim 1 January 2015 A road to empires Dhaka Tribune Retrieved 19 July 2016 Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey 15 September 2015 Cuisine along G T Road The Times of India Calcutta Retrieved 19 July 2016 Khanna Parag How to Redraw the World Map The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 19 July 2016 a b c d e Vadime Elisseeff p 159 162 The Silk Roads Highways of Culture and Commerce a b Romila Thapar p 236 Early India From the Origins to AD 1300 Farooqui Salma Ahmed p 234 A Comprehensive History of Medieval India From Twelfth to the Mid Eighteenth Century a b K M Sarkar 1927 The Grand Trunk Road in the Punjab 1849 1886 Atlantic Publishers amp Distri pp 2 GGKEY GQWKH1K79D6 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 Singh Raghubir 1995 The Grand Trunk Road A Passage Through India First ed Aperture Books ISBN 9780893816445 Sanjeev Sanyal 15 November 2012 Land of the Seven Rivers A Brief History of India s Geography Penguin Random House India Private Limited pp 72 73 103 ISBN 9788184756715 Benjamin Walker p 69 Hindu World An Encyclopedic Survey of Hinduism In Two Volumes Volume II M Z Grand Trunk Road since Pre Mahabharata Times Here are Evidences 20 April 2020 Grand Trunk Road Uttarapatha The Silk Route of India 26 August 2021 Anu Kapur p 84 Mapping Place Names of India A description of the road by Kipling found both in his letters and in the novel Kim NuNuBJP on a strong footing in northern districts Hindustan Times 30 March 2016 Haryana assembly elections BJP counts on strategy Times of India 6 October 2019 External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Grand Trunk Road Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Grand Trunk Road Farooque Abdul Khair Muhammad 1977 Roads and Communications in Mughal India Delhi Idarah i Adabiyat i Delli Weller Anthony 1997 Days and Nights on the Grand Trunk Road Calcutta to Khyber Marlowe amp Company Kipling Rudyard 1901 Kim Considered one of Kipling s finest works it is set mostly along the Grand Trunk Road Free e texts are available for instance here Usha Masson Luther Moonis Raza 1990 Historical routes of north west Indian Subcontinent Lahore to Delhi 1550s 1850s A D Sagar Publications Arden Harvey May 1990 Along the Grand Trunk Road National Geographic 177 5 118 38 Mozammel Md Muktadir Arif 2012 Grand Trunk Road In Islam Sirajul Jamal Ahmed A eds Banglapedia National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh Second ed Asiatic Society of Bangladesh Tayler Jeffrey November 1999 India s Grand Trunk Road The Atlantic Monthly 284 5 42 48 National Highway Authority of India National Highway Authority of Pakistan NPR Along the Grand Trunk Road 27 20 13 N 79 03 50 E 27 337 N 79 064 E 27 337 79 064 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Grand Trunk Road amp oldid 1170155911, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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