Kos Minar, Nurdi

Standing in the fields at Nurdi, west of the village and opposite the tomb and sarai, this slender brick pillar is a kos-minar, a distance marker of the old Agra-Lahore highway. The route passed through Nurdi on its way from Tarn Taran towards Sarai Amanat Khan and Raja Taal. In 1619 the emperor Jahangir ordered Baqir Khan, the faujdar of Multan, to put up a pillar at every kos along this road, and to sink a well at every third kos, so that travellers would not suffer from thirst or heat. Historian Subhash Parihar calls the pillars the Mughal equivalent of milestones. Whether this one dates from that order is not recorded. Kos-minars follow a standard form. A tapering octagonal base rises to about half the total height, then gives way to a tapering round shaft with a rounded top. A moulding separates the two parts, and bands of colour mark the junction and the top. The brick was covered in plaster. At Sultanpur Lodhi, a pillar of this type stands more than 7.5 m high. The pillar once served the travellers who stopped at Sarai Nur al-Din, the caravanserai that gave Nurdi its name.