हिंदीOn this day
Ruined

Amb Temples, Salt Range

Brick and stone temples on a hill in the Sakesar valley of the Salt Range, among the finest left from the Hindu Shahi age. The main shrine still rises three storeys, though no worship has been offered there for centuries.

Built: c. 9th–10th century, in the age of the Hindu ShahisWhere: Punjab (Khushab district), Pakistan, Pakistan32.51° N, 71.94° E
  1. c. 9th–10th century
  2. 1001–1015
Photo: Djshaheer · CC BY-SA 4.0

01Temples of the Salt Range

The Salt Range runs between the Jhelum and the Indus, and in the centuries when the Hindu Shahis ruled from Udabhandapura it was dotted with temples: Katas, Malot, Kafirkot, Nandana, and Amb. At Amb the builders set a tall temple on a high plinth inside a walled hilltop settlement, with a smaller shrine beside it. The tower climbs in receding storeys with trefoil arches and pilasters, a style that shares much with the temples of Kashmir. Archaeologists date the group to roughly the 9th and 10th centuries, from its form; no inscription giving the builder has been found.

02After the Shahis

The Hindu Shahi kings Jayapala and Anandapala fought Mahmud of Ghazni across this country between 1001 and 1015, and after their fall the Salt Range temples lost their patrons and worshippers. Amb stood empty through the centuries that followed. The site is protected by the Punjab archaeology department of Pakistan, and the main temple has been shored up in recent decades; the smaller shrine is in worse condition. Unlike Katas Raj, it is no longer a place of pilgrimage.

The life of this place

  1. c. 9th–10th centuryThe temples are built in the Salt Range under Hindu Shahi rule.
  2. 1001–1015Mahmud of Ghazni defeats Jayapala and Anandapala; the Salt Range passes out of Hindu rule.

Nearby

Katas Raj TemplesRuined
The Age of Great Kingdoms

Katas Raj Temples

A ring of stone temples around a green spring-fed pond in the Salt Range. The pond is held to have formed from Shiva’s tears for Sati, and the Pandavas are said to have spent part of their exile here.

Nandana FortRuined
The long resistance: Sindh to Tarain

Nandana Fort

A fort on a spur of the Salt Range guarding the pass to the Jhelum plain, the last strong place of the Hindu Shahis. Mahmud of Ghazni took it in 1014, and a few years later al-Biruni used its hill to measure the size of the earth.

Attock FortStanding
Maratha ascendancy and the Sikh empire

Attock Fort

The fort over the Indus crossing where Maratha horsemen watered their horses in 1758 and the Sikh army beat the Afghans in 1813. To say a thing ‘reached Attock’ became a Marathi way of saying it reached the farthest frontier.

Takshashila (Taxila)Excavated
Janapadas and the Rise of Magadha

Takshashila (Taxila)

The great city of learning of Gandhara, where Chanakya taught, Jivaka studied medicine and, says the Mahabharata, Vaishampayana first recited the Bharata to Janamejaya. Its three excavated cities, Bhir Mound, Sirkap and Sirsukh, lie outside Rawalpindi.