Peshawar’s Gor Khatri (also pronounced as Gur-khattree) has almost always been an archaeologically and historically important site, from its Gandharan establishment to two millennia later.

The British Library holds from the Babarnama an illustration by Kesu Khurd depicting the Mughal emperor visiting a Hindu temple there. The Walters Art Museum holds a similar (unattributed) illustration from Babar’s memoirs. In his visit on March 26, 1519 AD, he notes that it was a holy place where devotees would have their heads shaved, with several rest houses around it.

Gor Khatri would then re-appear in the Mughal imagination a few generations later, when Jehanara Begum (1614-1681), Shah Jehan’s daughter, was determined to further Mughal imperial legacy. While her architectural prowess was already evident with the establishment of Chandni Chowk in Shahjahanabad (Old Delhi), Jehanara commissioned projects west of the Mughal capital as well. In Peshawar at the site of Gor Khatri, she built a caravanserai, which is mostly how the site has been preserved till today.

A British watercolour painting of an Italian residence in Peshawar reminds us of the city’s Sikh legacy and how one site has seen multiple........

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