Jalandhar

Jalandhar stands in the Doaba, also called the Bist Doab, the tract of Punjab between the Beas and the Sutlej. Its name is linked by tradition with the Nath teacher Jalandhara, or with the land lying within the waters. The city sits on the old Grand Trunk Road across the northern plain, and in ancient times it was known as Prasthala, capital of the kingdom of Trigarta.

Under the Lodi sultans the Doab was governed by Daulat Khan Lodi, who later became governor of Lahore and invited Babur into India. Under the Mughals the city belonged to the province of Lahore. From 1628 the Sikh Guru Hargobind made nearby Kartarpur the base of his community, until he moved to Kiratpur in 1634. As Mughal rule broke down in the eighteenth century, Persians, Afghans and Sikhs fought over the Doab. Adina Beg Khan, who administered it for Lahore, rose to be Nawab of Punjab in 1758. Sikh war bands took Jalandhar in 1766, and in 1811 Ranjit Singh incorporated it into the Sikh Empire.