Kapurthalaਕਪੂਰਥਲਾ

The French-styled princely state

Kapurthala was the capital of a Sikh princely state ruled by the Ahluwalia dynasty, and its maharajas gave the town an architectural character found nowhere else in Punjab. Maharaja Jagatjit Singh, who travelled widely in Europe, built the Jagatjit Palace on the model of Versailles, the Moorish Mosque on the pattern of Marrakech, and the Elysee Palace in the French style.

The state merged into the Patiala and East Punjab States Union in 1948, but its palaces, the Shalimar Gardens and the Panch Mandir still give Kapurthala town the air of a small European-inflected capital. The Sainik School now occupies the Elysee Palace grounds.

Sultanpur Lodhi and Guru Nanak

The district's greatest spiritual claim is Sultanpur Lodhi, where Guru Nanak spent more than fourteen years working as a storekeeper in the service of the local governor. It was here, on the banks of the rivulet Kali Bein, that the Guru had the enlightenment after which he declared there is no Hindu, there is no Muslim. The town's gurdwaras mark the sites of those years, and the Kali Bein itself has been revived in recent decades as a model of community-led river cleaning.

The district today

Modern Kapurthala district, with about 815,000 people counted in 2011, mixes the old princely town with industrial Phagwara, home to the Rail Coach Factory, and the Pushpa Gujral Science City on the Jalandhar road, Punjab's great science museum. Its fields grow wheat and paddy for the Doaba mandis.

The district's towns are Kapurthala, Phagwara, Sultanpur Lodhi and Bhulath. Village-level pages for Kapurthala district are being added to the Kosh.