LONG BEFORE the Pathan general, Sher Shah Suri, built inns and mail stations along what has come to be known as the Grand Trunk Road, there was a network of highways criss-crossing the fertile Punjab plain and connecting it with regions beyond. One such was the road that crossed the Jhelum river near today´s village of Rasul, entering the Salt Range through the Nandna Pass, and heading west across the Indus at Kalabagh before reaching Bannu, on its way to the markets of Kandahar. The Salt Range is so called because fine quality salt has been mined here since classical times.
This road has seen its share of historical events. Alexander passed this way, and so did Hiuen Tsang, the Chinese traveller who visited India in the 7th century. Late in the 12th century, the doughty Khokhar Rajputs of the Salt Range revolted against the rule of Ghur, and the Ghorids had to struggle hard to keep this connection open. Babur took control of the area on his way to India, and later, Sher Shah Suri gave up claim to this road since he could not subdue the ferocious Gakkhars.
Perhaps the region´s halcyon days were when it was under Kashmiri rule. King Lalitaditya Muktapida of the Karkota dynasty, who ruled Kashmir from AD 624 to 660, brought a large part of Punjab, including the Salt Range, Taxila and Hazara, under his control. Lalitaditya was not only a conqueror. He was a builder who initiated the era of devotional architecture in the Salt Range. The next two hundred years saw a series of fortified temples come up on the high road to Kandahar.
These buildings, which came to be known as Shahiya temples after a subsequent dynasty, saw religious activity for the next four centuries. However, with the advent of Islam, they suffered in varying degrees from the iconoclastic fervour that swept the Subcontinent. There are no pilgrims to these temple ruins today, only the odd visitor with an interest in history and archaeology, for whom these edifices of the Salt Range are deserted reminders of a glorious past.