Samadhi of Raja Ranjit Singh

The Samadhi of Maharaja Ranjit Singh stands beside Gurdwara Dera Sahib in Lahore, at the foot of the fort, and marks the resting place of the ruler who made the Sikh Empire.

Ranjit Singh took Lahore in 1799 and was proclaimed Maharaja in 1801, uniting the misls into a single state that eventually ran from the Khyber to the Sutlej. He was a Sikh sovereign who kept Muslim and Hindu ministers and generals, restored and gilded the Harmandir Sahib at Amritsar, and left the Badshahi Mosque standing a few hundred metres from his own court. He died in 1839; within a decade of his death the empire had been annexed.

The samadhi was completed under his son, Kharak Singh, and is a striking building in its own right — fluted domes, gilded cupolas, and a fusion of Sikh, Mughal and Rajput detail that belongs to no single tradition. Inside, a marble urn holds his ashes.

For yatris, its value is in where it sits. The samadhi, Dera Sahib, Lahore Fort and the Badshahi Mosque stand within sight of one another. Guru Arjan Dev was martyred here in 1606; two centuries later a Sikh ruler held the city and left the mosque untouched. Standing in that one spot is the clearest way to see the whole arc.

Konnect Yatra groups visit as part of the Lahore programme, travelling together with our own transport and staff.

What a visit involves

The samadhi stands next to Gurdwara Dera Sahib and is taken on the same walk, along with the fort and the Badshahi Mosque. Shoes are removed to enter. Inside, the marble urn holding the Maharaja's ashes sits beneath the fluted domes, with smaller urns for those who died at his cremation.

Allow thirty to forty-five minutes within the wider half-day.

Before you go

• Photography rules inside vary. Ask our staff on the day.
• The building is the clearest surviving statement of what Sikh rule in Lahore looked like, and rewards a slow look at the detail rather than a quick circuit.
• From here the gurdwara, the fort and the mosque are all within sight. Ask our staff to point out each one — the geography is the history.

Getting there from your hotel

Beside Dera Sahib at the foot of Lahore Fort, twenty to thirty minutes from the Lahore hotels we use. Konnect Yatra groups travel by private coach with our own staff and cover all four sites on foot once there.