Tilla Jogian is the highest peak in the Eastern Salt Range in Punjab, Pakistan.

Tilla Jogian
in Punjabi means the hill of saints. At 975 meters (3200ft) above sea level, is located at
33°24′N 73°18′E , it is about 25 km to the west of Jhelum city and 10 km west of the
model village of Khukha. It is situated on a commanding place near the Jhelum River.
From its height of 3200 feet, you can see a panorama unparallel in Pakistan.

Hindu Temple at Tilla Jogian: For thousand of years it was a place of sun worship for the
Hindus because the Sun can be seen here earlier and sets here later due to its height. It
became a place of worship for Hindus.

Tradition holds that Tilla Jogian was founded 100 B.C.Tilla Jogian also means Hill of the
Yogis. This is where the Kanpatha (pierced ears) Jogis, who pierced their earlobes,
founded by Guru Gorakh Nath have left behind a monastery.
Tilla Jogian also finds mention in the epic love poem Heer Ranjha of Spiritual poet Waris
Shah, and Ranjha spent his time on the rebound, sublimating his love & passion in the
spiritual world, came here for consolation and got his ears ringed here as was the
tradition of Guru Goraknath’s followers.

For the Hindu and Sikh Punjabi there is another significance to Tilla Jogian as Guru Nanak
Dev-II spent 40 days in quiet seclusion of Tilla Jogian, Baba Guru Nanak, the founder of
the Sikhism. The Sikhs in Ranjit Singh period made a stone pond here in his memory.

Moghul Emperor Jehangir visited this place many times. About the famous iconoclast of
Punjabi romantic folklore Heer (female) Ranjha (male), it is said that Ranjha became a
Jogi (ascetic) when he discovered the Tilla (hill) of Jogi Gorakhnath while he was
wandering the villages of Punjab in a state of despair and heart-break.

The British made a road and a pond here too for water. Pond in memory of Guru Nanak
Dev who was born on 5 November 1469 in a Bedi family of Hindu Khatri clan, in the village
of Rai Bhoi di Talvandi, now called Nankana Sahib, near Lahore (in present-day Pakistan).
His father, Mehta Kalu, was a Patwari—an accountant of land revenue in the
government. He worked for the Muslim landlord of the village, Rai Bullar. Guru Nanak’s
mother was Tripta Devi and he had one older sister, Nanaki.. The Janamsakhis recount in
minute detail all the circumstances of the birth of the guru. They claim that at his birth,
an astrologer who came to write his horoscope insisted on seeing the child. On seeing
the infant, he is said to have worshipped him with clasped hands. The astrologer is said
to have remarked that he regretted that he should never live to see young Guru Nanak’s
eminence, worshipped as he should be alike by Hindus and Muslims, and not merely by
Hindus.

At the age of five years Nanak is said to have begun to discuss spiritual and divine
subjects. At age seven, his father Mehta Kalu enrolled him at the village school. Nanak
left school early after he had shown his scholastic proficiency. He then took to private
study and meditation.

All the Janamsakhis are unanimous in stating that Nanak courted the retirement of the
local forest and the society of the religious men who frequented it. Several of them were
profoundly versed in the Indian religious literature of the age. They had also traveled far
and wide within the limits of ancient India, and met its renowned religious teachers.
Nanak thus became acquainted with the latest teachings of Indian philosophers and
reformers.

History states that he made four great journeys, traveling to all parts of India, and into
Arabia and Persia, visiting Mecca and Baghdad. He spoke before Hindus, Jains, Buddhists,
Parsees, and Muslims. He spoke in the temples and mosques, and at various pilgrimage
sites. Wherever he went, Nanak spoke out against empty religious rituals, pilgrimages,
the caste system, the sacrifice of widows, of depending on books to learn the true
religion, and of all the other tenets that were to define his teachings. Never did he ask his
listeners to follow him. He asked the Muslims to be true Muslims and the Hindus to be true
Hindus.

That was also the time when the monastery of Tilla Jogian thrived. Its hostels were
home to acolytes of the Kunphutta (pierced ears) sect of jogis from all over India tutored
by dozens of accomplished masters of the creed. That had been the way since its
inception in the 1st century BC. That was when the great guru Goraknath lived and
established both the sect and the monastery. History tells us of two illustrious ones
among the guru’s disciples: Raja Bhartari, the philosophical prince of Ujjain, who gave up
the throne early in the 1st century BC to become a jogi. And in that same period, Puran
the prince of Sialkot much wronged by his libidinous step-mother. Both found spiritual
fulfillment in the tutelage of Guru Goraknath.

The monastery thrived for two thousand years. For two thousand years followers of
different persuasions resorted here to become jogis. Most names are lost, but we know
that Guru Nanak spent the prescribed forty days worshipping his Lord in the quiet
seclusion of Tilla Jogian. Tilla Jogian is the highest peak of the Salt Range, which is known
for its temples, forts and fossilized rocks and trees. This peak is famous for its ruins of
Hindu temples dating back to the time when Alexander the Great came to this part of
the world as the head of a military expedition. Scenic and beautiful, Tilla Jogian is a
pleasant picnic spot from where one can have a magnificent view of the river Jhelum
and the vast landscape of the Potohar Plateau.

The remains of the monastery which Guru Goraknath, the founder of the Jogi tradition in
India during the reign of Raja Salvahan of Sialkot in the first century BC, established to
spread Hindu education with special emphasis on meditation.

Many traditional stories have been attributed to Tilla Jogian.

One of them relates to Raja Bharthi, also known in history as Puran Bhagat, the elder
brother of Raja Vikramaditya of Ujjain, who left his throne to his brother to join the
monastery as a disciple of Guru Goraknath. A samadhi (grave) on the top of the mound is
said to be that of Puran Bhagat, a legendary character in Punjabi folk.
According to another tradition, the legendary romantic hero, Ranjha, joined the
fraternity of jogis at this very place after his heart was broken because Heer was
forcibly married off to someone else. He travelled all the way from Sial in Jhang, the
village of Heer of Sialan, to Tilla Jogian away from Jhelum, to become the ‘faqir of Heer’.
Dressed in saffron robes with ears pierced and wearing wooden slippers, Ranjha
resumed his journey to find his beloved from this mound carrying a begging bowl.

Another story links Tilla Jogian with Abu Rehan Al-Bairuni, the mathematician and
scholar of the Mahmood Ghaznavi period, who spent 13 years in this area to discover the
circumference of the world. He first sat on Tilla Jogian and then the Nandna Fort to
accomplish his rare scientific feat, which is to date acknowledged as the correct
measurement of the global circumference. The scientist, historian and philosopher from
Afghanistan, considered to be a rebel by the rulers of Ghazna, has narrated his visits to
the Salt Range in his famous book Kitabul Hind.

For Mughal monarchs, the pine-strewn heights of Tilla Jogian must have been a welcome
respite from the summer of Punjab as they usually stopped here during their journey
between Lahore and Kashmir. It was because of this stopover that Mughal Emperor
Akbar got a water tank built here.

The mound area has three groups of old structures at its top. Twelve temples, a shrine
and a monastery, all in ruins, stand out among them. A central water tank and a well
built in the Central Asian style from the Mughal period also adorn the historic site. The
water tank, made for storage of rain water from the catchments area, is square in
shape with 10 steps on all four sides.Also standing here is a ramp from the floor in the
northern wall having semi-hexagonal minarets and walls on both sides. Each minaret has
a kiosk on top surmounted by a fluted and ribbed dome finished with a lantern. The
eastern parapet is separated by a wall for women bathers and cross-legged deities
which are a special feature of this part of the tank.

The shrine commemorates the visit of Baba Guru Nanak and its damaged structures can
be seen on the peak of the hill. There is also a cave underneath. The monastery, a lonely
clump of weathered buildings, is located in the forest peak. Most of its buildings are
roofless hulks and are in ruins. But the temple of Lord Shiva has a roof and is, by and
large, intact.

Sir Alexander Cunningham, (a famous archaeologist) who visited this site in 1864,
believes that Guru Gorak Nath was the transmutation of Lord Shiva. The monastery
survived and thrived for more than 2,000 years with Goruk Nath and his disciples
imparting learning and the art of meditation to the followers of the Kunphatta (torn
ears) sect of ‘jogis’ from all over India.
By mere observation it can be deduced that the complex of temples was home to a
population of religious elite, at least in hundreds; the lifestyle practiced here was one of
luxury and affluence. Though no record can easily be found of the ruin’s purpose and
position in history, it can be ascertained that this would have been a site of at least
some religious significance in its prime.

As for temples, they are 12 in number and are clustered on all sides of Tilla Jogian. All are
built with stones and are square in shape. Three of them are to the west of the main
tank. A complex of seven temples is in the north-west and two of them stand on the
eastern side.

Tilla Jogian has for centuries been the site of a great annual congregation of ‘jogis’ from
India. Now this mound is a deserted place where the wind sighs through hundreds of pine
trees. It has a colonial building where British officers used to spend their pastime. The
building is now serving as a rest house for tourists besides a camping site where cooking
facility is available.
Tilla Jogian was the last frontier of Achaemenid Empire and for its conquest Alexander
the great reached Tilla Jogian from Greece.
Mughal Emperor Jehangir visited this place many times. Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of
Sikhism spent some time at this holy place.

There are two ways to reach at the top, one from Rohtas Fort side and the other from
Sanghoi / the Jhelum River side.