A short walk from the Shalimar Gardens and directly across from the Engineering University once stood a landmark so firmly embedded in Lahore’s collective memory that it outlived the names of nobles and generals. Budhu ka Āvā, or Budhu’s kiln, was not merely a brick-making site but a sprawling industrial complex whose bricks helped shape Mughal Lahore. Its recent disappearance marks the loss of yet another layer of the city’s historical fabric.
According to long-circulating Lahori traditions, Budhu was the son of Sādhu, a Mughal-era brick-maker who supplied bricks for royal constructions. One popular account relates that Sheikh Abdul Haq Qadri, a disciple of Hazrat Mian Mir, once stopped at the kiln on a cold day to warm himself by the fire. Budhu, the story goes, rudely turned him away, earning a curse that his bricks would no longer harden. Sikh writers record a similar tale, substituting a devotee of Guru Arjan as the figure Budhu offended. In both versions, Budhu’s fortunes collapsed; he sought forgiveness and later commissioned a fine tomb near the kiln for the saint. Storytellers explain the presence of two graves in the structure by assigning one to the saint and the other to Budhu himself, while some Sikh chroniclers add that he also built a gurdwara as recompense.
Although the tomb linked to Budhu survives, it is actually the mausoleum of Khan Dauran Shah Baig, while Sheikh Abdul Haq’s grave stands separately inside what is now the Royal Palm Country Club. This persistent misattribution, however, reveals Budhu’s lasting prominence in popular memory. The area continued to be identified by his name long after official history had forgotten him, suggesting that the kiln was a major landmark rather than a minor industrial site.
Historical references place Budhu’s activity mainly in the reign of Jahangir, though the Punjab Administrative Report of 1918 records that bricks for several Shahjahani works in Lahore also came from Budhu’s kilns. The overlap indicates that the enterprise likely spanned both reigns. Syed Latif further notes that Budhu, acting under royal instructions, established multiple kilns around Lahore to supply bricks for imperial buildings and the mansions of the elite. Latif even links these kilns to the supply of bricks for the vast palace of Mirza Abu al-Hasan Asaf Jah, brother of Nur Jahan, said to have cost twenty-two lakh rupees. Taken together, these references underscore the kiln’s central role in the material production of Mughal Lahore.
What survived centuries of Mughal construction, Sikh military use, railway excavation, and relentless urban expansion was flattened in a matter of days
The site gained new significance in the Sikh period. Sohan Lal Suri records that Sher Singh assembled forces at Budhu’s kiln when preparing to besiege Lahore, and other Sikh sources note that the area frequently served as a military encampment and pay station. Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s French general, Avitabile, built a grand residence there that was later demolished in the colonial era. Colonel Thornton described not only the kiln’s remains but also a baradari that was removed to build the Mian Mir cantonment barracks. Engineers of the time believed that no other site could provide bricks in such vast quantities, highlighting the kiln’s exceptional industrial capacity.
Colonial Lahore accelerated the site’s deterioration. Railway authorities quarried the mound extensively, using its bricks for new yards, levelling work, and major filling operations. Early twentieth-century guides describe how the remains were mined wholesale, and how the elevated brick heaps were even used for military drills. Recognising its antiquity, the British erected a memorial in 1917. Documents in the Akbari Mahal Library and Archives show that the Mayo School of Arts prepared the inscriptions and ornamentation, and that the Archaeological Survey of India recorded the memorial’s completion in its 1919–20 report. The decision to commemorate the site formally demonstrates how substantial its presence still was in the early colonial years.
For ordinary Lahoris, however, Budhu’s kiln was more than an archaeological curiosity. Dr Chughtai recalled climbing its dry, hilly mound and noted that calling something “Budhu ka Āvā” became a playful Punjabi way of describing anything unusually large. A nearby temple known as Shawala Budhu stood surrounded by samadhis and hosted an annual fair until the Railway Department purchased and demolished it. The fact that neighbouring religious structures bore Budhu’s name suggests how extensive the kiln’s footprint once was.
The scale of the site is further evident from later developments. When Sikh National College needed land, a portion of Budhu ka Āvā was transferred from the gurdwara committee; after Partition, the college buildings were absorbed into the expanding Engineering University. A gurdwara once associated with Budhu also stood nearby, though its fabric and identity appear to have merged into later institutional construction. That such large public projects could be accommodated on the site underlines the magnitude of the original kiln complex.
Its final erasure came only recently. What survived centuries of Mughal construction, Sikh military use, railway excavation, and relentless urban expansion was flattened in a matter of days. The loss reflects a wider pattern of neglect in which industrial heritage is rarely acknowledged as part of the city’s historical landscape. Unlike forts and mosques, kilns do not present grandeur, yet they produced the very material from which that grandeur was created. Their disappearance severs our understanding of the processes, labour networks, and technological systems that shaped Mughal Lahore.
Budhu ka Āvā may now live only in stories and scattered archival references, but its destruction exposes a deeper indifference to the everyday infrastructures of history. A few mounds of old bricks may appear insignificant, yet they are witnesses to a long cultural journey. If such traces continue to vanish, little will remain to anchor Lahore’s identity in its layered past. The moment demands that development choices be balanced against the value of historical continuity, so that future generations are not left wondering why the physical memory of Lahore was allowed to fade away.