GUJRANWALA  , a

town and district of British India, in the Lahore division of the Punjab . The town is situated 40 M . N. of Lahore by rail . It is of modern growth, and owes its importance to the father and grandfather of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, whose capital it formed during the early period of the Sikh power . Pop . (1901) 29,224 . There are manufactures of brass-ware, jewellery, and silk and cotton scarves . The DISTRICT comprises an area of 3198 sq. m . In 1901 the population was 756,797, showing an increase of 29% in the decade . The district is divided between a low alluvial tract along the rivers Chenab and Degh and the upland between them, which forms the central portion of the Rechna Doab, inter-mediate between the fertile submontane plains of Sialkot and the desert expanses of Jhang . Part of the upland tract has been brought under cultivation by the Chenab canal . The country is very bare of trees, and the scenery throughout is tame and in the central plateau becomes monotonous .

It seems likely that the district once contained the capital of the Punjab, at an

epoch when Lahore had not begun to exist . We learn from the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, Hsuan Tsang, that about the year 63o he visited a town known as Tse-kia (or Taki), the metropolis of the whole country of the five rivers.' A mound near the modern village of Asarur has been identified as the site of the ancient capital . Until the Mahommedan invasions little is known of Gujranwala, except that Taki had fallen into oblivion and Lahore had become the chief city . 'Under Mahommedan rule the district flourished for a time; but a mysterious depopulation fell upon the tract, and the whole region seems to have been almost entirely abandoned . On the rise of Sikh power, the waste plains of Gujranwala were seized by various military adventurers . Charat Singh took. possession of the village of Gujranwala, and here his grandson the great Maharaja Ranjit Singh was born . The Sikh rule, which was elsewhere so disastrous, appears to have been an unmitigated benefit to this district . Ranjit Singh settled large colonies in the various villages, and encouraged cultivation throughout the depopulated plain . In 1847 the district came under British influence in connexion with the regency at Lahore; and in 1849 it was included in the territory annexed after the second Sikh war . A large export trade is carried on in cotton, wheat and other grains . The district is served by the main line and branches of the North-Western railway .