Peshawar –
School Days
- Sant Kirpal
Singh -
“When I was in Peshawar, studying in the
ninth grade, I used
to take my books to study in a garden named Shahi Bagh.”
Sant Kirpal Singh
1899 Kirpal Singh joined Edwardes
Church Mission
High School, Peshawar.
“I used to study in a Christian school,
and always had an inquisitive nature. I knew that we said “Shri Guru
Nanak Dev Ji Maharaj,” for in India we attach many respectful terms to
the names of Masters and certain respected people, and had noticed that the
Christians called their great Saint merely Jesus. So I went to a Christian
bishop and questioned him: ‘Why do you not put a prefix to Christ’s
name, when even the most insignificant common man is at least referred to as
Mr. Somebody?’ The bishop said, and I can still distinctly remember his
reply, ‘We consider Christ the son of God, and as we cannot glorify God,
so we cannot extol Christ. If we start prefixing his name, we will make him
smaller, not greater.’ ”
Sant
Kirpal Singh
“When I was in school, there was one
geometrical problem and the professor came in to the class and said, ‘You
could not solve this geometrical problem last year.’ He addressed me and
one or two more, ‘Try tomorrow – tomorrow is Sunday. Try to see if
this could be solved.’ The next morning I went and sat down. First I
solved that problem in a very long way, then in a short-cut way. On Monday we
attended the school. He asked, ‘Well, have you come to any conclusions?
Have you solved the problem?’ ‘Yes,’ I told him, ‘I
have solved it in two ways.’ I showed him on the board. Teacher naturally
likes students like that.”
Sant
Kirpal Singh
“As a student, I was reading in the ninth
class and the teacher was so satisfied with me that he would leave the class to
me for teaching in his absence – that very class in which I was a
student. So hard work is another name for genius, mind that.”
Sant
Kirpal Singh
1911 Kirpal Singh graduated from Edwardes Church
Mission High
School, Peshawar,
at the top of His class.
1911 Kirpal Singh joined the
Military Engineering Service at Peshawar.
Peshawar City History
Peshāwar (Urdu: پشاور) literally means City on the Frontier in Persian and is known as
Pakhor in Pashto. It is the provincial capital of Pakistan's North-West Frontier
Province. Located west of the Bara
River on
the edge of the Khyber Pass, Peshawar
is the commercial, economic, political and cultural capital of the Pakistani
frontier and, particularly, of the Pashtuns. In ancient times the city was
known as Purushapura when it served as the eastern capital of the ancient
Greco-Buddhist kingdom
of Gandhara. The
city was captured by the Muslims in 988 and named Peshawar by the Mughal emperor Akbar. From
the 16th century it was ruled by the Afghans. 1849 – 1947 it was under
British control and served as an important military base. For much of its history, Peshawar was one
of the main trading centers on the ancient Silk Road and a major crossroads for
various cultures between the subcontinent and Central Asia.
Until the 1950ies, Peshawar was enclosed
within a city wall and sixteen gates. Of the old city gates the most famous was
the Kabuli Gate, but only the name remains now. It leads out to the Khyber Pass
and on to Kabul.
The Qissa Khawani Bazaar (“Street of Story-tellers”) extends from
east to west in the heart of the city of Peshawar.
Two splendid old gardens are the Shahi
Bagh in the north-east and the Wazir Bagh in the south-east, all of which
give Peshawar
the character of a garden city. Between the old city wall and the railway
station in the west, in Dabgari Garden,
stands the tomb of Nawab Sayid Khan, the Mughal governor during Emperor Shah
Jehan’s rule who died in year 1651 AD. Since the early 1900s, the
structure serves as Christian
Mission Church.
City
Maps
Old Peshawar (city map, 643 kb)
Peshawar 2006 (high resolution Google Earth satellite image,
2680 kb)
Peshawar 2006 (medium resolution Google Earth satellite
image, 940 kb)
Peshawar Historic Pictures Gallery
Click on thumbnails to enlarge
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Taxila
Gate
Peshawar 1879
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Kabuli
Gate
Peshawar 1891
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Kabuli
Gate
Peshawar 1903
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Quizza
Khawani Bazaar
with Kabuli Gate 1903
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Quizza Khawani Bazaar
Peshawar 1903
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Edwardes Church
Mission High
School
On 19 December, 1853 a meeting was arranged
under the Commissioner of Peshawar, Sir Herbert Edwardes, to discuss a
Christian Mission to the city. The very first school in the province was
established in 1855 by one of the first missionaries, Robert Clarke,
under the patronage of Sir Herbert Edwardes. It is located near Kohati Gate, Peshawar City, and named Edwardes Church Mission High School.
Kirpal
Singh joined the Edwardes
Church Mission
High School in 1899.
Location
Edwardes High School (Πon maps) is located just 150
m (1/10 mile) north-east of Kohati Gate, which no longer exists today (see Old Peshawar map). From Master’s school,
Qissa Khawani Bazaar is just 400 m (1/4 mile) north, and from there, another
400 m (1/4 mile) west, was Kabuli Gate. Shahi Bagh (“Great Garden”,
on maps) where
Kirpal Singh used to walk, taking His books with Him to study, is located 2 km
(1 ¼ mile) north from Edwardes High School, beyond the old city wall and the
railroad track.
Edwardes College, Peshawar,
established in 1900, is an offspring of the Edwardes High School.
Centenary Celebrations of
Edwardes College,
Peshawar
Date of Issue:
April 24, 2000
Edwardes High School and Mission Chapel Picture Gallery
Click on thumbnails to enlarge
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Edwardes High School
Peshawar
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Edwardes High School
Peshawar
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Edwardes High School
Peshawar
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Edwardes Higher
Secondary School
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Edwardes Higher
Secondary School
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Edwardes Higher
Secondary School
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Edwardes Higher
Secondary School
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Mission Chapel,
Dabgari Garden
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Mission Chapel Entrance Door
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Inside
Mission Chapel
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Mission Chapel
Organ (~ 1900)
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