1 · POSITION
The kos minar is the Mughal milestone: a solid round pillar about nine metres high set at every kos along the royal roads between Agra, Ajmer and Lahore. The register holds it as hospitality infrastructure because a distance marker tells the traveller how far the next sarai lies — Akbar’s own order gives the reason as the comfort of travellers. [1, 2]
2 · FROM SHER SHAH TO SHAH JAHAN
Sher Shah Suri introduced brick pillars plastered with lime at every kos in the sixteenth century. In 1575, according to the Akbar Nama, Akbar ordered that a pillar be raised at each kos on the Agra–Ajmer road for the comfort of travellers. Jahangir ordered Bakir Khan, the faujdar of Multan, to build them along the old imperial road in 1619, and later emperors, Shah Jahan among them, added more. [1, 2]
3 · HOW FAR IS A KOS
A kos is a quarter of a yojana, the ancient Indian measure — about 3.22 kilometres by the usual reckoning, though a study in the Punjab found the pillars set about 4.2 kilometres apart. The pillars are not identical: each was built where the distance fell. [1, 2]
4 · WHAT IS LEFT
About 110 survive, 49 of them in Haryana, on the line of the old royal road that became the Grand Trunk Road. They are protected by the Archaeological Survey of India, and the courts have ordered encroachments around them removed. [1, 2]
5 · ⚑ CANDOUR
⚑ Haryana’s tourism office dates its pillars to 1619 under Jahangir and calls them the earliest known road milestones in Indian history; the encyclopedia credits Sher Shah and Akbar before him. Both are printed; the pillars on the ground are of more than one campaign. [1–2]
Sources & Further Reading
Sources checked 22 October 2026.