Place · Mughal market street · India
Chandni Chowk, Delhi
Also known as Chāndnī Chowk, Chandni Chauk, Moonlight Square, Urdu Bazaar, Johri Bazaar, Fatehpuri Bazaar, Silver Street
Chandni Chowk, 'Moonlight Square', is the main market street of Old Delhi, running from the Lahori Gate of the Red Fort west to the Fatehpuri Masjid. It was laid out in 1650 for Shah Jahan's new capital, Shahjahanabad, and designed by his daughter Jahanara: 1,560 shops along a channel of Yamuna water, with a moonlit pool at the centre. Under British rule the channel was filled and the pool replaced by a clock tower; the street remains one of India's largest wholesale markets.
- Date
- 1650–None
- Function
- Trade & production
- Patron dynasty
- Mughal (Shah Jahan; designed by Jahanara Begum)
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 28.656, 77.231
Worth knowing
The stretch nearest the fort was called Urdu Bazaar, the 'encampment market', from which, Wikipedia says, the Urdu language took its name; Ghalib recorded its destruction after 1857.
Accounts differ on whether 'Chandni' refers to the moonlit pool or to the street's silver (chandi) merchants.
Connections (4)
- Site withinDelhi
Chandni Chowk is the spine of Shahjahanabad, the walled capital Shah Jahan founded when he moved the Mughal court from Agra to Delhi and built the Red Fort on the Yamuna. Today the whole stretch through the middle of the walled city, from the fort's Lahori Gate to the Fatehpuri Masjid, carries the name. A Delhi government redevelopment completed its first phase in 2021 to pedestrianise the street, and motor traffic is now barred along it during daylight hours.
- Site adjacencyRed Fort, Delhi
The Red Fort's Lahori Gate stands at the eastern end of Chandni Chowk, and the street and the fort belong to the same founding of Shahjahanabad by Shah Jahan: the fort was commissioned in 1639 and completed in 1648, the bazaar laid out in 1650. Chandni Chowk then served as the route of Mughal imperial processions, a tradition continued for the Delhi Durbar of 1903, and since 1947 the Prime Minister has raised the national flag each Independence Day at the Lahori Gate at the street's head.
- FoundedJahanara Begum
Chandni Chowk and its three bazaars were designed and established in 1650 by Princess Jahanara Begum, Shah Jahan's favourite daughter. Her plan was a market 40 yards wide and 1,520 yards long with 1,560 shops, divided by a channel of Yamuna water and centred on a square whose pool reflected the moonlight. The shops were set out in a half-moon pattern, since lost, and the bazaar became known for its silver trade; Paranthe Wali Gali, one of its lanes, was first known for silverware.
- Site adjacencySisganj Sahib, Old Delhi
Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib stands on Chandni Chowk near Chowk Kotwali, the point that divided the old Urdu Bazaar from Johri Bazaar. It marks the place near which the ninth Sikh Guru, Tegh Bahadur, and his followers Bhai Mati Das, Bhai Dyal Das and Bhai Sati Das were executed by the Mughals in 1675. It was one of the gurdwaras the Sikhs later won the right to build in the imperial capital, under the settlement negotiated for the withdrawal of their occupying forces.
Sources
Wikipedia, "Chandni Chowk", "Gali Paranthe Wali" and "Red Fort".
Open Chandni Chowk, Delhi in the repository →