From its earliest myths, Lahore has been inseparable from the Ravi. The river doesn’t just flow past the city — it flows through its memory and identity.

Foundational folklore locates the city’s origins in Lava or Loh, son of Rama and Sita, casting the river as both guardian and witness, flowing by the fort’s walls. In fact, Ravi’s banks were the stage for one of the earliest remembered battles: the Dasarajna, or Battle of Ten Kings.

In an archival compilation on Lahore’s antiquities, the Deshwa Bhaga — a traditional account naming Lahore as Lavpor or ‘City of Lava’ — reportedly speaks of a duel between the Raja of Lahore [ruler of the ancient Hindu principality of Lahore before its conquest] and the Pandava Bhim [a central heroic figure in the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata] at a forest by the Ravi’s edge.

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