Pankot
From Indiana Jones Wiki
| LOCATION | |
| Pankot | |
|---|---|
| |
| Located | India |
| Locations within | Pankot Palace Mayapore |
| Residents | Mola Ram Chattar Lal Zalim Singh |
| Artifacts | Sankara Stones |
Pankot was a princely state in British India that was ruled over by Zalim Singh in 1935. Pankot was located in the remote northwest part of the country, along the Yamuna River. It was ruled from Pankot Palace.
[edit] Behind the scenes
Pankot is a fictional name, most likely taken from Paul Scott's orientalist novels of the "Raj Quartet" written in the 60s and 70s.[1] In the novels, which take place in a fictional Indian province of unknown name during and right after World War II, Pankot is a hill station and headquarters of the British-Indian Army in the region, where Mayapore is one of the largest cities as well. Though the location of the province is never given in the novels, it's generally assumed to be somewhere in Northern India.
Producer Robert Watts first intended the Indian scenes of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom to be shoot in and around Jaipur, in Rajashtan, India. The Amber Fort near Jaipur was intended to stand for Pankot Palace in the exterior scenes while the Rose Palace in Jaipur itself would be used for the interior scenes. It's interesting to note that the Amber Fort was built in 1595 and inhabited up to the 18th Century by a princely dynasty named Singh, and that there is also a service of elephants that carry tourists from the base of the hill to the fort.[2]
However, the Indian Government found the script offensive and demanded many of its parts to be rewritten. As George Lucas refused to change the script, the production moved to Kandy, Sri Lanka, and a scale model was used for Pankot Palace when production costs went too high.[3]
[edit] Appearances
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (First appearance)
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom novel
- Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures
