Gurdwara Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Sahib, Dhubriਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਗੁਰੂ ਤੇਗ਼ ਬਹਾਦਰ ਸਾਹਿਬ, ਧੁਬਰੀ

Gurdwara Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Sahib, known to pilgrims simply as Dhubri Sahib, stands in the heart of Dhubri town in western Assam, on the bank of the Brahmaputra River. It is the most important Sikh shrine of India's north east: tradition links this ground first to Guru Nanak Dev Ji in the early 1500s and then, more than a century and a half later, to Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji, whose peacemaking between Mughal and Ahom armies is remembered here in a mound of earth that soldiers of both sides raised together. The shrine belongs on any list of gurdwaras in India that carry a story far bigger than their size.

What is Gurdwara Dhubri Sahib?

Dhubri Sahib is a historic gurdwara complex at Boro Bazar in Dhubri, Assam, beside the town's Circuit House. It holds two shrines. The main shrine honours Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji, the ninth Guru, who camped here in 1669 and 1670. On top of the historic mound next to it stands a second, smaller shrine, Gurdwara Thara Sahib, also called Damdama Sahib, set up in its present small octagonal form in 1966. Together the two shrines, the mound and the wide river frontage make Dhubri the gateway through which most visitors discover that Sikh history reaches deep into Assam.

Two Gurus in Assam: Nanak Dev Ji and Tegh Bahadur Ji

Sikh tradition, recorded in the Janamsakhis, places Guru Nanak Dev Ji in Kamrup, the old name for this part of Assam, in the early sixteenth century. Accounts of the visit say he met Srimanta Sankardeva, the saint who shaped Assam's devotional culture, as he travelled through the region. No shrine from that visit survives, but the memory of it mattered: when Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji travelled east in the 1660s, one of his aims was to revive the place associated with the first Guru's journey.

The ninth Guru's visit had a second, urgent purpose. Emperor Aurangzeb had sent Raja Ram Singh of Amber to subdue the Ahom kingdom under King Chakradhwaj Singh, a posting widely read as a punishment, since Shivaji had escaped from Ram Singh's custody a few years earlier. Ram Singh asked the Guru to accompany the expedition, and they reached the Brahmaputra country early in February 1669. The Guru camped at Dhubri, on ground linked to Guru Nanak Dev Ji's earlier stay, while Ram Singh camped at Rangamati. During the stay, tradition records, word reached the Guru at Dhubri that a son, Gobind Rai, later Guru Gobind Singh Ji, had been born to him at Patna.

How did the Mound of Peace come to be?

The mound exists because the Guru chose negotiation over battle. Sikh accounts tell how performers of tantric rites on the Ahom side first tried to frighten the Guru's camp, and how a great stone, remembered as about 26 feet long, was hurled across the river and drove itself deep into the ground near the camp, where a stone is still shown today. A tree flung after it also fell harmlessly. In the telling, the magicians then crossed the river, asked forgiveness, and explained that they were resisting an army they saw as foreign invaders. The Guru assured them he would work for peace, and pressed Ram Singh to win his emperor's aims by talks rather than fighting unless attacked.

The talks succeeded, for a time: a settlement kept the pre war boundaries intact and spared the region a pitched battle, and the grateful Ahom king honoured the Guru at the Kamakhya shrine. To mark the peace, soldiers of both armies together raised a high mound at Dhubri, each man carrying red earth in his shield, five shieldfuls apiece in the traditional account, on the very spot linked to Guru Nanak Dev Ji's rest. That Mound of Peace still stands beside the gurdwara, a monument built not by one side but by two armies that had come to fight.

The shrine today: Thara Sahib, the stone and the tree

For centuries the site was cared for by Udasi priests. The early gurdwara was destroyed in the great earthquake of about 1896 to 1897, and in 1901 Bhai Ram Singh, an officiant of the shrine, rebuilt a room on the site. The shrine once held a Mughal farman granting it land; in 1902 to 1903 Mahant Jai Singh carried that document to Punjab to raise funds for rebuilding, died on the journey near Amritsar, and the farman was lost. Development of the complex has continued in modern times under the Sikh Pratinidhi Board Eastern Zone together with the local managing committee. Visitors today see the main shrine, the octagonal Thara Sahib on the mound, the remembered stone and peepal tree of the old accounts, and the river running wide behind the complex.

Festivals and the sangat of Assam

Each December, Sikhs from across India gather at Dhubri to mark the martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji with solemn ceremony, an observance the local sangat calls Sahidee Guru Parav. The shrine also serves a small, distinctive community: Assam has its own long settled Sikh families, many of them in Nagaon district, whose forefathers arrived centuries ago and who keep the Sikh faith within Assamese language and culture. For them, and for pilgrims who travel far to reach it, Dhubri Sahib is proof that the Guru's road ran east as well as west. Daily worship and langar, the shared kitchen open to all, keep the same welcome the shrine has offered travellers on this river for generations.

How do I reach Dhubri Sahib?

Dhubri is the last large town in western Assam, near the Bangladesh border. By rail, the classic approach is via Siliguri and Katihar, changing at Fakiragram Junction for the roughly 70 kilometres to Dhubri; Dhubri has its own railway station. By road, Guwahati is about 260 to 290 kilometres away, with buses and taxis on the route. The nearest airport is Rupsi, about 18 kilometres from town, while Guwahati's international airport is the main gateway for visitors from distant cities. In town, the gurdwara stands at Ward No. 1, Boro Bazar, beside the Circuit House, and local rickshaws and taxis cover the short distance from the station. October to March is the most comfortable season for the journey.