Gurdwara Khandh Sahib, Batalaਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ ਕੰਧ ਸਾਹਿਬ, ਬਟਾਲਾ

In the middle of Batala, in Gurdaspur district, a surviving piece of mud wall is kept behind glass, and Sikhs have treasured it for more than five centuries. Gurdwara Khandh Sahib, also spelled Kandh Sahib, marks the resting place of the wedding party of Guru Nanak Dev Ji, who came to Batala in 1487 to marry Mata Sulakhni Ji. The name says what the shrine holds: kandh is Punjabi for a wall. Seated beside this frail, rain soaked wall during an argument about his wedding rites, the young Guru is remembered to have smiled and said the wall would not fall for centuries. The town still celebrates that wedding every year as Babe Da Viah, and the wall still stands.

What is Gurdwara Khandh Sahib, Batala?

Gurdwara Khandh Sahib is a historic gurdwara in Batala town, Gurdaspur district, Punjab, on the Amritsar to Pathankot railway line. It stands where Guru Nanak Dev Ji's marriage party rested before the wedding ceremony in 1487, and it preserves a portion of the mud wall from the sakhi of that visit, shielded in glass. The wedding itself, tradition holds, took place at the house of the bride's father, Mul Chand Chona, a site marked separately by Gurdwara Dera Sahib in the same town. Khandh Sahib is listed among the gurdwaras in India on Jugti, with other Guru Nanak wedding and Sultanpur Lodhi shrines such as Ber Sahib, from where the modern anniversary procession sets out.

The wedding at Batala: what happened in 1487?

The match was arranged through Jai Ram, Guru Nanak Dev Ji's brother in law, and the bride was Sulakhni, daughter of Mul Chand Chona, a revenue official of Pakhoke village near Batala, and his wife Chando Rani. Reference works date the wedding to 24 September 1487, when the Guru was about eighteen, though Janamsakhi traditions differ on details and even on the town, with Batala the location most accounts support. The marriage party travelled from Talwandi, the Guru's home village now known as Nankana Sahib, to Sultanpur Lodhi, where his sister Bibi Nanaki Ji and Jai Ram joined it, and then on to Batala. Accounts of the baraat say Nawab Daulat Khan Lodi sent elephants and horses to add splendour to the procession. At Batala the party was made to rest at the spot Khandh Sahib now marks, while the harder question of the ceremony itself was argued out.

The wall that would not fall

The sakhi at the heart of this shrine is an argument about ritual. Mul Chand wanted a traditional wedding conducted by Brahmin priests. Guru Nanak Dev Ji, already a reformer in his teens, proposed a simpler ceremony and refused the horoscopes and prescribed rites of the day, saying any time was auspicious for a wedding blessed by God. The priests were brought to debate the matter with him, and for that discussion the Guru was seated beside a crooked, decaying mud wall, weakened by recent rain and visibly ready to fall. Some accounts say the seat was chosen in the hope the wall might be pushed onto him; what is certain in the telling is that an elderly woman was sent, or came herself, to warn him of the danger. The Guru smiled and answered that this wall would not fall for centuries, that the will of God would prevail. A portion of that wall is the relic visitors see today, preserved inside the gurdwara behind a glass shield. Whether read as miracle or as memory, the story captures something Sikhs value about the young Guru: unmoved under pressure, courteous to the woman who warned him, and certain that faith needed no one's scaffolding.

Khandh Sahib and Dera Sahib: two shrines, one wedding

Visitors sometimes confuse Batala's two wedding shrines, and the distinction is worth keeping. Khandh Sahib marks where the marriage party rested before the ceremony, and where the debate by the wall took place. Dera Sahib, in the same town, was built where Mul Chand's house stood, the place where the wedding itself is remembered to have taken place. Together the two gurdwaras hold the whole Batala chapter of Guru Nanak Dev Ji's life: the arrival, the argument, the wall, and the marriage to Mata Sulakhni Ji, who would later join him at Sultanpur Lodhi, raise their sons Sri Chand and Lakhmi Das, and in time keep the langar at Kartarpur. Batala's own story is told in Jugti's entry on Batala, one of Punjab's oldest cities.

How is the wedding anniversary celebrated?

Batala marks the anniversary of the wedding every year with a gala celebration, known across Punjab as Babe Da Viah, the wedding of the Baba. A large procession is taken out through the town, and in the modern form of the festival the baraat is re enacted from Sultanpur Lodhi, setting out from Gurdwara Ber Sahib with the Guru Granth Sahib carried in a decorated palki and the sangat following on foot and in vehicles, to be received at Batala with wedding songs. Akhand Path, kirtan and langar fill the days around the procession at Khandh Sahib and Dera Sahib. For a town better known in recent centuries for industry, these days return Batala each year to the event that made its name known wherever Sikhs live.

How do I reach Gurdwara Khandh Sahib?

Khandh Sahib stands in the middle of Batala town, a sub divisional headquarters of Gurdaspur district, and is easy to reach once you are in the town. Batala sits on the Amritsar to Pathankot railway line, with trains from both cities, and on the road network of Majha. Buses connect it with Amritsar, Gurdaspur and the towns of Majha. Inside Batala, ask for Kandh Sahib: the spelling varies on signs and maps, but every local knows the shrine. Combine a visit with Gurdwara Dera Sahib nearby, and cover your head and remove your shoes before entering, as at any gurdwara. The shrine is busiest, and the town at its most festive, around the Babe Da Viah celebrations in the autumn.