Gurdwara Ritha Sahibਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ ਰੀਠਾ ਸਾਹਿਬ

Gurdwara Ritha Sahib, also called Meetha Reetha Sahib, is a Sikh shrine near Deyuri village in Champawat district, Uttarakhand, where Guru Nanak Dev Ji is remembered for making the bitter fruit of a reetha (soapnut) tree sweet for a hungry Bhai Mardana Ji. Sweet reethas are still given to pilgrims as prasad, and the shrine is paired with Nanakmatta Sahib on the Guru's third udasi route through Kumaon.

What is Ritha Sahib?

Ritha Sahib is a small hill gurdwara in the forested Kumaon valley country of Champawat district, far from any city. Its whole identity rests on one tree and one act of kindness: a traveller was hungry, the only food at hand was a bitter soapnut, and in the Sikh telling the Guru made it sweet. The name itself carries the story, since devotees usually call the place Meetha Reetha, the sweet soapnut.

The shrine is one of the Guru Nanak sites of Uttarakhand, linked in every pilgrim itinerary with Nanakmatta Sahib in the Terai below and with Hemkund Sahib high in the Himalayas. A temple of Devnath stands beside the gurdwara, a reminder that this valley was shared religious ground long before any boundary was drawn.

History: a halt on the third udasi

Sikh tradition places the visit on Guru Nanak Dev Ji's third udasi, the same journey that took him to Nanakmatta. The historian Harbans Singh, summarising the tradition, puts this spot about forty miles east of Nanakmata and notes that the story is told in accounts later than the earliest Janamsakhis. The Guru and Bhai Mardana Ji are said to have rested here among Gorakhpanthi jogis who sat under the reetha trees, and to have discussed the spiritual life with them, as he had with the Siddhs at Nanakmatta.

For centuries the site was a memory kept by local people and passing pilgrims rather than a built shrine. Accounts of the present gurdwara date its construction to around 1960, and its first caretaker is remembered as Lala Baisakhi Ram of Haldwani, whose name ties the shrine's upkeep to the Sikh trading families of the Terai towns.

Why is the reetha here sweet?

Reetha, the soapnut, is normally bitter and is used as a natural soap, not as food. In the sakhi, Bhai Mardana Ji complained of hunger in this jungle halt, and the Guru told him to shake the branch of the tree overhead and eat what fell. The fruit that dropped was sweet. The jogis watching were astonished, and in the fuller telling the reethas on the side of the tree where the Guru sat had turned sweet, while the rest stayed bitter.

Pilgrims are still shown reetha trees at the shrine and are given sweet reethas as prasad to carry home to family and friends, so that people who may never make the hill journey still taste a little of this distant halt of the Guru. Whether a visitor reads the story as miracle or as teaching, its point is the one Guru Nanak Dev Ji made everywhere: no one travelling with God should go hungry when there is food, however humble, to share.

The shrine today

The gurdwara is a modest modern building in a green valley, listed at Reetha Sahib, Champawat 262523, and open through the day and night to travellers on the hill road. Visitors describe a quiet complex, helpful sewadars and the sound of kirtan in the hills, with langar for pilgrims who arrive after the long drive. The narrow, winding approach roads are the one caution every traveller repeats: come in daylight if you can, and take the bends slowly.

When is the fair at Ritha Sahib?

The shrine's great gathering is its fair on Baisakhi Purnima, the full moon of the Vaisakhi season, when Sikh pilgrims climb to the valley in large numbers and the event is widely known as the Jod Mela. Langars spring up along the approach roads during the mela, in keeping with the shrine's own story of feeding the hungry traveller.

How do you reach Ritha Sahib?

Ritha Sahib stands near Deyuri village in Champawat district, Uttarakhand. The Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee of Nanakmatta Sahib puts it 60 km north of Nanakmatta as the crow flies but 209 km by the motorable hill road, and 166 km from Tanakpur, the railhead on the Bareilly to Tanakpur line. Travellers also approach from Lohaghat, about 45 km away. Most pilgrims visit it as the hill leg of a Kumaon circuit that begins at Nanakmatta, and our Gurdwaras in India guide lists both shrines together.