Gurdwaras in Sri Muktsar Sahibਸ੍ਰੀ ਮੁਕਤਸਰ ਸਾਹਿਬ ਦੇ ਗੁਰਦੁਆਰੇ

Gurdwaras in Sri Muktsar Sahib are the historic Sikh shrines of Sri Muktsar Sahib, a city and district headquarters in south western Punjab, India, named for the sacred pool beside which its defining battle was fought. Four Jugti shrines here tell a single story: the Battle of Muktsar of 1705, the last battle of Guru Gobind Singh Ji, in which forty Sikhs who had once renounced him returned to fight at his side and died winning back his forgiveness. The road of that campaign is traced in our guide to the Guru Gobind Singh Marg, and this guide sits inside our hub for Gurdwaras in Indian Punjab.

Why is Sri Muktsar Sahib sacred to Sikhs?

Because this is the city of return and forgiveness. In 1704, besieged at Anandpur Sahib and running out of food, forty Sikhs from the Majha told Guru Gobind Singh Ji they were leaving, and at his word signed a bedava, a written paper saying they were no longer his Sikhs and he was no longer their Guru. Back home, Mai Bhago Ji, a woman of deep faith from Jhabal, shamed them for abandoning the Guru in his hardest hour and led them back south to find him. They caught up with his small party at Khidrana, near the only pool of water in a dry tract, just as a large Mughal force from Sirhind closed in. The forty fought and every one of them fell. When the Guru found their leader Mahan Singh still breathing, the dying man asked one thing: tear the bedava. The Guru took the paper from Mahan Singh and tore it up, and the forty are remembered ever since as the Chali Mukte, the Forty Liberated Ones. Khidrana, the pool of Khidrana, was renamed Muktsar, the Pool of Liberation, and the city that grew beside it is now called Sri Muktsar Sahib in their honour.

The Battle of Muktsar, 1705

After the fall of Chamkaur in December 1705, Guru Gobind Singh Ji moved south west through Malwa gathering support, and at Khidrane di Dhab, the pool of Khidrana, he chose his ground: a reservoir in semi desert country, with a sandy mound, the tibbi, above it. Imperial troops under Wazir Khan, the governor of Sirhind, put in accounts of the battle at ten thousand or more, came after him and could not reach the water. Fighting far from any other supply, thirsty and under arrow fire from the mound, the Mughal force broke and retreated, and the Guru had won the last of his battles against the empire. The forty dead were cremated the next day, the first day of the month of Magh, which is why the city's great fair falls in January. Mai Bhago Ji, wounded in the battle, recovered and stayed with the Guru for the rest of his life. Most accounts date the battle to 29 December 1705, though some reference works give a date in May 1705, and the shrines of the city keep both the fighting and the cremation in view.

All Gurdwaras in Sri Muktsar Sahib

• Gurdwara Tuti Gandi Sahib - the principal shrine and the city's Darbar Sahib, where Guru Gobind Singh Ji tore the bedava and the broken bond was retied
• Gurdwara Tambu Sahib - where the Forty draped bushes as tents to make their small force look like a full camp before the battle
• Gurdwara Shahidganj Sahib - the cremation ground where Guru Gobind Singh Ji himself performed the last rites of the Forty Liberated Ones
• Gurdwara Tibbi Sahib - the sandy mound from which Guru Gobind Singh Ji watched and directed the Battle of Muktsar

Mela Maghi: the gathering that fills the city

Every January, on the first day of the month of Magh, the day after Lohri, Sri Muktsar Sahib holds Mela Maghi, one of the most important religious fairs of Punjab and the largest Maghi gathering of the Sikh year. Maghi was one of the three festivals Guru Amar Das Ji had set for Sikh gatherings centuries earlier, and after 1705 it became the anniversary of the Forty. Pilgrims bathe in the sarovar, walk to the mounds of the battlefield, and fill the fair grounds, where Nihang Sikhs are the honoured guests and a famous fair for horses runs beside the religious gathering. The city counted 117,085 people at the 2011 census, and for the days of Maghi it holds many times that number, arriving from across Punjab and beyond.

How do you visit Muktsar's gurdwaras?

Begin where the city begins, at Tuti Gandi Sahib and its sarovar in the heart of town, then visit Shahidganj Sahib, the cremation ground, and Tambu Sahib, and climb the Tibbi Sahib mound for the view over the old pool. The four shrines stand close together and the round is an unhurried half day, though pilgrims who come for Maghi should expect the whole city to be on foot. Sri Muktsar Sahib is about 53 kilometres from Bathinda and 52 kilometres from Ferozepur, with Chandigarh 249 kilometres to the east, and it is the last battle stop on the Guru Gobind Singh Marg before the road ends at Talwandi Sabo. Cover your head, remove your shoes, and accept the langar at Tuti Gandi Sahib, where the town still gathers every day of the year.