Gurdwara Moti Bagh Sahibਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ ਮੋਤੀ ਬਾਗ਼ ਸਾਹਿਬ

Gurdwara Moti Bagh Sahib is a historic gurdwara in the Moti Bagh area of Patiala, Punjab, marking a halt of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji in September 1675, on the last journey of his life. After three months as the guest of Nawab Saif Ali Khan at Bahadurgarh, the Guru rested here on 17 September 1675 on his way toward Samana and Delhi, travelling with a small company of devoted Sikhs. The present shrine was built in 1852 by Maharaja Narinder Singh of Patiala, near his Moti Bagh Palace.

What happened at Moti Bagh Sahib in 1675?

At Moti Bagh Sahib in 1675, Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji halted on the road from Bahadurgarh to Samana, days after ending a stay of about three months with his friend Nawab Saif Ali Khan. The halt fell on 17 September 1675 by the traditional dating, and it was brief: a pause, not a residence. Yet Patiala kept it, because everyone who came later understood where that road ended. The Guru was travelling toward Delhi, and toward the martyrdom that would make him, in Sikh memory, the defender of the religious freedom of others. A short rest on that road carries the weight of the whole journey.

Three months at Bahadurgarh

The Patiala halt cannot be told without the stay that came before it. Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji had reached Bahadurgarh, then called Saifabad, on 14 June 1675, coming by way of Kiratpur Sahib and a chain of villages, to meet Nawab Saif Ali Khan, a pious Muslim ruler who had met the Guru earlier and become his ardent admirer. The Guru stayed in the Nawab's garden, where a gurdwara in Bahadurgarh now marks the stay, and the Nawab asked him to remain as long as possible.

At his host's request the Guru stayed through the rainy season, about three months. On several occasions he held diwans inside Bahadurgarh fort itself, so that the Nawab's household could receive his darshan and hear his discourse. It is one of the warmest episodes of the Guru's last year: a Muslim nawab sheltering and honouring a Sikh Guru, in the months before that Guru set out to give his life in defence of a faith that was not his own. The friendship explains the slowness of the farewell. When the rains ended, the journey resumed.

The road to Delhi

On 17 Assu 1732 Bikram, 17 September 1675, Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji left Bahadurgarh to continue toward Samana, stopping on the way at the place Patiala now honours as Moti Bagh Sahib. He did not travel alone. With him were Bhai Gurditta, Bhai Dyala, Bhai Uda Rathor, Bhai Jetha and Diwan Mati Ram, companions whose names the tradition has kept alongside the Guru's on this road. From Moti Bagh the party went on to Samana, where the Guru stayed in the haveli of Muhamad Bakhsish, and then toward Cheeka by way of Karhali and Balbera.

Read against the whole itinerary, Moti Bagh is one bead on a string that runs from Anandpur Sahib's hills to the execution ground in Delhi, where Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib now stands. Patiala's other Guru Tegh Bahadur shrine, Gurdwara Dukhniwaran Sahib, belongs to an earlier and gentler visit in 1672, when the Guru came to heal a sick village. Moti Bagh belongs to 1675: the same Guru, three years older, walking calmly toward a death he had chosen for the sake of others. The city holds both memories, and the contrast between them is Patiala's whole lesson in his life.

A palace builder raises the shrine

In 1675 this ground was open, wooded country outside the settlements, and no memorial was raised here for generations. The shrine came only when Patiala itself had become a princely capital. Maharaja Narinder Singh, who built the great Moti Bagh Palace nearby in 1847, constructed this gurdwara in 1852 on the site of the Guru's halt, and the shrine took the name of the palace garden quarter around it: Moti Bagh, the pearl garden. The building stands in the traditional Sikh manner, its white dome crowning the sanctum above spacious courtyards where congregations gather, and the complex keeps a sarovar, as Discover Sikhism records. Daily kirtan, the reading of the Guru Granth Sahib and langar served to all keep the halt a living place of worship rather than a monument.

Not the Delhi Moti Bagh

Visitors sometimes confuse this shrine with Gurdwara Moti Bagh Sahib in Delhi, and the two could hardly be more different in their stories. Delhi's Moti Bagh belongs to Guru Gobind Singh Ji and a later generation. Patiala's Moti Bagh Sahib belongs to his father, Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji, and to September 1675. The shared name is a coincidence of gardens: both grounds were remembered as a bagh, a garden, and both took the name moti, pearl. On Jugti the slugs keep them apart, and so should travellers: this page is Patiala's shrine, in Punjab, on the Bahadurgarh to Samana road.

Visiting Moti Bagh Sahib

The gurdwara stands in the Moti Bagh area of Patiala, near the Old Moti Bagh Palace, today home to the National Institute of Sports, so a visit pairs naturally with the palace quarter and with Dukhniwaran Sahib across the city. Patiala Junction connects the city by rail with Chandigarh, Ambala, Ludhiana and Delhi, and the nearest airport is Chandigarh, about 60 to 65 kilometres away. The shrine is at its fullest at Gurpurabs, when kirtan samagams draw large congregations, but its character is quiet: a garden halt, remembered in a garden city. The Gurdwaras in India guide lists Moti Bagh Sahib among the Guru Tegh Bahadur shrines of Patiala. The city itself is introduced in Jugti's Patiala entry.