Gurdwara Nanak Piao Sahibਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ ਨਾਨਕ ਪਿਆਓ ਸਾਹਿਬ

Gurdwara Nanak Piao Sahib is a historic gurdwara in North Delhi, on the old Grand Trunk Road near Sabzi Mandi, built where Guru Nanak Dev Ji camped in a garden during his visit to Delhi in 1505, in the reign of Sultan Sikandar Lodi. Travellers on the highway rested in that garden, and the Guru turned its well into a piao, a free water serving place, feeding and giving water to everyone who passed. The well he used is still preserved in the complex, and the shrine's name keeps the act alive: piao means offering a drink to the thirsty.

What is Gurdwara Nanak Piao Sahib?

Gurdwara Nanak Piao Sahib is the Delhi shrine that marks Guru Nanak Dev Ji's 1505 stay in a garden on the Grand Trunk Road, where he served water and food to travellers and gave away to the poor whatever offerings visitors brought him. It is dedicated to the first Guru, it still serves the road's travellers, and its preserved well is the oldest physical link between Delhi and Guru Nanak's first udasi, his first great journey. The Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee describes it simply: the Guru stopped in a garden, transformed a well in its midst into a piao, and tired travellers got water and a free kitchen there.

A garden camp on the Grand Trunk Road, 1505

Guru Nanak reached Delhi during his first udasi, travelling with Bhai Mardana Ji, and camped in a garden on the outskirts of the city, in the area now known as Sabzi Mandi. The spot was well chosen for service: the Grand Trunk Road carried royal parties and ordinary wayfarers alike, and travellers worn down by heat and distance already rested in the garden's shade. There the Guru sang his bani in kirtan and spoke to whoever gathered. Word spread through the city, visitors began arriving in a steady stream, and the garden camp became a small mission centre, a place where Delhi first heard the message of one God, honest work and sharing. The owner of the garden, moved by what he saw, later donated the land, and the camp became a public shrine in Guru Nanak's name. In its earliest days it was called Pau Sahib; the name that endured is Nanak Piao.

The well, and what piao means

At the centre of the story is water. To give passing strangers fresh, cool water in a Delhi summer is no small kindness, and tradition says the Guru had a deep well dug here and set up a permanent piao, taking pleasure in serving travellers with his own hands. Visitors brought the Guru and Bhai Mardana gifts and offerings, some of them precious, and he distributed everything among the poor and needy, keeping nothing. Food was served regularly to those who stayed, in the pattern Sikhs now call langar. The teaching on display is vand chhako, share what you have with others: the traveller who arrived thirsty left fed, watered and, if he needed it, helped from the Guru's own offerings. The historic well is still there, covered today by a white dome on pillars, still working, and sewadars still serve its water to visitors, so the piao of 1505 has never really closed.

The elephant, the prison and the earthquake of 1505

Tradition adds a harder chapter to the Delhi stay, and it is told here as tradition, not as court record. A sakhi says that when a family's elephant died near the camp, the Guru told the weeping owners the animal was only sleeping, and it rose. When the story reached Sikandar Lodi, whose own favourite elephant had died, the Sultan summoned the Guru and asked him to do the same. Guru Nanak declined, answering that life and death rest with God alone and no human being should interfere with His will. The refusal angered the Sultan, and the Guru was imprisoned. In prison his compassion is said to have changed the officials who guarded him. Then, on 3 July 1505, a great earthquake shook Delhi. Many in the frightened city connected the disaster with the imprisonment of the holy man, and Chishti Sufi saints are also said to have interceded. The Sultan ordered the Guru released, and at Guru Nanak's request many fellow prisoners were freed with him. Whatever weight a reader gives each detail, the shape of the story is pure Guru Nanak: no miracles on command, and freedom asked not for himself alone but for others too.

The building and the complex today

The shrine that stands today grew over five centuries of devotion. An impressive Mughal style gateway leads into the complex, and the gurdwara itself stands on a platform about four to five feet high, ringed by a wide parikrama, the circumambulatory path. Inside, the main hall is richly finished, with part of its ceiling done in Sheesh Mahal style, mirror work in the Mughal manner. Behind the main building lies a sarovar with an arched veranda around it, and a small garden survives in continuation of the garden of 1505, a living thread back to the camp. Separate rooms are kept for individual Akhand Paths, the continuous readings of the Guru Granth Sahib. What strikes most visitors, though, is the balance the place keeps: a working neighbourhood gurdwara on one of Delhi's busiest old roads, wrapped around a five hundred year old well.

What is celebrated at Nanak Piao?

The gurdwara's calendar turns on Guru Nanak Dev Ji himself. His Parkash Purab, the anniversary of his birth, fills the main hall, which is decorated for the occasion, and the death anniversary of the Guru, his Joti Jot, is also observed here, drawing devotees who come to pay homage at the place of his Delhi camp. Through the year the daily pattern holds: kirtan, prayer, the serving of water at the well and the feeding of travellers, the same three acts the garden camp was built on in 1505. Sadhus and yogis came to debate with the Guru in his day, and the shrine still presents itself as a place where questions are welcome.

Visiting Nanak Piao Sahib: how to reach

The gurdwara stands at 5-A, Bhama Shah Marg, by Rana Pratap Road, the Grand Trunk Road, in the Rana Pratap Bagh and Model Town side of North Delhi, near Sabzi Mandi, with the postcode 110009. It is an easy stop on the old GT Karnal Road corridor. As at every gurdwara, visitors cover their heads and remove their shoes, and everyone is welcome at the langar. Seek out the old well under its white dome: it is the heart of the shrine, and the sewadars serving water there are carrying on the exact service that gave Nanak Piao its name.