Gurdwara Nanakmatta Sahibਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ ਨਾਨਕਮੱਤਾ ਸਾਹਿਬ

Gurdwara Nanakmatta Sahib is a historic Sikh shrine at Nanakmatta in Udham Singh Nagar district, Uttarakhand, marking the place where Guru Nanak Dev Ji debated religion with the Siddh jogis of Gorakhnath during his third udasi in 1514. The town was once called Gorakhmata and took its present name from that visit. A later visit by Guru Hargobind Sahib Ji restored the shrine after its caretaker was driven out.

What is Nanakmatta Sahib?

Nanakmatta Sahib is one of the three best known Sikh shrines of Uttarakhand, alongside Hemkund Sahib and Gurdwara Ritha Sahib. The gurdwara stands in the Terai town of Nanakmatta, on the bank of the Deoha stream, which has been dammed nearby into the Nanak Sagar reservoir. Its white marble building, tall Nishan Sahib and historic pipal tree draw pilgrims travelling the Rudrapur to Tanakpur road, and the town itself is named after the shrine.

The place matters to Sikhs for two visits, five centuries apart in memory. Guru Nanak Dev Ji came first, as a travelling teacher meeting the ascetics who ran a centre here. Guru Hargobind Sahib Ji came about a century later, as a protector, when the shrine his predecessor had sanctified was seized and its sacred tree was burned. Both stories are still told to every visitor.

History: from Gorakhmata to Nanakmatta

Before Guru Nanak Dev Ji arrived, this was Gorakhmata, a seat of the Siddhs, the jogis who followed Gorakhnath. Sikh tradition, echoed in the Siddh Gost composition in the Guru Granth Sahib, remembers a long religious discussion here during the Guru's third udasi, his journey of 1514 towards the Himalayas and Mount Kailash. In that debate the Guru set out a householder's path of honest work and remembrance of God against the jogis' ideal of withdrawal from the world.

The settlement that grew around the shrine took the Guru's name: Nanakmatta, the seat of Nanak. The town recorded 8,470 residents in the 2011 census and sits at about 298 metres above sea level in the flat, fertile Terai, a landscape of farms and wetlands very different from the hill shrines further north.

Which sakhis do pilgrims remember here?

Tradition links several sakhis to the Guru's stay, told today as lessons rather than wonders. The Guru is said to have sat in meditation under a dead, dry pipal tree that came back to life. When the jogis, in the telling, used their powers to lift the tree from the ground, the Guru rested his hand on it and it stopped, which is why the old tree in the complex, its roots partly above the ground, is shown with such care.

Other sakhis carry the same teaching in homelier form. A fire lit for the cold Bhai Mardana Ji is said to have kept burning through rain that put out the jogis' fires. A hidden child, coached to claim the land for the Siddhs, is said to have answered the Guru's question with the words Nanak Mata, after which the jogis accepted his teaching. Two small shrines nearby preserve linked episodes: Bhandara Sahib, about 400 metres away, where food is said to have fallen from a shaken tree for hungry guests, and Doodh Wala Kuan, the well whose water is remembered as turning to milk after the jogis refused Bhai Mardana Ji any from their cows.

Baba Almast and the visit of Guru Hargobind Sahib Ji

In the time of the sixth Guru, a Sikh named Baba Almast served the shrine under the pipal tree. The Gorakh Panthis, wanting their centre back, drove him out and set fire to the tree. Baba Almast sent word to Guru Hargobind Sahib Ji, who came with armed retainers, took possession of the place again and restored it as a Sikh shrine. Tradition says he sprinkled water on the burnt pipal and it came back into leaf; guides still point out the tree's two toned foliage.

A separate small gurdwara, Patshahi Chhevin, about a kilometre and a half from the main complex, marks where Guru Hargobind Sahib Ji tied his horses on his onward journey towards Pilibhit. A shrine to Baba Almast himself also stands in the town, keeping the caretaker's name attached to the place he refused to abandon.

What will you see in the complex?

The main gurdwara is a white marble building with a central dome ringed by smaller domes and chhatris, fronted by the Nishan Sahib. Inside the campus, pilgrims visit the historic pipal tree, the sarovar where devotees bathe, and the spots remembered as the Guru's Dhoona Sahib and Bhora Sahib. Baoli Sahib, a small stepwell shrine about a kilometre and a half away near the Nanak Sagar dam, is linked by tradition to Guru Nanak Dev Ji's time here.

The Nanak Sagar reservoir, formed by damming the Deoha, has become part of the visit: pilgrims often walk to the water after darshan. The complex is run by the Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, Nanakmatta Sahib, and langar is served to all comers in the Guru's name, as at every gurdwara in our Gurdwaras in India guide.

Festivals and daily life

The Guru Nanak Gurpurab is the year's great gathering, when the town fills with pilgrims from across the Terai and from Punjab. Through the year the gurdwara keeps the daily rhythm of kirtan, ardas and langar, and serves the large Sikh farming community of Udham Singh Nagar, for whom Nanakmatta is a local shrine as much as a pilgrim destination.

How do you reach Nanakmatta Sahib?

Nanakmatta lies on the Rudrapur to Tanakpur route in Udham Singh Nagar district, Uttarakhand 262311. Historical guides put it about 45 km from Rudrapur and 11 km from Sitarganj, and the shrine is about 15 km west of Khatima railway station. Buses run along the highway through the town, and most pilgrims combine the visit with Ritha Sahib, some 209 km away by the hill road, or with a Terai circuit of Sitarganj and Khatima.