Gurdwaras in Sultanpur Lodhiਸੁਲਤਾਨਪੁਰ ਲੋਧੀ ਦੇ ਗੁਰਦੁਆਰੇ

Gurdwaras in Sultanpur Lodhi are the historic Sikh shrines of Sultanpur Lodhi, a small town in Kapurthala district, Punjab, India, on the south bank of the Kali Bein rivulet. No town in India is bound more closely to the making of Guru Nanak Dev Ji: he lived here for more than fourteen years, worked in the Nawab's provision store, married, raised his two sons, and in 1499 stepped into the Bein, disappeared for three days, and returned with the message that there is no Hindu and no Muslim, only one God before whom all are equal. Six Jugti shrines follow that life in order, from the store and the family house to the ber tree and the bank of the stream, with a seventh chapter added a century later when Guru Arjan Dev Ji's wedding party halted here. This guide sits inside our hub for Gurdwaras in Indian Punjab.

Why is Sultanpur Lodhi sacred to Sikhs?

Because it is where the founder's teaching was formed before it was preached. Guru Nanak Dev Ji came to Sultanpur Lodhi in 1483 to join his elder sister Bebe Nanaki Ji and her husband Bhai Jai Ram, an official of Nawab Daulat Khan Lodhi, and the town gave him the three things his later teaching answers: honest work, a householder's family life, and long meditation. Unlike Nankana Sahib, his birthplace, or Kartarpur, where he settled at the end, Sultanpur is the town of his working years, and its gurdwaras are domestic as much as miraculous: a shop counter, a family well, a prison cell, a tree. When he left after his enlightenment to begin his first udasi, his journeys, he left from here, and the sangat, the fellowship that gathered around him in these streets, is remembered by Bhai Gurdas Ji as a treasure of devotion.

The fourteen years: work, family and meditation

Through Bhai Jai Ram the young Nanak was taken on as modi, keeper of the Nawab's provision store, the modikhana. Gurdwara Hatt Sahib keeps the store and its most famous sakhi: giving a customer thirteen measures while counting tera, tera, I am yours, I am yours, the Guru is said to have given generously beyond the count, and the thirteen polished stone weights he used are still shown in a glass cabinet. When jealous rivals reported that the store was being robbed, the Guru was held in the small cell kept by Gurdwara Kothri Sahib while the accounts were audited; the stock was found correct, and the Nawab released him with an apology and the offer of promotion, which he declined. At home, Gurdwara Guru Ka Bagh marks the house where he lived with his wife Bibi Sulakhani Ji and where their sons were born, Sri Chand in 1494 and Lakhmi Das in 1497; the household's narrow well survives under cover. Work in the day, kirtan in the evening, and meditation before dawn: the town watched all three for fourteen years.

The Kali Bein and the morning of enlightenment

Every morning the Guru bathed in the Kali Bein, the black stream that flows some 160 kilometres from Hoshiarpur district to the meeting of the Beas and Satluj at Harike, and then sat in meditation under a ber, a jujube tree, on its bank. Gurdwara Ber Sahib, the town's principal shrine, stands by that tree: its present building, raised by Maharaja Jagatjit Singh of Kapurthala, had its cornerstone laid on 25 February 1937 and was dedicated on 26 January 1941. The janamsakhis tell that one morning in 1499 the Guru entered the water and did not return. He reappeared three days later at the ghat upstream kept by Gurdwara Sant Ghat Sahib, and his first words were the founding sentence of his mission: there is no Hindu, there is no Muslim. Sikh tradition holds that the Mool Mantar, Ik Onkar, came from this experience. The Bein itself nearly died in the twentieth century under pollution and weeds, until Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal Ji led a kar seva from 2000 that cleared its course with thousands of volunteers, work that raised the water table and brought dry hand pumps back to life along its banks.

Sehra Sahib: the one shrine of a later Guru

Five of the six shrines belong to Guru Nanak Dev Ji's years. The sixth belongs to his successor in the fifth place. In 1604 the wedding procession of Guru Arjan Dev Ji halted overnight at Sultanpur Lodhi on its way, and at Gurdwara Sehra Sahib, in Mohalla Dhiraan, the sehra, the groom's ceremonial veil, was tied for his son Guru Hargobind Ji by the traditional account kept at the shrine. The shrine is a modest octagonal domed room in a brick paved walled compound, administered with the town's other gurdwaras under the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, and it widens the town's story in a useful way: Sultanpur was still a place the Gurus returned to, a century after the founder left it. Together the six make a half day walk through one small town, and no other place in India lets a pilgrim follow a Guru's daily life so completely, street by street.

All Gurdwaras in Sultanpur Lodhi

• Gurdwara Ber Sahib - the principal shrine, by the ber tree on the Kali Bein where Guru Nanak Dev Ji meditated
• Gurdwara Hatt Sahib - the Nawab's provision store, the Tera Tera sakhi and the thirteen stone weights
• Gurdwara Guru Ka Bagh - the house where Guru Nanak Dev Ji lived with Bibi Sulakhani Ji and his sons were born
• Gurdwara Kothri Sahib - the cell where the Guru was held while his store accounts were audited
• Gurdwara Sant Ghat Sahib - the bank of the Bein where the Guru reappeared after three days, in 1499
• Gurdwara Sehra Sahib - where Guru Hargobind Ji's sehra was tied during Guru Arjan Dev Ji's wedding halt in 1604

How do you visit Sultanpur Lodhi's gurdwaras?

The town is compact and the shrines are best walked. Begin at Ber Sahib on the Bein, the natural start of the story, then walk the old town from Hatt Sahib and Kothri Sahib to Guru Ka Bagh, cross to Sant Ghat on the stream, and finish at Sehra Sahib. Sultanpur Lodhi is a tehsil town of Kapurthala district with its own railway station, about 27 kilometres from Kapurthala city and well connected by road to Jalandhar and Amritsar, so the visit fits a half day added to either city. The 2011 census counted 16,877 people in the town, and outside festival time its gurdwaras are quiet, staffed, and unhurried. Cover your head, remove your shoes at each shrine, and take the langar at Ber Sahib, where the town's pilgrim life centres.

When is the biggest gathering at Sultanpur Lodhi?

In November, for Guru Nanak Gurpurab, the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji. The fair at Ber Sahib is largely attended each year, and the town that formed the Guru fills with pilgrims walking the same short circuit this guide describes, from the store to the stream. Vaisakhi in spring also draws crowds to the Bein. At any season, early morning at Sant Ghat and Ber Sahib, when the day's first bathers reach the water as the Guru once did, is the visit regular pilgrims recommend most.