Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahibਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ ਸੀਸ ਗੰਜ ਸਾਹਿਬ

In the middle of Chandni Chowk, Old Delhi, Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib marks the exact spot where Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji, the ninth Sikh Guru, was beheaded on 11 November 1675 on the orders of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. "Sis" means head in Punjabi, and the shrine remains one of the nine historic gurdwaras of Delhi.

Why the ninth Guru was executed

Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji was born Tyag Mal in Amritsar on 1 April 1621, the youngest son of Guru Hargobind Ji, and became the ninth Sikh Guru in 1664. In 1675 a large delegation of Kashmiri Pandits, led by Pandit Kirpa Ram, came to him at Anandpur Sahib pleading for protection against the religious oppression they faced under Aurangzeb’s rule.

Arrested at Ropar and imprisoned at Sirhind, the Guru was taken to Delhi months later and asked to perform a miracle or convert to Islam. He refused both. Three of his companions were tortured to death before his eyes — Bhai Mati Das was sawn in two, Bhai Dayal Das was thrown into a cauldron of boiling liquid, and Bhai Sati Das was cut into pieces. Then, on 11 November 1675, the Guru was publicly beheaded in Chandni Chowk, close to the Red Fort.

The head and the body

Mughal orders were that the Guru’s body be quartered and displayed as a warning. Before that could happen, two acts of extraordinary devotion saved both parts. Bhai Jaita, a devoted Sikh, secretly carried the severed head from Delhi all the way to Anandpur Sahib, where it was cremated. In honour of his courage he was renamed Bhai Jivan Singh, and a second Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib at Anandpur Sahib marks the cremation site.

At the same time, Lakhi Shah Vanjara recovered the Guru’s body under the cover of darkness. To cremate it in secret, he set fire to his own house with the body inside. Gurdwara Rakab Ganj Sahib in Delhi stands on that spot today.

Baghel Singh’s shrine, 1783

For over a century the martyrdom site had no shrine. On 11 March 1783 the Sikh military leader Baghel Singh of the Karora Misl marched into Delhi and occupied the Diwan-i-Am. Emperor Shah Alam II settled with him, granting Baghel Singh permission to raise gurdwaras at Sikh historical sites and six annas in a rupee — 37.5% — of all octroi duties to fund the work. Within eight months, from April to November 1783, he built Sis Ganj among a group of shrines in the city.

Baghel Singh did not know the exact spot of the execution, only that it lay near a mosque in Chandni Chowk. An elderly Muslim woman of the water-carrier caste came forward: her father, she said, had been the eyewitness who cleaned the site after the execution. The Guru, she explained, had been seated on a wooden chauki facing east near the mosque’s compound wall. A part of that wall was removed, and the shrine was built within the compound.

The shrine today

Inside the complex survive the trunk of the tree beneath which the Guru’s head was severed, and the well he drew water from during his imprisonment. Beside the gurdwara stands the old Mughal-era Kotwali — the jail where the Guru was held and his disciples tortured — handed to the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee in the early 1970s.

After the 1857 uprising the British demolished the Kotwali and the land passed to the Sikhs; the site then alternated between mosque and gurdwara through a long legal dispute, until the Privy Council ruled in favour of the Sikh litigants. The present structure dates mainly to 1930 — built by Rai Bahadur Narain Singh — with the domes gilded in the years that followed.

Every Republic Day since 1979, the Sikh regiment of the Indian Army has saluted Sis Ganj Sahib before saluting the President of India — the only double salute by a regiment in the parade.

Festivals and how to reach

The Guru’s martyrdom day, Shaheedi Divas, is observed every year on 24 November, when thousands gather at the shrine in remembrance. Daily kirtan and langar continue through the year.

The gurdwara stands in the Chandni Chowk market area of Old Delhi, served by the Chandni Chowk station of the Delhi Metro, and is a short walk from the Red Fort.

Why is it called Sis Ganj?

"Sis" means head in Punjabi and Hindi. The gurdwara stands where Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji’s head was severed — the shrine takes its name from that sacrifice.

What happened to Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji’s head and body?

Bhai Jaita carried the Guru’s head to Anandpur Sahib, where it was cremated; honoured with the name Bhai Jivan Singh, a second Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib marks that site. Lakhi Shah Vanjara recovered the body and cremated it in secret inside his own burning house, where Gurdwara Rakab Ganj Sahib now stands.