Gurpurabਗੁਰਪੁਰਬ

A Gurpurab is a Sikh holy day that marks an anniversary in the life of one of the ten Gurus: a birth, a martyrdom, or another defining event. The word joins Guru with purab, meaning festival. Gurpurabs are observed at gurdwaras worldwide with a full reading of Guru Granth Sahib Ji, hymns, processions and langar.

What is a Gurpurab?

A Gurpurab is the anniversary day of the Guru: that is the short answer, and everything else on this page is the detail behind it. The word itself had already come into use in the time of the Gurus. It appears in the writings of Bhai Gurdas Ji, a contemporary of Guru Arjan Dev Ji, who wrote of Sikhs who observe the gurpurab with love and devotion. Remembering the deeds of the elders is a duty the Sikh tradition takes seriously, and the Gurpurab is how that remembering is organised through the year: each Guru, each great event, given its own day, its own hymns and its own gathering.

One point matters for anyone meeting the word for the first time. Gurpurab is a general term, not the name of a single festival. There are many Gurpurabs in the Sikh year, one for each anniversary the community keeps. When people say simply "Gurpurab" in November, they almost always mean the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji, by far the most widely observed of them all. But the same word covers the birth of Guru Gobind Singh Ji in winter, the martyrdom of Guru Arjan Dev Ji in early summer, and several other days besides.

Parkash, shaheedi and joti jot: the kinds of Gurpurab

Gurpurabs fall into kinds, and the kind shapes the mood of the day. A birth anniversary is a Parkash Purab. Parkash means light, and the name carries the teaching: the Guru's birth is spoken of as light coming into the world. Parkash Purabs are joyful, with illuminated gurdwaras, processions and greetings exchanged between families.

The anniversary of a Guru's passing is called his Joti Jot day. Joti means light, and jot is the same word again: the light merging into the Light. Sikhs do not speak of a Guru's death in ordinary terms, because the belief is that the one light passed from Guru to Guru through the ten, and rests now in Guru Granth Sahib Ji. A Joti Jot observance is therefore reflective rather than mournful, centred on the Guru's hymns and teachings.

Some Gurpurabs are Shaheedi days, marking a martyrdom. The two kept most widely are those of Guru Arjan Dev Ji, the fifth Guru, in May or June, and Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji, the ninth Guru, in November or December. These days are solemn. On Guru Arjan Dev Ji's Shaheedi Gurpurab, Sikhs serve chhabeel, a chilled sweetened drink, to anyone who passes, a response in service to the heat of the season in which he was martyred. A fourth kind of Gurpurab marks an event rather than a birth or passing: the installation of Guru Granth Sahib Ji in the Harmandir Sahib at Amritsar in 1604 is one, and Vaisakhi, the founding of the Khalsa in 1699, is sometimes counted alongside the Gurpurabs, as is the day Guru Gobind Singh Ji conferred the Guruship on Guru Granth Sahib Ji in 1708.

How is a Gurpurab celebrated?

The pattern is broadly the same for every Gurpurab, and only the hymns sung and the story told change with the occasion. The centre of the observance is an Akhand Path: Guru Granth Sahib Ji is read aloud from beginning to end without a break, by a relay of readers, over about forty eight hours. For a major Gurpurab the reading is timed to conclude on the day itself, which means it begins two days earlier, in gurdwaras and in private homes.

A day before the Gurpurab, many towns and cities hold a nagar kirtan, a procession in which Guru Granth Sahib Ji is carried on a decorated float or palki through the streets, led by the Panj Pyare, the Five Beloved Ones, carrying the Nishan Sahib. Singers walk with the procession singing hymns, gatka teams show the Sikh martial art, and people who cannot join a gurdwara gathering can still bow before the Guru as the procession passes their door. In the weeks before a large Gurpurab, prabhat pheris, early morning processions singing hymns from house to house, build up to the day.

On the day itself, the programme at the gurdwara begins early, at about four or five in the morning, with Asa di Var, the morning hymns. Kirtan, the singing of hymns, and katha, exposition of the scripture and the story of the Guru being remembered, fill the day, with lectures and poems in the Guru's praise. Ardas is offered, karah parshad is distributed, and a special langar, the free community meal cooked and served by volunteers, is served to everyone who comes, Sikh or not. On birth Gurpurabs, gurdwaras and homes are lit up in the evening. Nothing in the pattern is compulsory in a fixed form: SikhiWiki notes that no special sanctity attaches to the form, and local communities vary it. The constant elements are the scripture read, the Guru remembered, and the community fed.

The main Gurpurabs of the ten Gurus

The most widely observed Gurpurab of all is the Parkash Purab of Guru Nanak Dev Ji, founder of the Sikh faith, kept on the full moon of the month of Kartik, usually in November. Its own page covers that day in full: see Guru Nanak Gurpurab. The Parkash Purab of Guru Gobind Singh Ji, the tenth Guru, falls in December or January and is celebrated in much the same way, with Akhand Path, procession, kirtan and langar. The other birth anniversaries, of Guru Angad Dev Ji, Guru Amar Das Ji, Guru Ram Das Ji, Guru Har Rai Ji, Guru Har Krishan Ji and Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji among them, are kept at gurdwaras with the same pattern on a smaller scale.

The martyrdom Gurpurabs hold a different place in the year. Guru Arjan Dev Ji was martyred at Lahore in 1606 under the orders of the Mughal emperor Jahangir, and his day is marked with kirtan, katha and the chhabeel stalls described above. Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji was executed at Delhi in 1675 under the orders of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, and his Shaheedi Gurpurab is usually a one day observance of kirtan and reflection. The martyrdom days of the Sahibzade, the young sons of Guru Gobind Singh Ji, are also remembered in the Gurpurab season of December. Beyond births and passings, Sikhs keep the Gurpurab of the Guruship of Guru Granth Sahib Ji, recalling the day in 1708 when Guru Gobind Singh Ji conferred the Guruship on the scripture: its tercentenary in 2008, popularised as 300 Saal Guru de Naal, was celebrated by Sikhs worldwide, with the main celebrations at Hazur Sahib, Nanded.

When are Gurpurabs held?

Most Gurpurab dates are now fixed by the Nanakshahi calendar, the Sikh solar calendar adopted by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee in 2003, so they fall on the same Gregorian date each year. The great exception is the oldest one: Guru Nanak Dev Ji's Parkash Purab is still kept by the traditional lunar reckoning, on Kartik Purnima, the full moon of Kartik, which is why its November date moves from year to year. Vaisakhi and Bandi Chhor Divas are the other major Sikh observances still calculated on the traditional calendar. Anyone planning to attend a Gurpurab should check the date with the local gurdwara, because published calendars can differ on a small number of days.

Gurpurabs around the world

Wherever Sikhs have settled, the Gurpurab has travelled with them, because it needs nothing a local sangat cannot provide: Guru Granth Sahib Ji, readers for the Akhand Path, singers, and volunteers for the langar. In Canada, Britain, the United States and Australia, the nagar kirtan of a major Gurpurab is often the largest public gathering of the local Sikh year, moving through city streets with the same Panj Pyare, the same hymns and the same open invitation to watch, join and eat. Historic gurdwaras draw pilgrims from across the world for the Gurpurabs tied to their Guru: Nankana Sahib for Guru Nanak Dev Ji, Patna Sahib for Guru Gobind Singh Ji, Amritsar above all for almost every date in the calendar. Set beside Bandi Chhor Divas and Vaisakhi, the Gurpurabs give the Sikh year its rhythm: a round of days on which the community stops, gathers, listens to the whole scripture, and remembers, one by one, the ten who gave it its faith.