Bibi Rajni Jiਬੀਬੀ ਰਜਨੀ ਜੀ

Bibi Rajni Ji was a 16th-century devotee of Guru Ram Das Ji, the fourth Guru, remembered for a faith that did not bend under hardship. Her story is tied to the founding of Amritsar itself: the pond where her leper husband was healed became the Amritsar, the Pool of Nectar, and the ber tree beside it became Dukh Bhanjani Beri, the tree that takes away suffering. A gurdwara and a women's college at her home town of Patti are named after her.

Who was Bibi Rajni Ji?

Bibi Rajni Ji was the youngest of the five daughters of Duni Chand, a rich landlord and revenue collector, or kardar, of Patti, an old town 44 kilometres southwest of Amritsar. Her father was a Kaura Khatri of the 16th century, a man of wealth and standing in his town. The story of her life comes from a tradition recorded by Giani Gian Singh in his Panth Prakash, and retold in the Sikh histories that followed it, including Bhai Santokh Singh's Sri Gur Pratap Suraj Granth.

She grew up in comfort, but the story remembers her for what she believed rather than what she owned. Where her four elder sisters said that their father alone provided their food, shelter and luxury, Rajni said that God is the source of all bounty, the sustainer of all existence. It was a child's answer, and it changed her life.

Why did her father marry her to a leper?

Duni Chand was a vainglorious man, proud of his wealth and his authority, and he took his youngest daughter's answer as ingratitude. To teach her a lesson, he married her to Vikram Datt, a poor leper of Patti itself. Leprosy in those times brought social isolation as well as great physical suffering, and the marriage was meant as a punishment.

Rajni accepted it without complaint. She did not argue with her father or turn bitter against her fate. She carried her husband in a basket on her head from place to place, served him with devotion, and lived on the proceeds of her own labour and the alms given by compassionate householders. Her faith was that whatever happened was under divine will, and that sincere prayer never went unheard.

One day her husband asked her to take him on a pilgrimage, so that they might earn salvation and end their suffering. She put him in the basket and carried him to Hardwar, to Tribeni and to other places of Hindu pilgrimage, in the hope of a cure. None of them had the power to heal him. Wandering on, footsore and weary, she arrived at the place where Guru Ram Das Ji was building a new settlement, the place that would become Amritsar.

What happened at the pond?

Rajni set her husband down under a ber tree on the bank of a small pond, in the cool shade near the water, and went to bring food from the langar, the free kitchen that the Guru maintained. While she was away, her husband, left alone under the tree, saw a crow dip into the pond and rise from it with its black feathers turned pure white.

He took it as a sign. He dragged himself to the water, bathed in it, and was instantly and completely cured of his leprosy. When Rajni returned she could hardly believe her eyes: the crippled man she had carried in a basket stood before her whole and healthy, walking as a young man. At first she did not know him, and thought this stranger had harmed her husband. A lingering mark on one finger told her the truth, and she knew it was him.

The couple went together to Guru Ram Das Ji and told him what had happened. The Guru decided that the pond should be developed into a properly lined tank. He called it Amritsar, the Pool of Nectar, a name that in time passed to the whole habitation. The ber tree under which her husband had washed his affliction away came to be known as Dukh Bhanjani Beri, the ber tree that takes away suffering.

How did the pond become Amritsar?

The Guru told his Sikhs that the pond was the same holy place that Guru Amar Das Ji, the third Guru, had foretold, the place where Guru Nanak Dev Ji had once rested by the water and sung of his thirst for the Name. Work began on a great sarovar under the supervision of Baba Budha Ji, with the Guru's Sikhs joining in the digging and labourers engaged to assist them.

The first sarovar begun was Santokhsar, which still stands beside Gurdwara Sri Tahli Sahib in Amritsar. Guru Ram Das Ji then stopped work there and began the greater tank of Amritsar, and both sarovars were completed by Guru Arjan Dev Ji, his son and successor. Around the tank rose the settlement that Guru Ram Das Ji had founded, first called Ramdaspur, then Amritsar, and in its middle stands Harmandir Sahib, the Golden Temple.

The story also says that after the healing, the couple embraced Sikhi, and the healed husband helped to enlarge the tank, build flights of steps down to it, and raise buildings on its margin for divine praise and prayer. Duni Chand, hearing of the miracle, came to see his daughter and her restored husband, recognised the Guru as a saint of God, and made him offerings. Having no son, he adopted his son-in-law and made over all his property to him, and then went himself to serve the Guru.

Where can you see Dukh Bhanjani Beri today?

The ber tree still stands in the Harmandir Sahib complex, on the parikrama, the circumambulatory terrace around the sarovar, near the edge of the water. Pilgrims who visit the Golden Temple pause beside it, bow in silence, and offer prayers filled with hope. Many take a dip in the nearby sarovar, believing that prayer, humility and remembrance of the Divine bring comfort and strength.

The tree is protected to preserve its age and structure, and it remains a place where people bring their suffering and their hopes. The story does not promise that every bather will be healed, and Sikh teaching does not present the sarovar as a magical cure. What it offers is what Bibi Rajni Ji found there: faith, patience and trust in the divine order, and the strength to face hardship with dignity.

At Patti, her home town, a gurdwara stands at the place where she lived with her parents and her four sisters, and a women's college there is named after her. An early-20th-century painting attributed to Gian Singh Naqqash, held in a private collection in Glasgow until 2022, shows the whole story in one frame: Bibi Rajni Ji with her husband under the ber tree, and Guru Ram Das Ji receiving the couple.

Why is Bibi Rajni Ji remembered?

Bibi Rajni Ji is remembered because her story ties a personal act of faith to the founding of Sikhism's holiest city. The pond that healed her husband became the sarovar at the heart of Amritsar, and the city took its name from the water. Her patience under a cruel marriage, her refusal to blame God or her father, and her trust that prayer is never unheard, are held up as an example of faith in action.

One honest note belongs here. Her story comes to us as tradition, recorded in the Sikh histories of the 19th century, not as a dated historical record, and the sources differ on small details. The Sikh Encyclopedia names her husband Vikram Datt, while the description of the early-20th-century painting of the scene calls him Bhai Mohan. What the sources agree on is the heart of the story: a young woman's unshaken faith, a healing at a pond, and a city that grew from that water.