Guru Amar Das Jiਗੁਰੂ ਅਮਰ ਦਾਸ ਜੀ

Guru Amar Das Ji (1479 to 1574) was the third Guru of the Sikhs, a leader who took up the Guruship at the age of 73 and spent 22 years turning a small following into an organised community. From his new seat at Goindwal Sahib on the River Beas, he raised the great Baoli Sahib, set up the Manji system of trained preachers, made the shared langar meal the doorway to his audience, and composed the Anand Sahib, the Song of Bliss sung by Sikhs to this day.

Early life and the road to Khadur Sahib

Amar Das was born on 5 May 1479 at Basarke, a village near Amritsar, the eldest son of Tej Bhan, a farmer and trader. He grew up a devout Hindu of the Vaishnav tradition, fasting, giving charity and making regular pilgrimages to the Ganges at Haridwar. He married and raised a family of two sons and two daughters, and by every account he was respected in his village as a man of prayer who was still searching for a teacher.

That search ended around 1540, when he heard his niece Bibi Amro singing hymns. Bibi Amro was married into the family of Guru Angad Dev Ji, and the words she sang were the hymns of Guru Nanak. Amar Das, by then about sixty years old, travelled to Khadur Sahib and placed himself at the second Guru's feet. He never really left. For years he served the Guru's household with complete devotion, rising before dawn to carry water from the River Beas for Guru Angad Dev Ji's bath, and doing the humblest work of the congregation without ever asking for recognition.

Becoming the third Guru

When Guru Angad Dev Ji passed away in 1552, he named Amar Das, not one of his own sons, as his successor. The new Guru was 73 years old, older than either of the Gurus before him had lived to be, yet he led the community for a full 22 years. He shifted the centre of the Sikh community from Khadur Sahib to Goindwal, a town Guru Angad Dev Ji had founded on the Beas, and made it the headquarters of a fast-growing faith. His age became part of his authority: Sikhs remember him as a grandfather figure whose long life of prayer and service stood behind every decision he took.

Goindwal and the Baoli Sahib

At Goindwal, Guru Amar Das Ji began the work that still defines the town: the Baoli Sahib, a great stepped well sunk into the bank of the Beas. The baoli descends through 84 steps to the water, and Sikh tradition holds that a pilgrim who bathes and recites the Japji Sahib on each step is freed from the cycle of 84 lakh (8.4 million) life forms. Whether taken literally or as teaching, the message was his: liberation comes through prayer joined with humble effort, step by step. The Baoli Sahib at Goindwal drew pilgrims from across Punjab and made Goindwal the first great pilgrimage centre of the Sikhs.

The Manji system and the rule of langar

As congregations multiplied, Guru Amar Das Ji divided the Sikh world into 22 districts called manjis, named after the string bed on which the preacher sat to teach. He appointed a devoted Sikh to lead each manji, and notably, women were appointed among the preachers, carrying the Guru's teaching to villages he could never visit. The manji holders taught, settled disputes, collected the community's offerings and kept distant congregations tied to Goindwal. It was the first administrative system of the Sikh faith.

His other great rule reshaped Sikh society at its table. No one, of any caste, rank or religion, could meet the Guru before first sitting in pangat, the row of the langar, and eating the common meal: Pehle Pangat, phir Sangat, first the row, then the congregation. When the Mughal emperor Akbar visited Goindwal, he too sat on the floor with ordinary people and ate langar before his audience with the Guru. In one meal, the rule made equality something every visitor had to practise, not merely hear preached.

Anand Sahib and the hymns of the third Guru

Guru Amar Das Ji composed 907 hymns that are preserved in the Guru Granth Sahib, the third largest contribution of any Guru. The best loved of them is the Anand Sahib, the Song of Bliss, a composition of 40 pauris (stanzas) in Raag Ramkali. The Anand Sahib forms part of the Nitnem, the daily prayers of the Sikhs, and its closing verses are sung at moments of joy, at the Anand Karaj wedding ceremony, and at the conclusion of congregational worship. Its teaching matches his life: true bliss is not found in ritual or wealth, but in a mind stilled by the Guru's word.

Reforms for women and for society

Guru Amar Das Ji used his authority against the cruellest customs of his time. He condemned sati, the burning of a widow on her husband's funeral pyre, and spoke against the purdah that hid women from public life. He encouraged widows to remarry, appointed women as preachers in the manji system, and treated the birth of a daughter as no less welcome than a son. He also gave the community shared festivals of gathering, bringing Sikhs together at Goindwal for Diwali, Vaisakhi and Maghi, so that a scattered following stayed one people.

Final years and succession

In his last years the Guru faced a delicate question of succession. His own sons had claims, but the disciple he trusted most was his son-in-law Bhai Jetha, husband of his daughter Bibi Bhani, whose service at Goindwal had been as tireless as his own. Passing over his sons, Guru Amar Das Ji named Bhai Jetha as the fourth Guru, Guru Ram Das Ji. The collections of hymns prepared at Goindwal in his time, the Goindwal Pothis, were kept by his son Baba Mohan and later served the compilation of the Sikh scripture. Guru Amar Das Ji died at Goindwal on 1 September 1574, aged 95, the longest-lived of the ten Gurus.

Why did Guru Amar Das Ji make langar compulsory before an audience?

He wanted equality to be practised, not just preached. By requiring every visitor, from a labourer to Emperor Akbar, to sit in the pangat and eat the same food from the same kitchen before meeting him, he broke the rules of caste at the exact moment a visitor might expect privilege. The rule, Pehle Pangat, phir Sangat, still shapes how gurdwaras receive their guests.

What is the Baoli Sahib at Goindwal?

The Baoli Sahib is the great stepped well Guru Amar Das Ji built at Goindwal Sahib on the River Beas, beginning in his first years as Guru. Its 84 steps lead down to the water, and tradition teaches that bathing there while reciting the Japji Sahib on each step frees the soul from the 8.4 million life forms of the cycle of rebirth. It remains one of the oldest and most visited Sikh shrines in Punjab.