ਸ਼੍ਰੀ ਗੁਰੂ ਰਵਿਦਾਸ ਸਭਾ ਮੰਦਰ, ਬਰਨਬੀਸ਼੍ਰੀ ਗੁਰੂ ਰਵਿਦਾਸ ਸਭਾ ਮੰਦਰ, ਬਰਨਬੀ

Shri Guru Ravidass Sabha Temple is the Ravidassia gurdwara at 7271 Gilley Avenue in Burnaby, British Columbia, opened in 1982. It serves the followers of Guru Ravidass Ji, the 15th century saint poet who preached the equality of all people, and it is the home of a community counted at around 25,000 people of Ravidassia origin in the Lower Mainland. It is one of the entries in our guide to ਕੈਨੇਡਾ ਦੇ ਗੁਰਦੁਆਰੇ.

What is the Shri Guru Ravidass Sabha Temple?

The Shri Guru Ravidass Sabha Temple is a gurdwara in the Ravidassia tradition: like every gurdwara, its prayer hall centres on the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh scripture honoured as the eternal Guru, and its langar kitchen serves a free vegetarian meal to everyone who comes, but its sangat gathers first of all around Guru Ravidass Ji, whose hymns stand inside that scripture. The Burnaby Interfaith directory lists it at 7271 Gilley Avenue, Burnaby, BC V5J 4W9, phone 604 435 9997, under the faith heading Shri Guru Ravidass, and notes a very practical form of service: maths and science tutoring for students, available at the gurdwara on weekends.

Who was Guru Ravidass Ji?

Guru Ravidass Ji, also written Ravidas, was a poet and mystic born near Varanasi to Raghu and Ghurbinia, in a Chamar family that tanned hides and made shoes, work the caste order of his day placed at the very bottom. He followed the family trade, spent his time in the company of saints, and became famous for his simplicity and piety as a saint in the tradition of Ramanand. He discarded images and idols and turned to the worship of the one Supreme Being, writing deeply impassioned devotional verses in the language of ordinary people. Forty of his hymns were incorporated into the Guru Granth Sahib by Guru Arjan Dev Ji. In them he rejects distinctions between one human being and another on the basis of caste or creed, teaches that birth is no hindrance to spiritual growth, and holds that what matters is concentration on the Divine Name, not ritual. His followers in his own lifetime numbered in the thousands and crossed caste lines, among them, tradition holds, Mirabai, the Rajput princess.

History: a temple opened in 1982

Ravidassia roots in British Columbia are as old as the Sikh community itself: the caption to a well known photograph in the record of Vancouver Sikh history names Mahia Mehmi, who arrived in 1906, as one of the first Ravidassia settlers in Canada and a co-founder of the Khalsa Diwan Society. Yet for decades the community worshipped inside temples run by others. The Shri Guru Ravidass Sabha Temple was formed in 1982, in the words of its spokesman Jai Birdi, to meet the needs of Dalits who felt that they were not fully welcome in the existing temples: a place where followers of Guru Ravidass Ji could gather under his name, keep their own heritage in view, and talk through the historical questions their community still carried from India. The society's own banner, photographed inside the hall, reads Shri Guru Ravidass Sabha Vancouver, Est 1982, and the temple stands in south Burnaby on Gilley Avenue, where it has served ever since.

A minority within a minority: the human rights decision

The temple's distinct purpose was tested in law. Two men of the Jat caste, traditionally a landowning class in Punjab, complained to the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal after they were denied membership. The tribunal dismissed the complaint and ruled that the gurdwara was minority serving and had the right to restrict membership: the 900 members reported at the time belong to the Dalit community, historically placed at the bottom of the caste order and treated as outside it altogether. Spokesman Jai Birdi hailed the decision as an affirmation of the members' right to gather as a minority within a minority, and stressed that the complainants, like everyone, remained welcome to attend the temple's religious ceremonies and social programs: membership is guarded, the doors are not. He added the community's own hope: that one day its confidence would grow to the point where it no longer felt oppressed, and there would no longer be a need to restrict membership.

Why does this temple matter to the Lower Mainland?

It matters because it is the institutional home of one of the region's oldest and most distinct Punjabi communities. Around 25,000 people of Ravidassia origin live in the Lower Mainland, and the Gilley Avenue temple is where that community marks the birth anniversary of Guru Ravidass Ji, teaches its children, and holds its memory: its weekend tutoring, its interfaith listings, and even a visit by a Canadian prime minister, photographed at the temple podium beneath the Sabha's banner, all show a small temple doing the work of a community centre. For a community whose Guru taught, five centuries ago, that no one is high or low by birth, the Burnaby temple is that teaching built in brick: a house of its own, open to all at worship, in a country where its founders' grandparents could not always count on a welcome elsewhere.

How do you visit the Shri Guru Ravidass Sabha Temple?

You visit at 7271 Gilley Avenue, Burnaby, BC V5J 4W9, in south Burnaby; the Burnaby Interfaith directory gives the phone number 604 435 9997. Visitors are welcome at the temple's religious ceremonies and social programs whatever their background, as the temple itself confirmed during the human rights case. Cover your head, remove your shoes, sit quietly in the prayer hall, and stay for langar, the free vegetarian meal served to all. Come with respect for what this place is: not only a gurdwara, but the Ravidassia community's own house, built so that no one inside it would ever be made to feel small.