Talwandi Saboਤਲਵੰਡੀ ਸਾਬੋ

History

Talwandi Sabo, about 28 kilometres southeast of Bathinda, is a small town with an outsized place in Sikh history. In January 1706 Guru Gobind Singh Ji arrived here after the battles of Anandpur Sahib and Chamkaur Sahib, the siege at Machhiwara, and the victory at Muktsar. He loosened his waistband and rested on a high mound shaded by karir trees, and the place took its name from that rest: Damdama, the place of repose.

The Guru stayed for several months, and the town became a gathering point for the Khalsa. Tradition holds that he administered amrit to large numbers of new converts here, including on Vaisakhi, and that the community which had been scattered by war began to rebuild itself around him.

Before the Guru's arrival Talwandi Sabo was an unremarkable village in the Lakhi Jungle, the scrub forest of the Malwa. The Guru's choice of it was deliberate: it was far from the Mughal garrisons, close to the villages that had sheltered his Sikhs, and on the edge of the desert where an army could not easily follow. The jungle has long since been cleared, but the town still sits in open, sandy country.

The scripture

It was at Damdama Sahib that Guru Gobind Singh Ji prepared the final, complete version of the Sikh scripture. Working with the scribe Bhai Mani Singh, he took the Adi Granth compiled by Guru Arjan Dev Ji Dev in 1604 and added the hymns of his father, Guru Teg Bahadur. The result, known as the Damdami Bir, is the text honoured by Sikhs ever since as the Guru Granth Sahib.

Baba Deep Singh later made four handwritten copies of the Damdami Bir at this spot, which were sent to the other Takhts. Because the scripture itself was completed here, Talwandi Sabo is called Guru Ki Kashi, the Guru's Kashi, after the ancient Indian city of learning, and the Guru is said to have blessed it as a future seat of scholarship.

Why is it called Guru Ki Kashi?

The name is the town's pride. Before leaving to visit Sikh congregations in the Deccan, Guru Gobind Singh Ji blessed Talwandi Sabo as Guru Ki Kashi, Kashi, Varanasi, being the ancient Indian city of learning, and this the Guru's own seat of learning. The blessing has the feel of a charge: Sikh tradition holds that the Guru flung a handful of reed pens over the congregation's heads and declared, “Here we will create a pool of literature. No one of my Sikhs should remain illiterate.”

The literary work went on long after the Guru left. Baba Deep Singh Ji, whom the Guru installed as the first head (Jathedar) of the Takht, made four additional handwritten copies of the Damdami Bir here and sent them to the other Takhts. For generations the town was a centre of santhiya, the training of Sikhs in the correct recitation of scripture, a mural from around 1710–40 at the town's Bhai Dalla samadh shows 48 Sikhs being trained in scriptural elocution.

That is the Kashi the blessing promised: not just a rest-stop on a journey, but a place where the scripture was finished, copied, and taught.

Recognition as a Takht

On 30 July 1960 the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee appointed a sub-committee to examine the demand that Damdama Sahib be declared the fifth Takht; its 183-page report recommended it. The SGPC's general body approved the recommendation on 18 November 1966 (Resolution No. 32), and the Government of India formally declared it the fifth Takht during the Khalsa tricentennial celebrations in April 1999.

One caveat belongs in any honest account: the Budha Dal faction of the Akali-Nihang Sikhs disputes Damdama Sahib's position as the fifth Takht, claiming the title for their own group.

The town today

Takht Sri Damdama Sahib is one of the five Takhts, the seats of Sikh temporal authority, and its formal recognition as the fifth Takht came in 1966, after a six-year process inside the SGPC (see below). The gurdwara complex draws pilgrims year-round, with the largest gatherings at Vaisakhi and at the Baisakhi fair.

The Baisakhi fair at Damdama Sahib is one of the great gatherings of the Malwa, when farmers celebrate the harvest and pilgrims fill the town's streets. The gurdwara's langar feeds tens of thousands, and the night sky over the Takht glows with the lights of the mela. It is the town's founding story replayed every spring: a scattered people gathering again around the Guru's rest.

True to the Guru's blessing, the town has grown into an educational centre, with universities and colleges rising around the old shrine. It remains what it has been for three centuries: a quiet Malwa town where the Sikh scripture took its final form.

Visiting Damdama Sahib

Takht Sri Damdama Sahib sits about 28 kilometres southeast of Bathinda, reached by road through the Malwa countryside. The complex functions as a full seat of authority, congregations through the year, and a langar that feeds pilgrims daily, and its largest crowds gather at Vaisakhi, when the Baisakhi fair fills the town.