Historical Gurdwaras in Foreign Lands

PAKISTAN

Kartarpur

Gurdwara Darbar Sahib

Kartarpur is often referred to as Kartarpur (Ravi) to distinguish it from another town of the same name in Jalandhar district (India). This Kartarpur is a small habitation on the right bank of River Ravi opposite Dera baba Nanak in India. It is close to Darbar Sahib Kartarpur railway station on the Narowal-Chakk Amaru section of Pakistan Railway. Kartarpur was founded by Guru Nank Dev at the request of some of his followers like Bhai Doda and Ajitta Randhawa. After his longer udasis, the Guru settled here permanently with his family and some of his disciples who wanted to live near him and serve him. Many others came singly and in batches to have a glimpse of him and to listen to his sermons and discourses. Here, after formally installing Bhai Lahina (renamed by him Angad) as his spiritual successor, he cast off his mortal frame and mingled with the Eternal Light of which he had been the brightest spark. It is said that his Hindu and Muslim disciples wrangled about the manner of funeral rites. Hindus constructed a dehura or samadh and the Muslims a grave. Both were after some time washed away by the waters of Ravi. Guru Nanak Dev himself set up a dharmsal as a place of congregational worship at Kartarpur. It became in time Gurdwara Darbar Sahib.

Its present building and residential quarters were constructed in the year 1911-12 by a Hindu devotee, Lala Shyam Das. The double-storey domed sanctum is enclosed in a square pavilion which is flanked by a tower each on the corners on the rear (river) side. There is a verandah in the basement. According to Khan Mohammad Waliullah Khan, Sikh Shrines in Pakistan, 1962, "Annual repairs to the monument are carried out by the Rehabilitation Department and the Government of Pakistan has also appointed a caretaker to look after this important Sikh shrine."