Historical Gurdwaras in India

State of KARNATKA

Bidar

1) Gurdwara Nanak Jhira Sahib - Bidar, a district town in the northeastern corner of Karnataka is about 200 kilometres due south of Nanded to which it is connected by road. It is also a railway station on the Vikarabad-Parli Vaijnath section of South Central Railway. Guru Nanak Dev visited Bidar during his travels. Here he had religious discourse with Pir Jalal-ud-Din, head of Muslim monastery about one kilometre east of the town. He is said to have wrought a miracle similar to the one he is credited with at Panja Sahib in Pakistan. As Pir Jalal-ud-Din complained about scarcity of water in the area, the Guru asked to remove a nearby stone, which done, a spring of cold clean water appeared. It came to be called Nanak Jhira. The shrine was maintained by a line of Muslim priests until it was forcibly occupied by Sikhs during Hyderabad Police Action in 1948 and a proper Gurdwara established. The Muslims took the matter to the court which, however, declared the place as a Sikh shrine and granted its possession to the Sikhs. A committee headed by Sardar Bishan Singh of Hydrabad took up development work of Gurdwara Nanak Jhira Sahib, as it is called. The central three-storey building was completed by 1966 to which a sarovar fed by the water of Nanak Jhira spring, Guru ka Langar and a residential block for pilgrims has since been added. The ground being undulating, the ground levels of different buildings are different. The spring, named Amrit Kund, is about two metres below the ground level of the principal building. The bottom floor of the latter is virtually a basement under the hall on the first floor which serves as the sanctum-cum-congregation hall. Similarly, roof of Guru ka Langar serves as a terrace in frong of the congregation hall for larger gathering on gurpurbs, of which birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev and Hola Mohalla attract the largest number of devotees.


Jinwada

1) Gurdwara Tap Asthan Mai Bhago - Jinwada village (pronounced Jinvara) is 11 kilometres from Bidar along the Bidar-Barauli-Auradh road. Mai Bhago, the surviving heroine of the battle of Muktsar, who had left Nanded after the passing away of Guru Gobind Singh and came to Nanak Jhira, spent the rest of her saintly life at Jinwada in a house just outside the walls of the fortress of Bala Rao and Rustam Rao, Maratha chiefs in whose release from captivity Guru Gobind Singh had been instrumental. This house was maintained as a holy place after her death. When Nanak Jhira was occupied by Sikhs in 1948, they also acquired this house from its last caretaker, Gulab Rao, and set up Gurdwara Tap Asthan Mai Bhago. It is a simple small room with a verandah in front maintained by the managing committee of Gurdwara Nanak Jhira Sahib, Bidar.