01The child Gobind Rai
Guru Tegh Bahadur, travelling east through Bihar to Assam, left his wife Mata Gujri at Patna in the house of a devotee. There, in December 1666, she gave birth to their son Gobind Rai. The Guru got the news far to the east. The boy grew up in Patna until about 1672, when the family went to Anandpur. Sikh tradition remembers the childhood here: the raja’s queen who took him as her own and fed him boiled gram, the boys he led in mock battles, the well from which Mata Gujri drew water. Patna had held a sangat since Guru Nanak’s own travels east, and the city’s devotees kept the house as a shrine.
02The Takht
Maharaja Ranjit Singh paid for a fine new building over the birthplace in the early nineteenth century. The earthquake of 15 January 1934 badly damaged it, and the present white marble gurdwara, with its domes and its museum of relics, was raised in the 1950s. Among the relics shown are a small cradle, weapons and hukamnamas of the Gurus. The Takht has its own Jathedar and is one of the five seats from which the Panth’s edicts may issue. In 2017 the 350th Prakash Purab of Guru Gobind Singh drew lakhs of pilgrims to Patna.
The life of this place
- December 1666Guru Gobind Singh is born at Patna.
- c. 1672The young Gobind Rai leaves Patna for Anandpur.
- 15 January 1934The Bihar earthquake damages the gurdwara built under Ranjit Singh.
- 1950sThe present Takht building is raised.
In Patna City (the old town), about 12 km east of central Patna; langar runs all day.
