Takht Sri Damdama Sahib, Talwandi Sabo

01A place to draw breath

Damdama means a place where one draws breath. Guru Gobind Singh came to Talwandi Sabo in 1705 after he had lost Anandpur, his two elder sons at Chamkaur and his two younger sons at Sirhind, and after the battle at the pool of Khidrana, which the Sikhs call Muktsar. The local chief Bhai Dalla took him in. Here he stayed for some months, and Sikhs came to him again from the whole of Malwa. Sikh tradition says the Guru, resting on a raised mound, told his Sikhs that this land would be a seat of learning, and the place has been called Guru ki Kashi ever since.

02The Damdami Bir

At Damdama, Sikh tradition holds, the Guru had the Adi Granth of Guru Arjan written out afresh, with Bhai Mani Singh as scribe, and added the hymns of his father Guru Tegh Bahadur. This copy is called the Damdami Bir, and every Guru Granth Sahib printed today follows it. Three years later, at Nanded on the Godavari in 1708, the Guru gave the Guruship to the Granth before he left the world. Copies were made at Damdama for the sangats of distant places, and a line of learned Sikhs grew up here; Baba Deep Singh, who fell fighting for Amritsar in 1757, is remembered as one of them.

03The fifth Takht

For long the Sikhs counted four Takhts. On 30 July 1960 the general body of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee set up a sub-committee on Damdama Sahib’s claim, and on 18 November 1966 it accepted its report and declared Damdama Sahib the fifth Takht. The Government of India gave the same recognition in 1999, the three hundredth year of the Khalsa. The great gathering is at Vaisakhi, when lakhs come to Talwandi Sabo. The gurdwara keeps relics said to be of the Guru’s stay, and the Likhansar gurdwara nearby marks the place where the writing of the Granth was done.

The life of this place