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city and Sikh pilgrimage site in Punjab, India
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Anandpur Sahib, also referred simply as Anandpur (lit. 'city of bliss'), is a city in Rupnagar district (Ropar), on the edge of Shivalik Hills, in the Indian state of Punjab. Located near the Sutlej River, the city is one of the most sacred religious places in Sikhism, being the place where the last two Sikh Gurus, Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh, lived. It is also the place where Guru Gobind Singh founded the Khalsa Panth in 1699. The city is home to Takht Sri Kesgarh Sahib, the third of the five Takhts in Sikhism. The town was founded by the ninth Sikh guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur.
The city is a pilgrimage site in Sikhism. It is the venue of the largest annual Sikh gathering and festivities during the Hola Mohalla in the spring season. The Virasat-e-Khalsa museum is located in the city.
Anandpur Sahib is located on National Highway 503 that links Kiratpur Sahib and Chandigarh to Nangal, Una and further Kangra, Himachal Pradesh. It is situated near the Sutlej river, the longest of the five rivers that flow through the historic crossroads region of Punjab.
Anandpur Sahib is important in Sikh history for its relation to two Sikh gurus, Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh. Anandpur Sahib was founded in June 1665 by the ninth Sikh Guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur. Gurinder Singh Mann states that Guru Tegh Bahadur established Anandpur in 1664. He previously lived in Kiratpur, but given the disputes with Ram Rai – the elder son of Guru Har Rai and other sects of Sikhism, he moved to village in Makhoval. He named it Chakk Nanaki after his mother, and it became a prominent Dharamshal (Gurdwara plus self-sufficient village), consisting of tent encampments, vernacular clay/adobe straw-thatched round hutments ("Bunga") and small orchards and gardens in between the heavily forested hilly area and besides a stream and waterfall, (located in the area currently marked by Gurdwara Bhora Sahib). In 1675, Guru Tegh Bahadur was tortured and beheaded for refusing to convert to Islam under the orders of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, a martyrdom that led Sikhs to rename the town to Anandpur and crown his son Gobind Das as per his orders (also known as Gobind Rai) as his successor and famous as Guru Gobind Singh.
The village grew larger (with more temporary encampments), state Louis E. Fenech and W. H. McLeod, as Sikhs moved near Guru Gobind Singh. Guru Gobind Singh founded nearby Paonta Sahib in 1685 as a secondary base for the Sikhs. The growing strength of Sikhs in Anandpur under the tenth Guru, after the execution of the ninth Guru, raised concerns of the neighboring Pahari rajas - the vassals of the Mughal Empire, along with the Mughal ruler Aurangzeb. In 1693, Aurangzeb issued an order that banned large gatherings of Sikhs such as during the festival of Baisakhi. At Anandpur, Guru Gobind Singh organized a court of poets, known as a Kavi Darbar, with 52 poets known as the Bavanja Kavi.
On the Vaisakhi day of 1699, the Guru sent out invitations across the land to distant and nearby Sikh congregations to convene at Anandpur for the upcoming festival. It was normal for the Guru to celebrate Vaisakhi at Anandpur with Sikh congregations annually but this time much more importance was placed on attendance than usual and more stringently. Guru Gobind Singh founded the Khalsa Panth in Anandpur on the day of the 1699 Vaisakhi festival after an elaborate ceremony and gathered a large armed militia. This triggered Aurangzeb and his vassal Hindu kings around Anandpur to blockade Anandpur. This led to several battles:
According to Louis Fenech, Anandpur's history during the late 17th century and early 18th century was complex and war prone because the relationship of Guru Gobind Singh with his neighbors was complex. Sometimes the hill chiefs and Guru Gobind Singh cooperated in a battle, sometimes they fought against each other, where the difficult mountainous terrain made it difficult for the Mughal to subdue everyone with force and the terrain made it easier for Pahari chieftains to rebel against the Mughals routinely.
The Sikhs evacuated from Anandpur. As per Roopinder Singh, control over the city came into the possession of the Raja of Bilaspur but was later purchased by the cousins of Guru Gobind Singh. After the city was sacked in 1704, its control passed into the hands of Budh Singh, a disciple of Guru Gobind Singh. Budh Singh later handed over control of the city over to Patiala State under the reign of Ala Singh. In 1764, the descendent of Sodhi Suraj Mal (one of the sons of Guru Hargobind), Nahar Singh, purchased the city plus a fort called Manji Sahib (which was a dwelling associated with Suraj Mal). As more Sodhi families moved into the city, four Sarkars were established, with them namely being: Badi, Dusri, Tisri, and Chauthi. The Badi sarkar was the most eminent of the four yet all of them were revered by the Sikh population of the era. Each sarkar had its own associated palace that was fortified, commune, and congregation of followers. The sarkars also maintained a militia of their own, consisting of infantry, cavalary, and elephants.
In the late 19th century, a descendant of the Sikh gurus named Sodhi Kishan Singh transformed Anandpur Sahib into a municipal committee. Control over the locality's Sikh shrines was given to the newly-formed Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee in 1923.
Giani Zail Singh's Guru Gobind Singh Marg project in 1973 made the Vaisakhi and Hola Maholla celebrations at Anandpur more popular with Sikh pilgrims and led to the build-up of infrastructure to accommodate the increasing crowds. That same year, the Anandpur Sahib Resolution invoked the name of the city. The Singh Sabha Shatabdi Committee of Hukam Singh and Giani Gurdit Singh helped popularize Anandpur as a place to celebrate Vaisakhi. In 1999, the entire city was painted white to mark the tricentenary of the Khalsa.
The 1999 tricentenrary celebration was also marked by the announcement of a planned Virasat-e-Khalsa museum by Parkash Singh Badal, which opened in 2011. Virasat-e-Khalsa Museum campus links, particularly with the need of the population, providing business to the locals and makes the city marked on urban literature globally. Punjab Heritage Tourism Promotion Board paid to have it installed in order to attract worldwide tourism. Open spaces which are going to be used by ritual activities during ceremonies and festivals also serve as alternative parking grounds, reserved grounds for political rallies which brings the intact ingredient of Indian cities together “The Interaction”.
There have been recent demands for an Anandpur Sahib district.
Historical sites and structures in the city have been poorly maintained and the vast majority have been destroyed. Buildings, such as forts, that are associated with the lives of the Sikh gurus have been demolished and renovated beyond recognition, including the Anandgarh Baoli. Much of this defacement involves encasing historical structures in marble. Though the locality once was littered with various forts, these have been destroyed over the years as the city has expanded and changed. In the mid-1930's, the gurdwara structure of Takht Kesgarh Sahib was rebuilt. In the 1930s, a new structure was constructed over the original site and structure of Anandgarh Qila. By 1988, essentially all of the principal standing shrines of Anandpur Sahib had been reconstructed at some point in either the late 19th or early 20th centuries during the Singh Sabha movement, based upon older edifices that stood at their spot. There were formerly mural paintings and floral embellishments decorating the walls of Gurdwara Akal Bunga but these are no longer extant, though surviving traces of these wall paintings could be seen on the wall skirting the roof of the structure. Qila Sodhian was the last surviving remnant of a fortification in Anandpur Sahib in the year 1999.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Anandpur Sahib”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.