In­tre­pid trav­eller, who braved the cold of the North Pole, South Pole and Mount Ever­est, takes us on a jour­ney in the foot­steps of the trav­els of the first Mas­ter, Guru Nanak Sahib Ji in Gu­jarat. Ex­clu­sive to WSN, first pub­lished in Jan­u­ary 2010, this first per­son ac­count can­didly brings to life, the aura and pris­tine glory of the place with awe and re­spect. Like his words, the pic­tures taken by the au­thor bring forth the beauty and ex­panse of the place.

My pas­sion for travel took me to Gu­jarat. I was amazed to come across a lesser known facet of Sikh his­tory. I saw ev­i­dence of the visit of Guru Nanak Sahib to Gu­jarat and also learnt that ex­cept for some schol­ars, Sikhs had for­got­ten about this place and other places vis­ited by Guru Nanak. Bet­ter late than never. It is time to con­nect the dots of his­tory and dis­cover our rich her­itage linked to our founder Guru Ji.

Dur­ing his sec­ond Udasi (trav­els) from 1506-13 and fourth Udasi from 1519-21, Guru Nanak Sahib trav­elled to Mecca through the then to the Port of Basta Band­her, in the then province of Sind.  To­day, this place is called Lakh­pat and is about 135 kilo­me­ters from the town of Bhuj on the edges of the Cori Creek on the tip of the bor­der be­tween In­dia and Pak­istan.

Lakh­pat fort is about 20 kilo­me­ters from Ko­rini vil­lage where there is also a big Sarovar to the mem­ory of Guru Nanak Dev ji Sahib’s visit. Lak­pat was so named, it is said, as the daily in­come from sail­ings of in­bound and out­bound ships to shore ex­ceeded one lakh cories (the then lo­cal cur­rency). To­day the Sindhu River no longer flows on its banks as it was di­verted dur­ing the great earth­quake of Bhuj in 1819 to the west to an area what is now in Pak­istan’s Sind province. Even to­day in the soil you can find mil­lions of shells from the dried bed of the Sindhu River.

“It will come as a sur­prise to Sikhs, that the Gur­d­wara was re­stored to its pre­sent im­mac­u­late state by the stren­u­ous ef­forts of United Na­tions vol­un­teer pro­gramme dur­ing a seven-month pe­riod be­tween Feb­ru­ary and Sep­tem­ber 2003.”

Since 1947, the Lakh­pat Fort is hous­ing the last out­post of the Bor­der Se­cu­rity Force and is hope to some 400-500 peo­ple within its walls and sev­eral Tem­ples and Sufi Darghas. It also has Gur­dawara Pe­hili Pad­shai “Lakh­pat Gur­d­wara”. There is Hatkesh­war Tem­ple that houses fos­silized shells, the Gosh Mohm­mad Kuba, Darghah of Syed Pir Shah and Nanai Mai Darghah -all stand wit­ness to the glo­ri­ous past.

Leg­end has it that the place vis­ited by Guru Nanak was the house of a Brah­man and is lo­cated within the fort of Lakh­pat. Ac­cord­ing to the lo­cal peo­ple, that house was con­verted into a Gur­d­wara some two hun­dred years ago and vast tracts of land were be­stowed on the Gur­d­wara for up­keep, main­te­nance and reg­u­lar ex­penses of the shrine.

“The walls have graf­fiti by re­li­gious trav­ellers in old Gur­mukhi script. Con­structed in lime­stone, the Gur­d­wara has on its walls stat­ues of ele­phants, flow­ers, Chabu­tras and stat­ues in hu­man and an­i­mal form em­bed­ded to its walls. The ve­ran­dah has ex­quis­itely carved wooden columns. The whole arena has a touch of the old and a beau­ti­ful nos­tal­gic charm to it.”

The Gur­d­wara com­plex com­prises of a main build­ing that has a court­yard and a sep­a­rate struc­ture which is a two sto­ried gate­way on the west­ern side with mas­sive wooden doors.  The in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal walls have paint­ings in line pat­terned with flo­ral mo­tifs of the pe­riod -ships, flow­ers, royal per­son­age, etc. The walls have graf­fiti by re­li­gious trav­ellers in old Gur­mukhi script.  Con­structed in lime­stone, the Gur­d­wara has on its walls stat­ues of ele­phants, flow­ers, Chabu­tras and stat­ues in hu­man and an­i­mal form em­bed­ded to its walls. The ve­ran­dah has ex­quis­itely carved wooden columns. The whole arena has a touch of the old and a beau­ti­ful nos­tal­gic charm to it.

The main room has relics as­so­ci­ated with Guru Nanak Sahib, which, it is said, were be­stowed by Guru Sahib to the Brah­min in whose house Guru Sahib stayed.  These in­clude Cha­ran paduka -khdawans or wooden footwear and a Palki -seat of the great Guru, both of which are housed in a sealed glass en­clo­sure, where there is Parkash of Guru Granth Sahib. As much as I know, these are per­haps the holi­est relics of Guru Nanak Sahib on In­dian soil.  In the ad­ja­cent room within a wooden and glass panel are kept old hand­writ­ten Gur­mukhi re­li­gious books and old re­li­gious scrip­tures.

It will come as a sur­prise to Sikhs, that the Gur­d­wara was re­stored to its pre­sent im­mac­u­late state by the stren­u­ous ef­forts of a United Na­tions vol­un­teer pro­gramme for a seven month pe­riod be­tween Feb­ru­ary and Sep­tem­ber 2003. Thanks to their ef­forts, the as­sis­tance of the lo­cal com­mu­nity and the Sikh San­gat from Gand­hid­ham, the Gur­d­wara has the unique dis­tinc­tion of be­ing awarded the Asia Pa­cific Her­itage Con­ser­va­tion award for the year 2004 by UN­ESCO. Car­ried out un­der the aegis of CRCI (Cul­tural Re­sources Con­ser­va­tion Ini­tia­tive), it was a ma­jor con­ser­va­tion pro­ject.

Con­fer­ring the award, UN­ESCO stated “the restora­tion of this Sikh house of wor­ship demon­strates a so­phis­ti­cated holis­tic un­der­stand­ing of both the tech­ni­cal and so­cial as­pects of con­ser­va­tion; care­ful at­ten­tion to de­tail and sen­si­tive re­pair work have en­sured the re­ten­tion of the build­ing’s his­toric char­ac­ter. The em­pha­sis on in­volv­ing and em­pow­er­ing the com­mu­nity en­sures the long term sur­vival of the his­toric build­ing and its as­so­ci­ated cul­tural tra­di­tions. 

From what I learnt, more than $ 43,000 grant was made by UN­ESCO to bring re­store the holy place to its pris­tine glory, with con­ser­va­tion ar­chi­tects and ma­sons  brought in from Delhi, Pun­jab, Ra­jasthan, Mad­hya Pradesh and Gu­jarat to as­sist in restora­tion work .

Those de­sir­ing to feel the am­bi­ence of the visit of Guru Nanak Sahib can visit the Gur­d­wara Sahib, to which a Ya­tri Ni­was, Lan­gar Hall, Di­wan Hall, mod­ern ameni­ties are be­ing added.