TODAR MALL, SETH

TODAR MALL, SETH, a wealthy merchant of Sirhind, according to tradition, performed the last rites for the two younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh martyred, on 12 December 1706, under the orders of Wazir Khan, faujdar of Sirhind, and of Mata Gujari, the Guru`s mother who died of the shock on the same day. It is said that landowners around the Sirhind Fort would not permit him to hold the cremation in their fields, until one Chaudhari Atta agreed to sell him a plot. The seller`s stipulation was that the buyer (Todar Mall) will take only as much of the space as he could cover with gold mohars, he would lay out for the purchase. The Seth produced the coins and bought the piece of land he needed.

He cremated the three bodies and putting the ashes in an urn buried them there. The site is now marked by Gurdwara Joti Sarup at Fatehgarh Sahib, near Sirhind. Modern historians have tried to identify Seth Todar Mall as a son or later descendant of Raja Todar Mall, of Sirhind, who won renown as an administrator under the Mughal emperors, Shah Jahan and Aurangzib, and who, according to Shah Nawaz Khan, Ma`asir ulUmara, lived up to 1076 AH/AD 1666. To perpetuate the memory of the noble minded Seth, a road in Sirhind town and a hall in Gurdwara Fatehgarh Sahib have now been named after him.

References :

1. Gian Singh, Giani, Twarikh Guru Khalsa. Patiala, 1970
2. Harbans Singh, Guru Gobind Singh. Chandigarh, 1967
3. Macauliffe, M.A., The Sikh Religion. Oxford, 1909