SACHCHA SAUDA, GURDWARA

SACHCHA SAUDA, GURDWARA, at Chuharkana in Sheikhupura district of Pakistan, celebrates a popularly told event from the lit of Guru Nanak. According to Bhai Bala janam Sakhi, Guru Nanak`s father, Baba Kalu, to settle his son in a permanent vocation once gave him a sum of twenty rupees and asked him to go to the nearest market to purchase merchandise which could be sold at a profit, and thus strike a good (khara or sachcha, in Punjabi) bargain (sauda, in Punjabi).

As says the Janam Sakhi, Bhai Bala was sent from the village to accompany him. As the two of them were passing through a forest, they fell in with a large party of bareskinned ascetics in different postures of penance.Guru Nanak tarried to converse with them and asked their chief, “Why, Sir, don`t you wear any clothes? Don`t you have any or are they displeasing to you?” “We are Nirbanis. It only benefits us to abstain from clothes… we eat, young lad, only when the Lord sends,” was, as reports the Janam Sakhi, the answer he received.

Nanak discovered that the sadhus had been without food for several days. Overruling Bhai Bala`s counsel, he spent all the money his father had given him feeding the hungry men, and returned to Talvandi. When his father admonished him for squandering his hardearned cash, Nanak only said that that was the best bargain he could have made.

Many years later, devotees built at the village of Chuharkana close to where Guru Nanak had fed the ascetics a simple shrine which in due course became a popular pilgrim site attracting visitors from far and near. Land endowment of over 100 acres was made to it during Sikh rule. The Gurdwara formerly administered by Udasi priests was occupied by Jathedar Kartar Singh Jhabbar on behalf of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee on 30 December 1920.

At the lime of its evacuation in the wake of the partition of the country in 1947, it had a huge for tresslike, three storeyed building with domed towers. The shrine is now under the management of the Waqf Board of Pakistan. Its building was renovated during 1993-94, and it was opened to visit by organized Sikh Jathas with the approval of Pakistan government.

References :

1. Narotam, Tara Singh, Sri Guru Tirath Sangrahi. Kankhal, 1975
2. Gian Singh, Giani, Twarikh Gurduarian. Amritsar, n.d.
3. Thakar Singh, Giani, Sri Gurduare Darshan. Amritsar, 1923
4. Narain Singh, Akali Morche te Jhabbar. Delhi, 1967
5. Kirpal Singh, Janam Sakhi Parampara. Patiala, 1969
6. Gurmukh Singh, Historical Sikh Shrines. Amritsar, 1995