LAKSHMlPUR

LAKSHMlPUR, in Katihar district of Bihar, is predominantly a Sikh village and has a historical shrine dedicated to Guru Tegh Bahadur. The ancestors of the inhabitants of this village lived in Kantnagar, a flourishing port on the left bank of the River Ganga, and it was in fact this latter village where Guru Tegh Bahadur had stayed on his way back from Assam to Patna in 1670. The whole village accepted the Sikh faith.

Subsequently, owing to a change in the course of the river, the entire village was washed away, the residents moving northwards to establish a new habitation which they also called Kantnagar.But this Kantnagar itself suffered heavy floods repeatedly. In consequence, the bulk of its population shifted to new sites further north in the middle of the nineteenth century with the permission of their overlord, the Maharaja of Darbhanga. Native Bihari Sikhs are now living in seven different villages within a radius of about 10 km. Each of these villages has a Gurudwara, but the one at Lakshmipur is more famous for here is preserved an old volume of the Guru Granth Sahib believed to have been retrieved from the deluge that effaced old Kantnagar, and several historical documents.

References :

1. Fauja Singh, Guru Teg Bahadur, Yatra Asthan, Prampravan te Yad Chinh. Patiala, 1976