If you are a wanderer in the ancient lanes and mohallahs of the old walled city of Lahore, you would surely have passed through Chuna Mandi and its famous Gurdwara Jana Asthan Guru Ram Das. This is located at the exact place where Guru Ram Das was born on the 24th of September 1534.

For those unaware of Sikh history, Guru Ram Das was the fourth guru of the Sikh faith, and the person who composed 638 hymns, or about 10 per cent of hymns in the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy book. He used at least 30 ancient classical ‘ragas’ as the tenor of his poems. His importance is under-estimated, but when one studies Sikh history one is really impressed at his sterling contribution.

As a faith conceived and nurtured in the Punjab near Lahore, the role of the city is very important and needs to be understood. His father Hari Das, and grandfather Thakur Das, were both well-known shopkeepers of Chuna Mandi. On his birth, he was named Bhai Jetha, and they belonged to the Sodhi clan (gotra) of Khatris. His official name was Ram Das and Jetha was probably a nickname, but it stuck. In Punjabi ‘Jetha’ means the firstborn. When Ram Das was a mere seven years of age, both his parents passed away. His maternal grandmother moved in to care for him and his two younger siblings. At the age of 12, Bhai Jetha and his siblings moved to his grandmother’s village at Goindval, where he met Guru Amar Das, the third Sikh guru. He served him exceptionally well and reached a stage where Guru Amar Das married his daughter to him. He was now a member of the family of the Sikh guru. On his marriag,e he was renamed Ram Das, which means the ‘slave of the Almighty’. This was a tradition just as in the Arabic tradition people are named as Abdul, which also means a ‘slave’. So impressed was Amar Das with Ram Das that he named him the fourth ‘guru’ after his death. It was a move that upset the guru’s own children. So it was that Bhai Jetha became the fourth guru of Sikhism in 1574. Because of the hostility of the family of Guru Amar Das, Bhai Jetha moved to a village known as ‘Guru da Chak’. On becoming the fourth guru, he renamed the village as Ramdaspur. This village soon grew in size and over time was renamed ‘Amritsar’, or the holiest of cities. It seems that because of his own experience with the family of Guru Amar Das, from that point onward all the following gurus were named from within the existing gurus family. It ended with the holy book Guru Granth Sahib being the final and 11th guru.

Jetha’s grandmother was a lonely very poor woman. To make ends meet they sold home-boiled grams. During this experience Jetha would sometimes meet holy-men, and so it happened that he met Amar Das, who took a liking for the young boy. Over time Amar Das started giving the young Jetha work to do in religious congregations. He spent time with Guru Amar Das by accompanying him on religious pilgrimages. In these experiences, he learnt Indian classical music as well as representing Amar Das in the Mughal court. Hindu Brahmins complained about the Sikhs running free community kitchens. The Brahmins in the court of Akbar complained that this kitchen violated caste considerations. Jetha was brought before Akbar and he simply said: “In the eyes of the Almighty, all humans are equal”. Akbar dismissed the Brahmin complaint.

In 1553, Jetha married Bibi Bhani, the younger daughter of Amar Das. He was selected by the wife of Guru Amar Das, as the best match for their daughter. The couple had three sons, namely Prithi Chand, Mahadev and Guru Arjan. Jetha became guru on 30th of August 1574 and was known as Guru Ram Das. Among the first things, he did was to repair friendship with the son of Guru Nanak. This led to him being joined by Bhai Gurdas, a highly educated religious and linguistic scholar. Bhai Gurdas helped advance the Sikh cause. At this point a delegation from Lahore visited the guru, asking him to return to the city of his birth. Guru Ram Das visited his original home in Chuna Mandi and in the process gained a lot of followers.

Guru Ram Das is credited with founding and building the city of Amritsar where he lived in ‘Guru da Chak’. It was here that the pond he initially built was enlarged to become the pond of the Golden Temple. With donations he completed the pool, and the town grew to become the city of Amritsar, and the pool area grew into a temple complex. Guru Ram Das died on 1st of September 1581, in Goindwal. He nominated his younger son Arjan Dev as his successor. The guru’s eldest son Prithi Chand protested and created a rival faction. He even, allegedly, attempted to kill Arjan’s son Hargobind. When Arjan was killed by the Emperor Jahangir in the Lahore Fort, Prithi Chand again attempted to become the guru. But the followers of Arjan made sure that Hargobind became the guru. Among the many contributions of Guru Ram Das was the institution of the ‘Langar’ that is today a main outstanding contribution to the Sikh faith. Besides this his insistence on the verses in the Granth Sahib should follow a classic music-based rhyme is an amazing contribution.

Lastly, his insistence on the guru belonging to the existing guru’s family was a contribution that saw the faith in good stead. So it was that this little boy of a Chuna Mandi merchant grew up to become the founding father of Amritsar, as also the central pool of the Golden Temple in 1577. His son Guru Arjan Dev was to ask the great Lahore Muslim Sufi, Hazrat Mian Mir, to lay the foundations of the Golden Temple of Amritsar, which today is the most significant monument of the Sikh faith.

Published in Dawn, November 3rd, 2024