Joti Jot Purab of Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji: the last days at Nanded

The Joti Jot Purab of Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji remembers the day in October 1708 when the tenth Sikh Guru completed his life on earth at Nanded, on the banks of the Godavari in the Deccan, some weeks after he was wounded by an assassin. Before his passing he gave the Guruship to Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji and the Guru Khalsa Panth.

The road to Nanded

In the years before, the Guru had lost his father, his mother and all four of his sons, and had left Anandpur Sahib. After the death of the emperor Aurangzeb in 1707, his successor Bahadur Shah invited the Guru to meet him, and the Guru travelled south with the emperor's camp. At Nanded he met an ascetic, Madho Das Bairagi, who became his Sikh, took the name Banda Singh, and was sent to Punjab to lead the Khalsa.

The last days

Two Pathans, believed to have been sent by Wazir Khan of Sirhind, came to the Guru's camp, and one stabbed him. The wound was stitched and began to heal, but it opened again when the Guru drew a heavy bow. Knowing his time had come, he gathered the sangat, placed five paise and a coconut before Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, bowed to it, and told the Sikhs that the Granth was now their Guru and the Khalsa its body. Tradition remembers his last instructions as asking the Sikhs to sing kirtan rather than mourn.

How the day is observed

Takht Sachkhand Sri Hazur Sahib, one of the five Takhts, stands at the place. Sangats gather there and in gurdwaras around the world for kirtan, katha and Ardas, remembering a life given wholly to the Panth.