Historic gurdwara
Gurdwara Sri Hemkunt Sahib
A high Himalayan gurdwara at about 15,210 feet, beside a lake ringed by seven peaks. It is dedicated to Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji, and its site was only identified in modern times.
History
The reference in the Bachitra Natak
In the Bachitra Natak, Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji writes that before birth he meditated at a place called Hemkunt, a mountain with seven peaks where King Pandu had once practised austerities. The name means a receptacle of ice.[EoS]
- 1822 to 1936
Finding the place
For a long time the exact location was not known. The Nirmala scholar Pandit Tara Singh Narotam (1822 to 1891) worked out its position from the Mahabharata passages behind the reference.
Sant Sohan Singh of Tehri Garhwal surveyed the area and found the place in 1934. With funding and encouragement from Bhai Vir Singh, he built a small gurdwara, three metres square, in 1936.[EoS]
- 1939 to 1960
Havildar Modan Singh
After Sant Sohan Singh's death on 13 February 1939, the former army sergeant Havildar Modan Singh looked after the gurdwara for 21 years. He set up gurdwaras at Gobind Ghat and Gobind Dham as base camps, and before his death in December 1960 he established the Sri Hemkunt Sahib Management Trust.[EoS]
- Today
Visiting
The Trust has replaced the first gurdwara with a larger building and added gurdwaras along the route at Srinagar in Garhwal and Joshimath. The place cannot be reached in winter. Even in summer pilgrims usually visit by day and return to Gobind Dham, because the thin air makes a longer stay impossible.[EoS]
What the sources disagree on
- How the site is known
The link to this location rests on a 19th-century scholar's reading and a 1934 survey, not on any record from the lifetime of Guru Ji. The Encyclopaedia reports this identification without question, but readers should note how recent it is.[EoS]
.jpg)