Guru Nanak's son, Baba Sri Chand, in Punjabi imagination

We arrived at Nanak Chak in Gurdaspur on a muggy September afternoon last year to visit an important shrine-complex associated with Baba Sri Chand, the first-born son of Guru Nanak, who established the Udasi order — the Tap Asthan Mandir Bhagwan Sri Chand.

The large complex is divided into two parts by a narrow road that has a gurdwara-like establishment on one side, and a mandir-like set-up on the other, though conjoined by the overarching presence of the Baba. On one side stands the Tap Asthan, and across is the Bhagwan Sri Chandreshwar Mahadev Temple. Next to the temple are some memorial samadhs and a baoli (pond) for ritual bathing. Guarded by two dwarpals at the entrance, the Tap Asthan was being decorated for Baba Sri Chand’s 529th Prakash Diwas, his birth anniversary, due on September 24. As we entered the Asthan, we were struck by the enormous size and spread of a Banyan tree (bohar) that grew at several places in the shrine. The land on which this Asthan stands was supposedly gifted by Mughal emperor Jehangir after Sri Chand miraculously brought his son alive after his death from a fall at Lahore.

The story of the all-encompassing Banyan had another miracle associated with it. The Baba is said to have given a boon of greening/fructifying (hari-bhari raho) to a woman, Haroji, who served him selflessly. On learning that she was a widow, the boon was transferred to the bohar, that has flourished within the complex since then. Sri Chand is often represented as a protector of botanical and animal life.

There are four major shrines at the Tap Asthan. The Tap Asthan also houses idols of Baba Sri Chand and commemorative sites of other Udasi saints, a dhuna (hearth) with a Shaiva trident and a chimta (tongs). At the dhuna, ash is distributed as prasad, along with sweets. A wall in the open courtyard displays paintings by GS Sohan Singh, a well-known artist known for portraying Sikh Gurus. Here, he paints sakhis (events) from Sri Chand’s storied life as recounted in his hagiographies. While the original paintings are at Sri Chand’s akharas in Amritsar, their several reproductions at Udasi establishments recall the celebrated events of his life, including the Baba performing various miracles.

A composition from Matra Sahib, the bani composed by Sri Chand at Nanak Chak, is pasted on another wall. In the middle of the courtyard is the samadhi of the earliest mahant of the place, Baba Hari Das. On the opposite side of this shrine is Mandir Bhagwan Baba Sri Chand Ji. The temple has a large idol of Sri Chand, a small brass idol of Bal Gopal Krishna, a tantra plate, and a passage for circumambulating the shrine. Sri Chand’s iconography portrays him as a youthful, very fair and clean-shaven celibate.

Adjacent to the temple is a large room where, during our visit, akhand path of five-six swaroops of Guru Granth Sahib was in progress. A wall near the entrance has a painting of Mata Sulakhani holding baby Sri Chand, with Shiva bestowing blessings on the mother-child duo. Sukhmani Sahib was being recited by the devotees.

The Udasi tradition considers Sri Chand an incarnation of Lord Shiva. The Bhagwan Sri Chandreshwar Mahadev Temple across the road is, in fact, a linga shrine for Sri Chand, where he is celebrated as Shiva incarnate. It is said that a mahant once had a dream of Shiva complaining that he had forgotten him despite Sri Chand being his avatar, which led to the construction of this temple. There are idols of Parvati, Ganesh and Kartikeya, the family of Shiva, behind a large linga idol. Also in place are a trident, damroo, serpents on the three sides of the linga, and a brass pot from which water drips onto the linga. Nandi sits facing this assemblage.

As this historical site exemplifies, Sri Chand occupies a complicated place in the Punjabi and Sikh traditions. Unlike the ‘heretic’ sons of the other Gurus, Sri Chand, the elder son of Guru Nanak, is said to have had an extraordinarily long life (1494-1629), and to have lived through the times of the first six Sikh Gurus, from Nanak to Guru Hargobind. He was, therefore, a witness to the shaping of the Sikh tradition. However, he established the Udasi akhara, an ascetic order at Barth in Gurdaspur, in contradistinction to the householder Sikh tradition, and appointed Baba Gurditta, Guru Hargobind’s eldest son, as his successor.

The Tap Asthan, thus, represents the involute ways in which the Hindu and Sikh traditions both converge and diverge. Due to the pressures of the Gurdwara Reform Movement, the number of ‘Sikh’ Udasis has radically declined over the years, and the Udasis are often viewed as Hindus. However, Udasi histories show a more layered relationship with contemporary mainstream Sikhism. The visual depiction of this complexity is captured in a popular poster available outside the shrine. It depicts Sri Chand sitting in asan between the Gurus Nanak and Gobind Singh, with the other eight Gurus in a miniature phalanx above them. The multivalence of Punjabi culture and history is stunningly on display at Nanak Chak.

— The writers are historians based in New Delhi and California