Gurdwara Tap Asthan Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji (Jaunpur)

Gurdwara Tap Asthan Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji (Bari Sangat) – Jaunpur, a district town on the banks of Gomati River, 58 kilometres north of Benaras is another place wehre a well-known Sikh Sangat existed of old. When Guru Tegh Bahadur was staying in Benaras, in 1666, the Jaunpur sangat led by Bhai Gurbakhsh, the local masand, had gone to meet him. Bhai Gurbakhsh was an accomplished performer of kirtan and Guru Tegh Bahadur had bestowed upon him the gift of a mridang (a type of two-faced drum) in appreciation of his skill and devotion. Guru Tegh Bahadur himself visited Jaunpur during his return journey towards Punjab in 1670. The memorial shrine, Gurdwara Tap Asthan Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji (Bari Sangat) is in the east of the town on the left bank of the river. The sanctum is at one end of spacious rectangular hall. A small room with a square platform in the middle of it represents the original Tap Asthan, which it is believed, was actually on a sandy mound right on the River’s left bank one and a half kilometre southeast of the present Gurdwara. The ruins of a rectangular building can still be seen on top of this mound in the revenue limits of Chachakpur village. This hut and about two acres of land asurrounding it are still shown in the name of Gurdwara Bari Sangat in the revenue records of the village. There used to be another shrine, Chhoti Sangat, in a private house in Rao mandal Mohalla of Jaunpur, but it ceased to exist after the death of its last Sikh occupant, Sardar Jawahar Singh in mid-1960s. Its two sacred relics, a hand written copy of Guru Granth Sahib and a steel arrow believed to be a gift from Guru Tegh Bahadur are now kept in Gurdwara Tap Asthan Bari Sangat. There are two hand-written copies of the Scripture in this Gurdwara 1742 Bikrami (A.D. 1985) and 1801 Bikrami (A.D. 1744) respectively.