Guruship
Named Guru in 1661 after his father disowned his elder brother, Har Krishan was five. His brother Ram Rai contested the succession at the Mughal court, and Aurangzeb summoned the child to Delhi, where he was lodged at the house of Raja Jai Singh — the site now occupied by the Gurdwara Bangla Sahib.
Tradition holds that he refused to appear before the emperor, and that during an epidemic in the city he tended the sick and drew water for them until he contracted smallpox himself. He died in 1664, aged eight.
Succession
Asked on his deathbed to name a successor, he is recorded as saying only "Baba Bakala" — indicating that the next Guru was to be found at the village of Bakala. Several claimants presented themselves there; the tradition credits a merchant named Makhan Shah Labana with identifying Tegh Bahadur, who had not put himself forward, and calling out that he had found the Guru.
Remembrance
Gurdwara Bangla Sahib in Delhi, with its large tank, stands where he stayed and is among the most visited Sikh shrines. His brief Guruship carries no compositions and no institutional change, but the episode of the epidemic is central to how he is remembered, and the phrase associated with him — that whoever remembers him with devotion will not suffer — is widely recited.
Further reading
- Fenech, Louis E. The Sikh Zafar-namah of Guru Gobind Singh. Oxford University Press, 2013
- Grewal, J. S. The Sikhs of the Punjab. Cambridge University Press, 1998
- Grewal, J. S. Guru Nanak in History. Panjab University, 1969
- McLeod, W. H. Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion. Oxford University Press, 1968
- Singh, Khushwant. A History of the Sikhs. Oxford University Press, 2004
See also
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.