The pair of shoes belonging to Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru, and his wife, Mata Sahib Kaur, will begin their final 1,500-kilometre-long journey for enshrinement at his birthplace, the Patna Sahib Gurdwara in the capital of Bihar, from Delhi after Diwali. Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, whose family has had custody of the relics over the last three centuries, said their Yatra would take nine days and cover four states. “A 300-year-old Yatra [of the last Sikh Guru’s belongings] is going to be taken to its conclusion. Different options were considered and recommendations were made…The Yatra will cover 1,500 km from Delhi to Patna Sahib over nine days and will cover four states, including Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar,” Puri announced Monday. “We are working on the precise route, but broadly, the holy relics will travel from Delhi to Faridabad, then Agra to Bareilly, Madnapur to Lakhimpur, Kanpur to Prayagraj to Patna; it will begin after Diwali,” he added. The pair of footwear will be established at the Patna Sahib Gurdwara located in the capital of poll-bound Bihar. They are sacred in Sikhism and are associated with the belief that their darshan, or glimpse, is an experience of divinity due to their personal connection with the Sikh spiritual leadership. “When we spoke among ourselves and then spoke to both prominent Sikhs and the common man, two major shrines emerged: Shri Harimandir Ji Patna sahib and Anandpur Sahib,” said Professor Simrat Kaur, Principal, Shri Ram College of Commerce, and one of the members of the committee that was constituted to chart the way forward for the holy relics. “We deliberated further, it clearly emerged that both are important — but since initial footsteps were there, his spiritual Yatra started there, we wanted to complete the circle; it was with this spirit that the decision was taken,” she added. Earlier this month, Puri announced that the overwhelming opinion of the Sikh Sangat, which engaged in consultations with several stakeholders, was that, since Guru Maharaj Gobind Singh's birthplace is Patna Sahib, the Gurdwara Management Committee there should be requested to take over their sewa (service) towards them. Last month, Puri and members of the Sikh Sangat, or community, had called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his guidance regarding the future placement of the sacred articles, which were handed down over several generations in the Puri family, and were so far housed at a residence of his late cousin in Delhi's Karol Bagh. The holy relics, which are significant and spiritually crucial as the ‘Jore Sahib’, PM Modi said that they are "as much a part of the glorious Sikh history, as they are of the cultural ethos of our nation.” Guru Gobind Singh, the last of the Sikh Gurus who founded the Khalsa Panth, that is the community or order of the pure, and named the Guru Granth Sahib as the successor, defined its vision, introduced rites of initiation and a code of conduct for the faithful as per the five K’s. These include Kesh or uncut hair, Kangha or a wooden comb, Kada or iron or steel wrist bracelet, Kirpan or sword, and Kachera or short breeches to be worn waist-down.
