Baba Buddha Ji

Baba Buddha Ji is the elder of early Sikhi who lived through the time of the first six Gurus. As a boy he met Guru Nanak, and he went on to apply the tilak of Guruship to Guru Angad and, by the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism's count, to the four Gurus who followed. When Guru Arjan installed the Adi Granth at Sri Harmandir Sahib in 1604 he made Baba Buddha its first granthi.

The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism gives his birth as 6 October 1506 at Katthu Nangal, north-east of Amritsar, and The Tribune gives 22 October 1506. He was the only son of Bhai Suggha (The Tribune writes Bhai Sukha), a Jatt of the Randhawa clan, and Mai Gauran. His boyhood name was Bhuda or Burra. The Encyclopaedia notes that its main accounts rest on the Sikhan di Bhagat Mala and the Gurbilas Chhevin Patshahi, devotional texts, so details should be read with that in mind.

Key moments

• As a boy, grazing cattle, he offered Guru Nanak a bowl of milk and asked to be freed from birth and death. The Guru told him he had the wisdom of an old man, and from then he was called Buddha, meaning the old one. The Tribune puts the meeting when he was about twelve.
• At Guru Nanak's request he applied the tilak at the installation of Guru Angad. The Tribune says he installed the Gurus from Guru Angad to Guru Hargobind, five in all.
• Under Guru Amar Das he dug the baoli at Goindwal. Under Guru Ram Das and Guru Arjan he supervised the digging of the sacred tank at Amritsar, and the ber tree he sat under still stands in the Golden Temple complex.
• 16 August 1604: the Adi Granth was installed in the Harmandir and Guru Arjan appointed him granthi, the first custodian and reader of the Bani there. The SGPC's own history of the shrine says the same.
• Guru Arjan placed his son Hargobind in his charge for instruction. After Guru Arjan's martyrdom on 30 May 1606, he and Bhai Gurdas were entrusted with building the Akal Takht, and on 24 June 1606 he performed the ceremony at which Guru Hargobind wore the two swords of miri and piri.
• Later he lived at Jhanda Ramdas, the village his son Bhana founded, and tended the langar's cattle in the forest still known as Ber Baba Buddha Sahib.
• 16 November 1631: he died at Jhanda Ramdas, aged about 125 by the Encyclopaedia's dates. The Gurbilas says Guru Hargobind was at his bedside and performed the last rites.

What he is remembered for: long service, sewa and fidelity across more than a century of the Guru period. Gurdwara Janam Asthan Baba Buddha Sahib at Kathunangal, overseen by the SGPC, marks his birthplace, and Gurdwara Bir Baba Budha Sahib at Thatta draws a three-day fair in the first week of October.