Sri Hargobindpur

Sri Hargobindpur is a small town on the bank of the Beas in Gurdaspur district, Punjab. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, which lists it as Sri Gobindpur, says the site was a ruined mound of a village called Ruhela, in the estates of Chand Shah, a diwan of Mughal times. The name Hargobindpur, it says, is still commonly used because of Guru Hargobind's link with the place.

Who founded it: the Encyclopaedia gives two accounts, and they can both hold. In the first, Guru Hargobind came from Kartarpur in the rainy season, probably in 1629, liked the view, rehabilitated the site and named it Sri Gobindpur. In the second, the village was established on Ruhela's ruins by Guru Arjan Dev in 1587, then taken by Bhagvan Das of the Gherar clan with Chand Shah's help, and Guru Hargobind recovered it after four decades.

Key moments

• 1587: the village is said to have been established by Guru Arjan Dev.
• Probably 1629: Guru Hargobind reaches the site. Bhagvan Das, a wealthy Khatri, asks him to leave and is killed in the skirmish. His son Ratan Chand and Chand Shah's son Karam Chand then bring troops from the faujdar of Jalandhar to drive the Guru out. The attack fails, and both men are killed.
• Guru ki Maseet: Sikh chronicles say Guru Hargobind had a mosque and a dharamsala built for the Muslim and Hindu settlers. The mosque, in the east of the town above the riverbed, had been deserted since 1947, and the Nihangs set up a gurdwara in it. Wikipedia adds that local Sikhs began renovating it in 2010 and gives the Tarna Dal as its current administrator.
• Guru ki Haveli: once called Guru ke Mahal, an extensive ruined compound in the town centre, privately owned by a branch of the Sodhi family of Kartarpur. The Encyclopaedia says the Nihangs had recently set up a one-room gurdwara there and that the former owners had gone to court.

What it means today: Hargobindpur is cited by Sikhs as a town of the Gurus where a mosque was raised for non-Sikh neighbours. The date of the founding, and who founded it, are still told in two ways.