Gurdwara Mata Gujari
GURDWARA MATA GUJARI is close to the main Gurdwara Fatehgarh Sahib. Both are, in fact, situated on the same mound of ruins of the old Fort of Sirhind. Thanda Burj used to be a high tower built at a bend of the rampart of the Fort. Owing to its exposure to wind currents from all directions and to a water current from below it was a pleasant resort for tlic jaujddr to spend his hot summer afternoons. In winter, however, it was intolerably cold. When Mata Gujari and her grandsons were brought to Sirhind as captives in the cold season (8 December 1705),, they were detained in this Tower.
When Banda Singh Bahadur sacked Sirhind in 1710, tlic Gold Tower escaped destruction. But in the turbulent limes that followed, the water channel running below it was blocked and disappeared, and the topmost portion of the tower fell down. After tlic establishment of Sikh rule in 1764, it became a revered place of pilgrimage, but its renovation had to wait until the Improvement Committee for Gurdwaras Fatehgarh Sahib and JotI Sarup was constituted in 1944.
Actual work on the implementation of plans prepared by the Committee, however, commenced only in 195556. Since then except for a portion of the original Fort wall, the place has been changed into an entirely new building, modest but elegant in design, a noble memorial to the illustrious Mata, Mother.
The Guru Granth Sahib is seated in the room on the ground floor. A narrow winding staircase leads up to the first floor, a bare room with a low platform in the centre and a lotus dome above. There was a tradition, now discredited, that Mata Gujari, on hearing of the execution of her grandchildren, jumped down from the tower over the Fort wall. There is a small room near the foot of the stairs which was believed to be the exact spot where she fell dead. The Guru Granth Sahib is installed in this room as well. This shrine was further renovated in recent decades. The top room has been converted into a domed pavilion and the dome is covered with gilded copper plates.
