Guru Ram Das: the making of Ramdaspur and a poet’s legacy

From Lahore to Goindval

Ram Das was born Jetha in Lahore’s Chuna Mandi in 1534. G. S. Mansukhani’s encyclopaedia account describes the loss of his parents and his upbringing by his grandmother at Basarke. He later settled at Goindval, served Amar Das’s community and married the Guru’s daughter Bibi Bhani. Chosen as successor in 1574, he carried the Guruship for seven years. His life links Lahore and Goindval to a new centre at Amritsar.[1]

A pool, a town and a network of support

The encyclopaedia identifies differing accounts of the land on which the new town developed: purchase from Tung’s landowners, or a gift connected with Akbar and Bibi Bhani. It does not reduce these to one certain transaction. What the accounts share is the development of a settlement around a pool. Names changed from Guru ka Chakk to Ramdaspur and Amritsar, as merchants, artisans and pilgrims gathered there.[1]

The SGPC account connects Ram Das with the excavation of the Santokhsar and Amritsar pools and with inviting people from different trades to settle. It credits Bhai Sahlo and Baba Buddha with supervising the work and identifies the masand system among his organisational initiatives. These details place collective participation beside the Guru’s leadership: excavations required supervision, while a growing settlement attracted artisans, merchants and the resources they brought.[2]

Hymns in worship and marriage

Ram Das was also a substantial poet. The SGPC identifies 638 hymns in thirty ragas within the Guru Granth Sahib and associates his four Lavan with Sikh marriage. They continue to give his words a place in religious practice beyond the town he founded. He chose his youngest son Arjan as the next Guru, then retired to Goindval, where he died in 1581. His legacy joined verse, succession and a durable place of assembly. His compositions range across several verse forms, including padas, slokas, ashtpadis and vars, within a musical organisation.[2]

The encyclopaedia describes Lavan as four stanzas accompanying the couple’s four circumambulations of the Guru Granth Sahib during the marriage ceremony.[1]

A later image from Punjab

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts holds a work titled Guru Ram Das, catalogued as originating in the Punjab region of India or Pakistan around 1800–1810. Its listed materials include gouache, powdered gold ink and varnish highlights. The work entered the collection through the Kapany Sikh Art Collection gift, with inventory number 2022.58. Its date places it more than two centuries after the Guru’s death: it belongs to the history of his representation, rather than establishing an eyewitness likeness.[3]