Guru Ram Das Ji
1534–1581 · Fourth Sikh Guru, founder of Amritsar
Who founded the city of Ramdaspur — later Amritsar — around the sacred pool that would become the site of the Harmandir Sahib, and composed the hymns sung at Sikh weddings.
The orphan of Lahore
Born Jetha in Lahore in 1534 and orphaned young, he came to Goindval as a seller of boiled grain and stayed as Guru Amar Das’s most devoted worker, marrying the Guru’s daughter Bibi Bhani. Installed as fourth Guru in 1574, he held the office seven years — long enough to give the faith its capital.1,2
The city of the pool
Guru Ram Das moved the community’s centre to a site between the Ravi and Beas and began excavating the great pool around 1577, inviting merchants and craftsmen of every caste to settle beside it. The town was called Ramdaspur; the finished pool, Amrit Sarovar, gave it the name Amritsar — within a generation the faith’s Harmandir Sahib rose at its centre. To fund the works he regularised the offerings of distant congregations through appointed collectors, the beginnings of the masand system his son would complete.1,2
The wedding hymn
His four-stanza composition Lavan, sung as couple circles scripture, remains the heart of the Sikh wedding ceremony, the Anand Karaj. Before his death in 1581 he installed his youngest son, Arjan — poet, builder and the faith’s first martyr.1,2
In the chronicle
Before you go
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